Lagoon 2013

Last week was my birthday!  The kids kept asking me how old I was.  Lemme see...28?  29?  32?  I forget.  Some big number that Cora can't count to.  On my birthday we decided to take our annual trip to Lagoon.  My dad agreed to tag along so we would have an even number.  We rode on lots of rides, but I mostly seemed to take pictures of the kiddie rides...I guess because that is because I wasn't on them.

Here is my cute boy on one of the kid rides.  Cora is still far too short to go on much else, so we spent a good portion of our day in the kiddie land.  Dax was still very very excited to ride on all of these rides...Arden is starting to grow out of some of them.

 Look!  Lagoon has their very own version of the teacups!  No one wanted to ride in my "non-spinning" teacup and instead they all crowded in with Preston, who is pro-spin.

 See what I mean?  I can barely watch them go without getting a little sick:

 Dax and Cora wanted to go on the "Dino Drop."  Cora was excited to get on, but as soon as it started going up and down, she was more excited to get off as soon as possible.  Dax, of course, is loving it.

The kids did all of the little rides.  Cora is still excited to "drive" the autopia cars:

 Arden....not so excited:

 We did a lot of the bigger rides too.  The bigger kids (and escorts) did Bombora roller coaster,the Bat roller coaster, the big bumper cars, and the Wild Mouse while Cora did some more little rides like Bulgy the Whale.  Preston and all the kids did the Tilt A Whirl.  We all did the Odysea, the big Ferris wheel, the sky ride, the zoo train, and of course, the carousel.  For some reason, Cora was DYING to ride on the pig?

 She is still cute though.  Arden really wanted to ride on the cat.  I guess horses are just boring now?

 Look, I was here too!

Somewhere in there we snuck in lunch at air conditioned Subway/Arbys.  Did I mention it was like 100 degrees (again) this day?  It was.  Lucky for us there is a lot of shade at Lagoon.  In the afternoon we were feeling a little hot again and headed to Pioneer Village for some ice cream!  Yay!  That didn't cool us down quite enough so we then hit the log flume and got a little wet.  Then we went to Rattlesnake Rapids and got a LOT wet.  We enjoyed it thoroughly and felt much cooler.

After that, we looked around at the Pioneer stuff for a bit (Arden is especially fascinated with the dentist's office) and then headed back to the rides.  Dax wanted to get serious now.  He was finally tall enough to tackle some of the BIG coasters this year, and wanted to go on Wicked.  For those of you who may not have been to Lagoon lately, this is what I am talking about:

This coaster shoots straight up, then quickly straight down.  It corkscrews, goes upside down, through a tunnel, you name it.  Arden was a little nervous, but Dax was stoked.  I sat next to him on the front row.  As we shot up the hill I was busy screaming, but about halfway down, I snuck a peak at Dax to see if he was ok.  The kid was in heaven.  The look on his face was pure joy.  I wish I could have taken a picture of that, but my camera would surely have flown out of my hands.  Anyway...mouth open in an excited smile, eyes sparkling...if he was a dog his tongue would have been hanging out.  I love that kid.

When we got off, Arden and Grandpa declared they needed a break from coasters.  Dax wanted to do Wicked again, but the line was too long.  So, my boy pointed at Colossus (yup, the one with the two loops) and declared his intention to conquer it next.  Off we went.  I looked over at him on the second loop, and the look was the same.  The kid is fearless.

Cora had been being entertained on the Music Express and the Rock-o-planes (where she didn't let Preston go upside down), but was ready for a kid ride.  Arden was sad (not) that she didn't fit on the Baby Boats.  The line was long, so we told the littles they had to share a boat.  Dax was upset that the green boat was taken, but Cora was (obviously) excited to be in the pink boat ringing the bell:

 After a while, Dax took over the ringing, and Cora wasn't as happy:

While the big kids went on some more bigger rides, Cora and me went on the train again.  Choo-choo!

We just kept riding, and riding, and riding!  About 8:30 I thought it was probably time to get going since the kids are usually getting in bed around that time, but it was, "Mom, just one more time on the sky ride!"  "We are walking right by the merry go round and there is no line, can we go on it on our way out, please?"  Turns out, we didn't get out of the park until about 10 p.m.  I know all of the adults were exhausted, but the kids were so wound up it seemed like they could have kept going for hours more.

Thanks Lagoon, it was fun!  See ya next year.