Play Day

Yesterday, Tuesday, we went to Busch Gardens - Tampa. A while back a bunch of the kids had a series of yard sales to raise money to offset the cost of big field trip to Busch Gardens. This was a case where they thought of something they wanted, it cost a bunch of money, and they made it happen for themselves anyway. Well, on that trip some of the kids took the opportunity offered them and upgraded their tickets to a yearly passing expiring on Dec 31.

This trip yesterday was what's known as the final hurrah.

I was fortunate enough to have some free tickets given to me by my mom (thanks Mom!) and was able to go and invite Heather and Ivy. I love free theme park tickets. Free is good.

We all headed out early in the morning and had a great day. Makenna could hardly settle herself down to sleep the night before just thinking about the roller coasters. It was one big, scary, thrilling ride after another. The kids essentially just ran around all day in a big pack - it was Sadie (thank you Sadie for being the wonderful adult for a lot of this) and Cheynne, Nic C, Gareth, Eliot, Ivy, Amalie and Makenna. Cynthia, Heather and I watched a lot of rides, hit the beer tent, um, Hospitality House a couple of times, and strolled around, a lot.

Cynthia and I did the Sandstorm ride. I was reminded how, in my aging, that I no longer tolerate the round and round so well. Ohhh, it makes me sick to my stomach. I can go forward and backward much better than round and round. Makenna and I did the Scorpion roller coaster. That's the only one I did. Ever since I've become claustrophobic being in a harness is intolerable to me. Little cars spaces. Anxiety about the ride. Ugh. It's all a bit more yucky than fun now. But I did it. And it was fun. Except for the extreme spiral at the end, I could have done without that. Round and round.

Oh, we did the train ride around the Savannah and the Rhino Rally, which is a safari tour in a car and the bridge goes out and it's all gloom and doom, but lots of fun. It was fun having a whole car full of just us, just people we knew. There were some wonderful animals, giraffes and lots of zebras, hippos, elephants, and lots of other more exotic animals that I cannot even remember the name of but loved looking at! It was a great day to go, the weather had hit a cool spot (lovely lovely) and it was hardly busy so the kids could go on any ride over and over and over. That's a bonus. Time spent in line is time not spent going round and round and whip it up good, so..well, you get it.

We stopped at a Jason's Deli on the way home for some comfort food. I'm so glad we didn't have to eat at a Steak and Shake or some equally awful place. Jason's has complimentary ice cream. And muffins on the salad bar. Complimentary that is. And baklava, not complimentary, but they had it. Amalie loved it. It was a good end to a great day.

I hope Sadie sends me some of the pictures she took!