Wild Waves

To celebrate the coming culmination of the school year, our good friends invited us to join them for a day at Wild Waves. We'd never visited the combo water and amusement park, but our friends are veterans. 

In typical PNW, June-uary fashion, the day dawned cold and rainy. The kids were undeterred. We spent the morning riding amusement park rides hoping it would be warmer in the afternoon. 

 

Aubree left her sweatshirt in the car and froze all morning long. She also refused to try any roller coasters. So, when the big kids took off to ride the first roller coaster, Aubree stuck with me and the littles. We snuck over to the Carousel.

Typically the Carousel is a pretty safe choice, but this one was pretty wild! There were no safety belts and it spun fast. Nellie was NOT a fan, and I can't really blame her. I was standing right next to her with my arms tight around her and still had a hard time keeping her balanced on the horse. Aubree, Graham, and Camryn appreciated the speedy version and asked to ride a second time. That time around Nellie and I sat in the sled and she liked it much better.

I was afraid the rough start to her day might turn Nellie off of all future rides, but she proved her mettle and loved all future rides. Her favorite was a little train ride. She rode three times in a row. I suppose that's the benefit of going to the park before school is out on a cold, rainy day - the place was pretty empty!

The favorite ride of the day was definitely the bumper cars. These kids rode three times in a row and would have been happy going again and again. Oh, and Aubree did eventually try out a roller coaster. She didn't love it ("That was terrifying!"), but she did it.

After lunch, I was hoping the kids would be willing to head back to the amusement park. Nope. They were all eager to prove themselves as True Washingtonians. All of them played in the wave pool, while occasionally taking a dip in the hot tub. I'd thought they'd fizzle out quickly, but they were tough. Aubree, Jackson, and Coleman even spent an hour riding the water tube rides. I thought they'd surely freeze while climbing stairs and waiting their turn to slide (even with no lines), but they had a great time.

The Park was much better than I expected. Our library is giving out 2 passes per person as a mid-way summer reading challenge prize, so we hope to visit again later this summer. I'm sure it will be much busier, but hopefully it will also be a tad warmer.