Yesterday was a day filled with shrills, thrills, laughter, skipping children and hearing the phrase, “Just one more time ~ can we do it again ~ please?!”.

We decided to take the kids out of school for the day ~ they don’t finish until Thursday this week ~ and have a family day adventure. We spent twelve hours, with 4 little kids and 1 teenager, at the amusement park of all amusement parks, Paramount Canada’s Wonderland. This is our first time back since before we had kids. We didn’t know what they would think of it, if they would survive the day and if they’d even like the rides. Since I have little-little ones and not-so-little but not-big-yet kids and a hubby who is the biggest kid of all… I wasn’t sure where I’d be spending my day. Needless to say, I am glad it wasn’t a day dedicated to Hanna-Barbera Land!!

It turned out to be an incredible day! All weather reports were forcasting overcast with showers. I was a little concerned on the drive in when it did rain on us… briefly. Since it was was supposed to rain the park wasn’t nearly as full so we didn’t have to wait in line for rides for that long ~ 20 minutes max and that was after the sun came out. When we first got there, the kids didn’t have to wait at all in any lines, they were able to go on some of the smaller kiddie rides over and over again. Then it really warmed up, hot enough to spend a couple of hours in the water park after lunch.

Q and Em amazed my hubby and I, they went on the biggest rides their height would allow. If Q was only 2 inches taller he would have gone on the “adult” rides and I’m pretty sure Em would have tried a few too. My 3 year old loved the milder rides so the 3 of us (with JZ) spent more time waiting for the others than riding ourselves. He still had a blast though. The teen we took with us won a prize for him so that made his day (I spent $15 trying to win something…), he’s done nothing but play with it all day ~ RJ (the racoon from Over the Hedge).

I think next summer we’ll get a family seasons pass. The two older ones will have grown some more and maybe even big enough for the bigger rides. Li Li, JZ and myself have a few more years left in Hanna-Barbera Land… we’ll enjoy every minute of it while we can! I didn’t take too many pictures as I noticed when we got inside the park that my camera’s batteries were almost totally dead and I wasn’t about to buy them inside the place ~ do you know what they charge??? YIKES! What I did take I’ll post later.

It was a blast and I’m glad we pulled them out of school and had some fun. Kids learn far more from us (parents) as examples than anything else anyways….