Winter Wonderland

Every year we go to Dutch Wonderland for their Winter Wonderland Christmas Celebration. I love it for many reasons. For one thing all the amusement parks in the area close when it's not summer and it's a good chance to get some fun ride action in for the kids during the winter.

Here Ryan and Lily enjoy the Whip.

Ryan got to ride the Space Shuttle for the first time this trip, but I didn't get to take a picture because I stayed with Lily while she rode the Whip again.

We played with the "ice cubes" for a while. Zach actually managed to build an igloo like structure.

Of course the kids had to ride the Frog Hopper, always a favorite.

Jay and the boys rode the bumper cars.



One might think he knew I was taking this picture, but he didn't.

This is Zach. I know you can't tell except for the signature green clothing and green car, but the only time he faced me was when the bar in the front blocked his face.

This carousel is my favorite. It's so pretty especially at night.

Lily loves the carousel too. We rode it twice. Once at the very end of the evening. It was a beautiful way to finish our night. The had this really cool light show this year. I think it was new because I don't remember it from previous trips. It was amazing though. They had all these Christmas lights in a big field and they had them "dance" to Christmas music. Dance is the best word I could come up with to describe it. It was very cool. I would have taken pictures, but I wouldn't be able to do it justice and we didn't really stop to watch it. We just kind of enjoyed it as we walked around. I'm hoping to get a spring or summer trip to Dutch Wonderland in this year if anyone is interested. It's a relatively short drive.

Family Day at Dutch Wonderland

Jay and I decided on Friday that we needed to spend a family day since we have been so busy lately and have not spent much time all together. We decided to take a day trip to Dutch Wonderland. We really like Dutch Wonderland because it has something for everyone. It's a little heavier on the kiddie rides than a lot of places, so it's perfect for us. Any time Zach and Jay went on a bigger ride we just found a kiddie ride nearby so we wouldn't have to wait around for them or have a hard time finding each other later. Another reason it's good for us is it's only and hour and a half away, so we don't have to stay over night. Here are some highlights from the trip.
We started the day by riding one of the few rides we've never ridden before. It was kind of lame, but Ryan had fun "driving" the boat and saving us from the alligator. Then we let Ryan choose a ride. He chose the train which is a pretty good ride to do first because you get a look at a lot of the stuff there is to ride later. Then Zach chose the space shuttle, so I took Ryan over to the whip ride across the way and Lily and I checked out the ginger bread house right next to it. We went back over to watch Ryan for the last part of the ride. Then we all met up and headed over to the carousel for Lily. Lily loves the carousel. Maybe it's the lights and music or the smooth ride. I'm not sure, but she loves it. The rest of the day was similar in style with each kid choosing rides. Lily was content to run around the grassy areas and check out statues when the bigger kids rode rides we all couldn't go on together.


Ryan got to ride on his first real roller coaster. You can see his face in this picture. He loved it. That's mommy's boy!

After lunch we changed into our bathing suits and hit the water park area. Ryan and Zach enjoyed the fort area with all the big water slides. Lily LOVED the baby water slides in the other area, but I couldn't get a picture while I was helping her and when Jay was catching her I was busy with Ryan.

I did get some good pictures of Lily playing in the water. she really liked the springs that would come up and go down. I had to find one that didn't go as high because she kept getting sprayed in the face. When we found a little one she stayed there for a long time. She would laugh and poke at it every time it came up. Then it would stop and she'd poke at it some more. I finally picked her up and took her over to the slides again.

It happened to be Christian family weekend, so we got to meet Bob and Larry. That was fun.

We went back and rode more rides until the kicked us out at closing time. Okay, they didn't kick us out, but we did have to leave.

On the way out we got the see the princess, the knight and the dragon. They are the symbols of the park. They were really good with the kids stooping down to talk to each one and posing for pictures.

It was a great time. I'm so glad we went and made time for our family to spend together.