Roller Coaster Fun

The day at the amusement park was a major hit! We arrived right before the park opened, and I, being a roller coaster enthusiast - planned to head straight for one of the big attractions before the lines got too long. My children however were still not too convinced that this day was going to be fun as they don't have much experience with roller coasters. They decided they wanted to start out slow and easy. Okay - I can do that.  So instead of riding The Beast or the Racer or a big thriller of a roller coaster with NO lines.....we chose to start our day in Snoopy Land. We were pretty much the first ones to arrive and walked right on the Woodstock Express. It is a very small coaster with very small seats. You know - the kind designed for VERY SMALL people. Anyway as we started up the tracks with the infamous "click, click, click" I hear - "I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this" and as soon as we started down the first hill - along with the deafening screams I hear "HOW CAN THIS BE A RIDE FOR KIDS????  HOW IS THIS FOR KIDS? WHO does this to a little KID? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"  I, of course, being the best mom in the whole world - was crying. Not out of sadness. Not out of worry because we just paid for the admission tickets and all 3 of my children were already done in SNOOPY LAND. Nope I was crying because I was laughing hysterically. It was worth the price of admission just to see all 3 of my kids screaming from the coaster in Snoopy Land.  Honestly it was priceless! We then moved onto a suspended coaster - still in Snoopy Land of course - and I pretty much got the same reaction. So I said, "Let's GO DO SOME MORE!"  We went from there to a log ride and I almost won them over at that point. I still heard "I HATE THIS PART, I HATE THIS PART, I HATE THIS PART" as we clicked up the track and then of course the deafening screams during the descent but the fact that out of the 4 of us, I got COMPLETELY soaked was a major plus. I looked as if someone threw buckets upon buckets of water on me - and I exited the ride DRIPPING wet. Well what is more fun than that? We kept on progressing in ride thrill factor and I kept asking them if they liked the rides.  My son let me know that he had mixed emotions about the rides.  At one point he said "I still don't know how I feel about roller coasters but for some reason, I still want to go ride another one."  As the day continued the screams of terror actually turned to screams of delight and by the end of the day I had 3 bonafide roller coaster enthusiasts with me.  We rode all of our favorite coasters several times and never stood in line for more than 15 minutes.  By the time evening hit, everyone voted the Beast as most AWESOME and we all wanted to ride it just one more time.  We didn't ride every ride as we saved some of the really over the top coasters for a future visit but we did ride some of the faster coasters and my kids even did the invertigo roller coaster that did flips and 360* inversions.  It wasn't their favorite ride - but they all wanted to ride it and see what it was like.  When it came down to choosing our very last ride of the day we decided to save the very biggest, tallest and "meanest" coaster for our next trip and thought it would be fun to end the day with the Woodstock Express back in Snoopy Land.  This time it was all laughter with no screaming and all our hands were in the air as we flew down the first hill. My son thanked me for kidnapping him and said he had the best time ever. We drove home totally exhausted as we had all spent every ounce of energy we had and left it back at the park.  Once we got home - I think we were all sound asleep before our heads hit the pillows. I am so glad we took the day off to do something that was so much fun. This is probably the very last summer that all 3 of my children will be home at the same time. I am pretty confident that they will remember their day at the amusement park forever.