Click, click, click... click......click............AAAHHHHHHH!!!

I must say that yesterday was EXCITING!!! The kiddos seemed to have a blast!

We started the 2.5 hour trek to Lakemont Part in Altoona, PA at 9:30am. Once in Altoona, we stopped for lunch at Friendly's which has phenomenal ice cream, BTW. The kiddos each got a balloon, and we headed for the park.

Tim and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that any road trip we take will turn into a GPS adventure (i.e. the Pentagon, 4 left turns/double U, HOV lane to name a few). This time he missed the turn for Lake road that would taken us right to the park, so I (as the naviguessor) had to do some creative finagling to get us there. 4 right turns later, and we're at the park, laughing all the way. Now in my defense, the was a left turn where Hazel Road turned into something else by another name. The best part is, we got to do it twice!

We started the kiddos in "Kiddie Land" with all of the smaller rides. They seemed to really enjoy some of them. The park has a pint-sized roller coaster for the younger adventurists. All 3 got on and were excited and smiling, but after the first small drop, Chloie and Dougie got really serious. The ride makes 3 loops, and on the second and third, Dougie was waving at the attendant begging him to stop and for no more! I felt so bad for him, but I couldn't stop laughing. After that they got to try the mini-Indy. I'm grateful for patient attendants that stood on the back of Dougie's cart and held the throttle because he couldn't figure out that you have to hold the pedal down. They had fun!

We spent some time in the water park during the afternoon. The water was a little cool, but it was fun. They did a lot of sliding on the pirate ship and splashing around before we went over to the big pool so that Audie could show us his underwater skills. We had a slight scare thinking we lost Chloie's pants somewhere at the pool, but we found them and all was well. On the way back over the bridge, we bought some food and let the kiddos feed the catfish. Personally, I think the swirling mass of fish bodies and gaping mouths is gross in a cool kind of way, but the kids liked it.

I took Audie on the Skyliner with me twice. Out of all the kiddos, he's the most adventurous, and I attribute that to his age. While Tim took him on the full-sized go karts, Chloie, Dougie, and I went on the scrambler and the tilt-a-whirl. They did OK with the scrambler, but my poor little dude didn't like the tilt-a-whirl. He screamed the entire time! I think, however, it was because we had a particularly spinney seat.

We took 2 hours in the Altoona Wal-mart shopping for school clothes then headed home. We finally got there at 10:30 and promptly crashed. I think next time we go the the amusement park that we'll limit our exposure to 4 hours... six was entirely too much! Overall it was a good trip, and cheap when you consider that during the summer the park offers admission all day for $3.00 per person on Wednesdays.