On Sunday we had our annual trip to Great America. Greg’s company (CDW) rents it out once a year before their official season starts, so employees and their families are the only people at the park. It’s still a lot of people, but much less crowded than you’d see during the summer.
I’ve been trying to write this post all week, but I just got a new phone on Friday and finally figured out how to get my photos to sync. New technology is exciting, but figuring out all the new quirks and set ups is kind of annoying when you’re in the middle of total life chaos.
The weather was absolutely perfect on Sunday! We’ve had a lot of cold and rainy years, but this year was amazing. It’s also the first year that nobody complained about all the walking, and besides one hiccup over wanting to ride the go-carts (for $12 extra per person), there weren’t any massive meltdowns either. Everyone is growing up!
I didn’t want to ride the teacups because I feel like they really messed my head up last year. Generally I only like dizzy rides, but somehow this was too much! And yet I went on all the other ground level spinny rides and loved them.
I didn’t even think Shepard liked cotton candy, but he was begging for it from the minute we walked in the gate. We finally bought some as a reward for using the bathroom. I’m not sure why he’ll grudgingly use toilets if we’re a certain number of hours away from home, but almost a whole school year through and he’s yet to use a toilet at school, even once.
Greg was able to get a couple extra tickets from his coworker who didn’t want to go, so we had my brother Tim and sister-in-law Brittany meet us there. It was fun to have extra people to hang out with!
Our longest wait was at the balloon ride. Timmy had time to leave the line, go on one of the thriller type rides, come back, and we hadn’t even moved.
For some reason Shepard wanted NOTHING to do with riding on things with me, so I had to hold Caden extra close!
Obviously the best part of the park!
We spent a lot of time looking at hats!
I didn’t get a picture, but we’re always given a picnic lunch of fried chicken, hot dogs, chips, pickles, various salads that I ignore, and ice cream. We all totally pigged out this year. Free food!
It was a great day! I love having this opportunity to go each year because it’s probably something we would never pay to do during the summer otherwise. We’re not really ride people. But when we can go for free, leisurely walk around the park, spend more time watching rides than going on them, it’s just a really nice family day. This year especially was really awesome. I love the memories!
