Family Fun Day

Each year the boys’ daycare sponsors a family fun day at Idlewild Park.  If you’ve never been to Idlewild and you are in the Pittsburgh area, it’s definitely worth the trip. Especially if you have young kids.  There is a TON of things for the smaller kids to do and some traditional rides for the slightly bigger kids.  We adore taking the boys each year and can’t thank Miss Char and the rest of the wonderful staff at our daycare for working hard to make the day so wonderful.  The day was fabulous.  The weather was beautiful and the crowds were light and the lines were short.  We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.

We arrived at Idlewild just after they opened.  True to form, the second we entered the park my kids switched personalities.  If you have ever met my kids, you know that Jack is the more tentative, less adventurous of the boys.  You will likely never find him jumping off of the 2nd story back deck or climbing onto the roof of the shed in our back yard.  Xander? Now he’s one who will be swinging from the rafters.  He’s my climber. My kid who isn’t afraid to fall.  The kid who lives life at warp speed and isn’t afraid of anything.  That is until you put the two of them in an amusement park.

The second we walk into Idlewild, Jack instantly becomes fearless and wants to ride EVERYTHING. He doesn’t care how big or scary or fast the ride is, he is gonna ride it.  Xander becomes clingy and tentative.

We first headed over to Jumpin’ Jungle to let the kids run around and climb stuff.  Perfect opportunity for Xander, right?  Nope.  Jack wanted to climb the giant net. He and my husband started up.  I tried to get Xander to go up, but he refused.  We headed over to the smaller net but he wouldn’t let go of me.  So we watched Jack climb up completely unassisted. We used the stairs and met them at the top.

We rode down the mudslide and headed over the ball pit.  Jack rolled around, wrestled and threw balls at the targets.  Xander sat on the side clutching a ball and screaming if anyone tried to take him into the ball pit.  Since the crowds were light, we were able to spend about 20 minutes in the ball pit without being forced out.  Finally I decided that we should stop torturing Xander and head to the actual rides.

First up was the Loggin’ Toboggan.  Jack loved it last year and this year was no exception.  Xander was about 2 inches to short to ride, so he and daddy wondered around while Jack and I rode.  While in line, Jack howled with laughter every time a “boat” came down the huge hill.  Finally it was our turn and Jack screamed with glee and we went down the big hill.

Mommy & Jack on Loggin' Toboggin

Next we headed over to the Carousel.  This would be Xander’s first time riding.  Surely he would love it like his brother does!

Why are you making me sit on this fake horse?

Ok, so that wasn’t a huge hit.  We headed over to Raccoon Lagoon.  Raccoon Lagoon is Idlewild’s kiddie land and is one of the largest kiddie lands in the country.  Surely there would be something more Xander’s speed there.  We spotted the cars and decided to give that a try.

Not hating it, but not loving it either

After (barely) tolerating rides on the little ferris wheel and dinosaur ride, we hopped over to the planes.  Xander flat out refused to get on.  Clung to me like white on rice.  Since I’m not into forcing my kid to ride something that he clearly doesn’t like, I plopped him in the stroller while Jack rode the planes.  At that point it was clear that X was done with rides, we thanked Jack for tolerating the “less fun” rides and headed over to the new Thomas the Train show.

The show was cute and Jack loved it.  It was the perfect length, just about 15 minutes.  There was singing and dancing and lots of Thomas.

Dancing to Thomas!

After the show we headed back to the main part of the park.  Jack rode the paratroopers, the giant ferris wheel, the whip, and the tilt-a-whirl.  We did manage to get Xander on the tilt-a-whirl and he laughed the whole time.  After that he wanted right back in his stroller.

Jack had a blast riding all the rides that he wanted.  He even went down one of the water slides over at Soak Zone (even though we didn’t bring our swimsuits!).  Finally it was time to head out for the day.  Both boys were tired and as expected, Xander was asleep before we left the parking lot.  Jack however, rambled on and on about how much fun he had the whole way home.

I have to say, that although it doesn’t sound like it, Xander really did have a good time.  He’s an observant little bugger and he enjoys hanging out in his stroller people watching.  Someone does need to convince him that amusement parks are awesome though. Otherwise he’s gonna have a pretty unhappy birthday seeing as how it will be spent in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World!

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