Back about 4 years ago, Keith and i took the kids on our first family vacation as a family of 4. We had a great time and have talked about re-visiting some of our stops from back then. This year we had the opportunity to revisit Idlewild Park.
Keith is attending a conference this year that is located in Pittsburgh for a week. (The same one that gave us the opportunity to travel to Boston last year.)
Saturday morning we headed out and drove to the park. We spent the day there before heading back into Pittsburgh to check into our downtown hotel for the night. We had a great day!
I bought out tickets in advance online, which they said to pull up on my phone to check it. What I didn't know was that there is very limited cell phone reception in the park to me able to pull up the tickets! So we spent our first bit visiting with guest services and stuff so they could pull up our information. (The lack of service also made my cell phone battery die during our day in the park too, even though it was fully charged that morning. I made it almost the whole day for photos though; hopefully, I can share those later.)
We started our day at Storybook Forest. At 8 the boys were slightly less amused with it than they were 4 years ago! Elinore however, was very interested at 2 years old! However, it took her several stories and stops to get comfortable enough to be adventurous. She liked to "hold you" most of the way through or stay in her stroller. She was quite excited when we got to the bunnies though. She is a big fan of bunnies.
Next we headed to the Jumpin' Jungle for some play time. The boys went off and played in the ball pit while Elinore and I visited a smaller kid zone of plastic balls that you balanced on a stream of air. She had a lot of fun running around grabbing balls and putting them in there. Then we went and watched the boys climb the big net! The didn't need assistance this year, but Keith went with them for their comfort. Then Keith took Elinore and the boys on the Big Foot Mudslide for a nice long slide ride and they all enjoyed it. The boys are still excited about Big Foot after church camp and Elinore loved the slide with Daddy!
Next up, lunch! Tacos, nachos and french fries were our lunch of choice. The good was actually pretty good and not too expensive!
Next up we decided to head toward kiddie land for the kiddie rides before Elinore got too sleepy and grumpy from the lack of nap. We rode the train first, which was fun. Then, we were back in time to catch Daniel Tiger! Elinore loves Daniel Tiger, so she was excited in line as she could see him from a distance. When we got up to our turn though, she insisted Daddy hold her and go with her to stand next to him and don't dare get her too close! As soon as we walked away though, she started waving and saying bye!
Next up the rides, and she loved the rides! Her big brothers were just short enough to still ride them and she loved it! She was even brave enough after a few to ride the kiddie Rainbow Wheel (Ferris Wheel) on her own! Caleb didn't mind hanging with her in kiddie land, but Caden wasn't so excited about it, and after a few rides, he wasn't so keen on going with her or with riding them at all. While we were in kiddie land we did get hit with a few drops of rain. They were very light showers that weren't bothersome at all, and didn't stop the rides, so we just stuck them out.
We headed over to some of the bigger kid rides next, and the ones Elinore could ride with Daddy, she jumped right on. And when she couldn't ride one, she wasn't too happy about it! The boys took some encouraging to get them to try a few things. Usually they ended up liking them, all but two at least anyway! Elinore loved the hot air balloons. The boys favorites were the bumper cars and the scrambler! The boys claimed to hate the spider, but I think I saw some hiding smiles on both of them at one point on it! They also hated the wild mouse roller coaster Keith made them try! Caleb cried the whole time I guess and Caden just kept asking if it was over yet.
On our way out after the roller coaster, we did get a much harder rain shower. We hid under the pizza place awning for it to slow down, hit a few of the kids favorite rides on the way out and headed to the car. We left the park and maybe 15 minutes later it started raining and storming. It was a terribly long downpour we drove through on our way to our hotel. We stopped at Hoss's to eat on our way back too, which Keith and the kids seemed to enjoy. It had finally stopped raining by the time we got to the hotel, we unloaded checked in an got settled for our week here!
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