Idlewild 2007

Okay, this is probably not the best time to write this but if I don't do it now, it probably won't get done for awhile. The past few days have been a little crazy around here as we're replacing the windows in our house and at the same time packing to go away for a week to visit the fam in NJ.

However, we did just enjoy a family picnic at Idlewild Park in Ligonier, PA over the weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the park, it's a smallish amusement parks that is really great for families. They have StoryBook Forest, a great kiddie land and even a nice-sized water park. I've been going there for as long as I can remember and worked there as an artist when I was in college. I realized coming into the park, this was the first time I can remember ever paying myself and driving myself into the main entrance of the park (when I worked there, we went through a special employee entrance). It was very weird.

We went there Sunday morning with my mom and step-dad and lots of other family from her side. We got a pavilion near a little playground area so that Caleb could play and set up tons of food. Then Andy and I took the kids to walk through StoryBook Forest. This was fun but a little overwhelming for Caleb. It seems that while he loves people dressed up in Elmo suits and Wildcat suits, he does not like people dressed up in more realistic costumes- raggedy Ann, Goldilocks, even the Little Old Lady in the Shoe. He was very shy around all of them. Everything else, he seemed to like. His favorite spot was Gipetto's Workshop from Pinnochio. It was just a little one-room cottage, that had a workbench set up with toys, but Caleb kept going back to look inside. It was fun to walk through and neat to scope out the artist stand that I used to work at.

After that we went back to eat lunch before venturing out to ride rides. Caleb enjoyed tiring out Andy and "uncle" Chris (Jackie's boyfriend) at the playground and getting filthy in the process. Sadie was the little doll baby who was passed around from aunt to cousin to aunt and she was so happy but so sleepy. There wasn't really a place for napping but Andy managed to get her to sleep for a little while in her stroller while we enjoyed some really delicious picnic food.

When the eating was done, we saw that we had a very tired toddler on our hands but no place for him to rest so we decided to just plow through and get him on rides to see if he would get a second wind. I should probably mention that he was running on little sleep after being up a good bit of Saturday night (we're not really sure why). Caleb went off with Jackie and Chris and Andy and the rest of the family followed shortly behind. I stayed and fed Sadie before taking her over to the kiddie rides. Caleb loved the rides and was even very patient standing in line waiting for his turn. He rode on motorcycles, cars, dinosaurs and boats. He rode special hand-crank carts with Andy. His favorite ride of all was the Doodlebug- a little bus that goes round in a circle. We didn't get to make it through the Mr. Rogers trolley because the line was too long for our tired little boy so we walked back over to the main park. Sadie enjoyed ice cream with Aunt Jackie- she tried pulling herself out of her seat to get bites. Caleb rode the carousel with G'ma Susie. Later I took Sadie on the carousel and she seemed to like that a lot. Kept trying to eat the reins though. The carousel had very strange music, if you ask me. I'm not used to hearing Johnny Cash songs being played on the carousel organ but that's just me :-)

After all of this, Caleb was fading fast so we decided to head back to the picnic area and pack up but not before one more stop so Caleb could have some ice cream. We got back and had time for some quick family pictures before heading back home.

The kids passed out and slept almost the whole ways into Pittsburgh and even after we got home, they were very happy to go to bed. Not a bad day for our first family trip to Idlewild.