Family Vacation

Well, we had a GREAT time on our vacation! We got to Six Flags Great America Thursday around 11 am , it was HOT. It was actually really exciting to drive through Chicago, we took the Skyway route. The kids thought the big city was pretty cool. Even seeing steel mills in Indiana and lots of trains was thrilling for them! We borrowed a portable DVD player so that really helped the car ride, although, by Benton Harbor, Ryan asked if we were there yet! Anyway, we got to the park and went to Hurricane Harbor , the water park. Parking was $10, admission was way more than that, and locker rental for the day was $10... yikes... anyway, we did rent a locker at Hurricane Harbor, This is a fun place!! Especially if you like to wait in line! ha ha. Lazy river was Bradley's favorite, I really tried hard to not get wet, but with water falls all along the route, that was not possible. ( I wanted to keep my hair looking nice when we got to the relatives....) Then we went to the wave pool for awhile, Ryan loved jumping the waves, but he made me a little nervous because those were BIG waves and he was too daring and not afraid of anything. After that, we went to Skull Island, a whole interactive water area for kids with lots of slides and things to climb on for all ages. We spent a lot of time there. I lost Bradley once, I stood in one spot, since I knew he wouldn't he eventually showed up, I also knew Doug and Ryan were wandering around in there somewhere. Then the kids got hungry... food prices.... OUCH, but I was prepared for that, I knew it wouldn't be cheap. We got pizza and fries ( it came in that combination, very odd) but we all shared that and one Diet coke... so we all ate off of $13... until we needed a $3.75 bottle of water.. Ryan doesn't drink pop, which is great, i'm not complaining!! Then we played in the water again for awhile , Ryan was getting overheated and exhausted, so we decided around 5 or so, that it was time to go. We hit the gift shop, and both boys got an orange T-shirt that says, Hurricane Harbor Six Flags, surprisingly, they were only $8.99 each, I really didn't think that was too bad. We had to stop on our way out of six flags to get Dippen Dot, I'd never had these or even knew what they were, I have to admit, they are very good, and not messy at all. We could of gotton 4 more shirts for the price though! ha ha ha ha. It was so hot they turned on the people misters in the amusment park area. So then we got on the road, went down a little ways and then went to Cracker Barrel for supper. Then we got back on the road, as soon as we hit Milwaukee we hit rush hour and construction, not a good combination, but we didn't get tied up too long, we got through most of Milwaukee and I called my cousin to let her know where we were ( Just went passed the big mall, I knew she'd know exactly where we were then! ) She said everyone was by her sister Ann's getting stuff ready for the wedding, so she gave us instructions and we went there , Ryan was excited to see a swing set to play on. We hung out there for 1/2 hour or so, then we went to Uncle Bills' We chatted for awhile, Bradley went for a ride on the Motorcycle trike Uncle Bill built and then Ryan went. Then it was jammie time and I got Ryan to sleep, (didn't take too long) then I sent Bradley in to bed, also didn't take him long to go to sleep. They both slept on the sleeper sofa in the den together. I wasn't to sure how they would do, but once Ryan was asleep, all went well. They woke up around 7:30am Wisconsin time which is fairly normal for them to be up by 8:30am. Then Uncle Bill and Aunt Audrey made us French toast and bacon for breakfast, and then we were back on our way to Six Flags for day 2. It was a little cooler out thankfully, cooler meaning in the mid to upper 80's rather than 90's. We went on the train first so we could basicallly see the whole park, sort of an overview... Just before we were to get back to the station, the train broke down... we sat for an extra 20 minutes. We were stuck under the raging bull rollercoaster, so there was plenty to watch. I would NOT go on that coaster, it looked pretty intense... I'm just not brave enough. We finally got back to the station. Then we wandered, we went on the cars you drive that are on the track... Ryan is not ready to drive.. but at least he tried, good thing there was a track . We also went to the kiddie rides and thea kids rode a lot of those, standing in line was pretty hot. There was a kid rollercoaster, Brad was GEEKED!! So we stood in line for 45 minutes, Ryan was pretty excited about it too. Doug and Bradley got on first, so they rode the 30 second ride, Bradley was ready to go again, then Ryan and I got on, Ryan was all smiles, we go up the big hill, up pretty high, I asked Ryan if he was scared, he said NO!!! all smiles, then..... we went down the hill, really fast. It was a pretty fun ride, although Ryan yelled no no no no, I want off pretty much the whole 30 seconds. The look of terror was on his face once we went over the hill... Poor kid, he was shaking really bad when we got off and he said, no more, I'm not going again, all done, no more.... ( You get the picture) He recovered quickly and we went on to more mild rides. We also had quite a few more dippen dots while there, I kid you not, I swear we spend $60 on dippen dots the whole time we were there. We had Character pictures drawn of the kids, we are going to frame them and put them up in the basement. We also had our picture taken when we came into the park, so we got that on our way out, Ryan of course looked goofy, but what's new... ha ha we left around 7pm and then we went to the Outlet mall across the street , we went to the Rainforest Cafe for supper, Ryan asked to sit by the fish and sure enough, we were by a big fish tank, made his day! They loved it there too. Then we were off to Uncle Bill's again. We got the kids to bed a little while later and then we weren't too far behind. More on Saturday in my next post.. need to get to the school for a last day party for the summer reading and art fun class. It's been very nice having the kids gone every morning from 9-noon. I've gotton so much done around here!! I think I may actually have a chance at a clean house when school starts!

Later!