Days 7 and 8

Friday morning we woke up, had the continental breakfast and then Mike took the big kids down to the swimming pool while we let Mason sneak in a little nap.  

We then headed off to Silverwood which is a nearby theme park.  Our children have never been to an amusement park before so it was a first.  

The weather forecast called for 72.  Considering that this summer has been well below that in our neck of the woods we figured 72 would be plenty hot for the water slide section of the park.  Here's the catch, it was 72 and WINDY.  Which meant it was cold.  That eastern side of our state has some wicked wind (Rachel, you were not kidding with your post).  We saw several people wearing Silverwood's 100 dollars (not quite that much) sweatshirts which I am sure they shelled out the money for to prevent from freezing.  We made do with a blanket to wrap Mason up in the stroller and the one sweatshirt we had packed for Little Man which happened to be in the van from our night time walk the evening before.  Kiwi's one sweatshirt was back at the hotel room.  We located a long sleeved pajama shirt from the dirty clothes bag in the back of the van and put that on her.  Judge if you may, but I would put my daughter in  a her brother's previously worn p.j. shirt a thousand times over rather then listen to a whiny three year old throughout the whole park.

Needless to say, we did not last very long in the water section.  I didn't even get in, but walked Mason around in the stroller while he took a little snooze and Mike and the kids played.  Little Man is usually a water lover, but he was just shaking and ended up getting out first.  Surprisingly, Kiwi lasted the longest in the little kids area with Mike finally telling her it was time to get out before he was cold.  She was too, but just didn't want to stop going down the little slide.

Basically, the water section was a fail, but we did have a lot of fun on the rides.  They had tons of rides that Kiwi and Little Man could go on and even Mason got to try a couple with Mike or I.  The park doesn't allow any outside food or drink (their sign reads "No outside food or drink, you'll love ours") we we took a break part way through to go out to the parking lot and get our lunch.  Later in the afternoon we did buy some (what else?) ice cream cones.  

We ended up staying until eight o'clock and the kids had a blast.  The plus side of the not great weather was that there was hardly any lines for the rides so they were able to go on them again and again.  Little Man was even tall enough to go on a big roller coaster with an adult so he and I tried one of the big wooden ones out.  

It went 55 mph.  I wanted to look over and see what his face looked like during the ride, but I was afraid I would get whiplash.  When it stopped, I looked and there he sat, a little pale and staring straight ahead. I asked him if he liked it and he silently shook his head no.  I think he was a little stunned.  Later, when we were asking the kids their favorite parts of the day, he had trouble coming up with his favorite.  He did adadmently declare, "I know what my most not favorite ride was, the roller coaster."  I was proud of him for giving it a shot though.  

The next morning Kiwi and Mason slept and slept and slept.  Their little bodies were exhausted from all of the activities.  Little Man, Mike, and I tiptoed around the hotel room and snuck out to go to the continental breakfast (only one adult at a time of course, while the other stayed in the room).  Kiwi finally woke up at 10:00 and Mike took her and Little Man down to the pool while Mason continued to slumber.  He finally woke up about 10:30 and after feeding him some breakfast (that I had felt like I was stealing when I took it out of the breakfast room) we went down to see the kids swimming and take their pictures.

They loved the pool.  In the two days we were there, they went swimming three times.  We did have a little scare though.  Saturday morning while Mason I and were watching, Little Man was swimming with the noodles and Mike was with Kiwi.  Little Man dropped his goggles to the bottom and let go of his noodles to see if he could reach them with his feet.  The water was over his head at that part of the pool, however, and he started to struggle and go under.  I yelled for Mike, but wasn't sure if he could get there fast enough.  So I set Mason down and jumped into the pool.  Fully clothed.  I got to Little Man about half a second before Mike and he was okay.   It definitely got my adrenalin pumping and it took quite a while to get my heart beating normal again. After that, we were done swimming, although Little Man was fine and didn't seem shaken up at all.

After packing up, we went down to the water again and did this neat walk that they had with clues that take you around the water and down town looking for these moose statues from a book.  It was really cute and the kids enjoyed it.  At one point, it lead us to a playground where we stopped and played for a little bit.

Whew, I'm glad to get that all documented.  Overall, it was a wonderful week and I'm so glad we went.  We had been apprehensive about taking the kids in the car that long, but they really did a good job.  Of course we had to stop way more than if it had just been Mike and I, but we had planned on that.  And although there was of course tears and meltdowns, all three of them were really good little travelers.  I can't wait to do it again!  I'm pretty sure the rest of the family feels the same way considering that at church the next day somebody was asking the kids what their favorite day ever was and Little Man said, "Being in Idaho with my family."