We packed up the car with water (not nearly enough), swimsuits, sunblock and kids and headed to Dutch Wonderland to open the park.
Apparently, it was a day for cheesy photo ops – seriously, the girls insisted on posing in each and every one of these places and wouldn’t budge until I’d taken their pictures! (I have them trained well.)
We got there early enough that we were able to go on ride after ride with little to no line. It was so much fun! Some of them (like the Frog Hopper) they went on multiple times in a row because there was no line.
The bumper cars were especially fun. It was Anna and Daddy in the yellow car vs. Carolyn and Mommy in the purple car. We definitely put the bumpers to good use!
When we decided it was time to cool off, we changed into swimsuits and let the kids play in Duke’s Lagoon – a combination sprayground & mini waterpark with (cold!) water spraying everywhere and mini waterslides. I was terrified to even bring the camera near the place after killing my ipod touch the other night, so it stayed safely dry in a locker for that part of our fun. We finally managed to drag the girls out of there with promises of going on the pipeline plunge. Yes, I took two small girls through that twisty-turning blue tube, on nothing more than a rubber raft. It was fun!
We went on lots more rides after, including the dreaded log flume ride. (I left nothing, not even park maps, in the outside pockets of my bag this time!) Carolyn even went on the flying trapeze by herself!
After dinner, we saw The Frog Prince, reinterpreted into a high dive act. It was really amazing! And even more amazing was that the pool these performers were diving into was only nine feet deep. That’s only 6″ deeper than the deep end of our backyard pool. But they were diving from really, really high heights.
We didn’t quite close the place down, but we rode the train one last time around the park, saying “goodbye” to all of our favorite rides. The girls had a wonderful time, and are already asking when we can come back!