Kennywood

I felt strongly this year about not gifting the boys with more toys for their birthday.  We have some many already, and most of them go unused for long periods of time.  We're a much more on the go family and I didn't want more toys cluttering up the house and taking focus away from more important things.  So this year, we gave Caden and Caleb a trip to Kennywood for their 7th birthday!

We planned to go on opening Saturday which happened to be just two days after their actual birthday.  We got out of the house around 8:30 which is only half an hour later than planned (which is impressive for me).  However, Keith and I got lost in conversation (rare and amazing) and we missed out exit off the turnpike.  So by the time we got turned around and on the right path we were running late and decided to grab lunch before getting to the park.  Four hours after we left our house we finally arrived at the park!

It was mostly smooth sailing from there!

Our first stop was Garfield's Nightmare, which was a slow moving boat ride through a "house."  Caleb was too afraid to ride so Keith and Caden went while we sat on a bench with 'Joe'.

We walked around some more and spent some time in Kiddie Land.

While in kiddie land the boys were interested in someone riding with them, so somehow I mostly got that fun!  On this ride, Caden insisted I ride with them, but when we got up to the ride, he bailed on me to ride with his brother and left me riding solo on the ride in kiddie land.  Keith found it hilarious and photo worthy.

After kiddie land we headed on to ride a few of the bigger rides the boys were brave enough to try.

There was a bobsled ride Caden really wanted to ride.  So I took the boys on it, it was a circular ride that went super fast and titled on its side at high speeds.  They were dizzy and terrified after!  That was the end of the adventure for the day!

Our last ride of the day was the carousel.  Elinore got to ride her first carousel!

Our last stop of the day, was the gift shop.  Grandma Nancy had given the boys some money for their birthday and they were itching to spend it!

Caleb spent his fairly quickly, but Caden very carefully searched nearly the entire store twice and came back to some items a few times before making some decisions and still haveing to be stopped when we needed to leave.  He didn't spend all his money.  (He later choose to donate the leftover of his money to the church flooring fund!  AMAZING!)

We left the park and headed back toward home about a half hour before we stopped to eat at an Eat'n Park.

After dinner we took the kids to the car and put them all in their pajamas with blankets to sleep on the way home.  The boys were thrilled and thought it was like a 'camp out' for them.  At 11:30 that night we rolled into the driveway and went to bed.

It was a great day of family.