Great America - Day 2

After we enjoyed our fantastic complimentary breakfast at the Hyatt, a perk of our AAA membership we walked over to the park to begin our first day of fun!  We cleared the security check and entered the park to see the below sights.

Snoopy and friends were throughout the park.  Alesha was a bit skeptical and  has  no reference for these characters, but found them interesting and did dish out a high five upon request :-)

Our only family photo of the trip.  Wish I would have asked Snoopy to step aside and take another one of just us.

Throughout the day we divided and conquered the many rides throughout the park.  Alesha and I spent most of our time at Planet Snoopy and the KidZville sections of the park.  They had great rides for little kids.  Most of the rides I rode were little kids rides. It was fun to watch Alesha's expressions and hear her giggle as she experienced rides for the first time.  Luke, spent time with both Darin and Martin as well as Alesha and I.  It was great that he could take his sister on the rides.  He really liked it and I loved watching them together.  He is such a great brother.

Riding the Snail Race.  I love this smile!

Such a good brother

Priceless!

One of her favorites.  When it stopped she would say "Again, again!"

Darin and Martin went on the bigger rides in the park.  Thankfully there were only a few rides that Luke didn't make the height requirement for.  The Drop Tower was by far the most terrifying ride in the park.  You travel up the pole to 224 ft and then you free fall 22 stories in less than 4 seconds!  I only went on this ride once and that was good enough for me.

Darin and Martin getting ready to travel to the top of the Drop Tower

We got our picture taken with some of the characters throughout the park.

Pfeiffer Family with part of the Peanuts Gang

The kids with the Snoopy statue at Planet Snoopy

 They had a great ride that took you from one end of the park to the other.  This park is HUGE.  It was a great way to see an overview of the park and find the location of the rides you wanted to go on.  The only problem is that you could only have 4 people to a bucket and they wouldn't let you bring a stroller on board :-(  Needless to say I got my exercise in as Alesha and I took the walk from one end of the park to other SEVERAL times a day!

One of my favorite pictures of Luke.

Luke took this picture.  It was quite windy, but NO rain so we were happy.

We decided that we would meet at the hotel by 6 p.m.  I arrived by 6:05 with Luke and Alesha, but by 6:20 Darin and Martin were not back yet.  Finally, they arrived and told me that Martin was on his favorite ride, Flight Deck, when somebody pulled the safety strap after the ride started and the entire ride shut down for 30 minutes!  Yes, my boy was stuck on a roller coaster for 30 minutes until they finally got it going again.  For the rider's inconvenience they gave every rider a $10 food voucher to use in the park.  This explained why they didn't arrive at the hotel on time.

Our next stop was going out for dinner. We were planning on going to Baja Fresh or the Quizno we saw the night before, but when we got out of our car at the mall we smelled Indian food and saw a sign for an Indian restaurant.  Without hesitation we were making our way into Mezbaan Bar and Indian Cuisine.  After we ordered we laughed at how quickly our dinner plans had changed as soon as we saw an Indian restaurant.  There was no discussion we just all filed into the restaurant.  What was funny is that the night before, Martin said he smelled Indian food as we left the Safeway store.  We all agreed, but we couldn't see any Indian restaurants from where we were standing.  Apparently we are very in tune to the smell of Indian food. :-)  The food was fantastic and the perfect ending to a LONG day!

Things I learned on Day 2

1.  Great America is a FUN place.
2.  My boys have NO fear of rides.
3.  Watching  a child experience things for the first time is priceless.
4.  There are only 2 rides that our entire family could go on together (both of which we never managed to go on) :-(
5.  You do an INCREDIBLE amount of walking in this park.
6.  Thankful that I packed pants for Alesha to change into.  It was WAY too cold for her.
7.  Mezbaan is a great Indian restaurant!
8.  I am really out of shape.
9.  If you get stuck on a ride you get some free food for your inconvenience.
10.  If you stopped and played all the little game booths they have throughout the park or bought all your food and drinks at the park you would go broke!
11. My 40 year old body does not do as well as my 30 year old body used to do on rides.