Dutch Wonderland 2011

**Let me just start this with a disclaimer, this will be a long post and have about a million and one pictures, so turn back now if you so choose!**

This past weekend our family packed up the camper and went to Dutch Wonderland.  We had SO much fun and taking the camper was the way to go!

We arrived Thursday afternoon and after getting everything situated we were able to do a free preview of the amusement park (since we bought the 2 day pass) for the last 3 hours the park was open.  We had a plan to BBQ every night for dinner...well that first night it would have taken too long to get the fire ready to cook and since we were going to the park so we decided to just eat there.  Yummy!! Aiden and Emma had lots of fun riding the rides that night!

We're here!

Playing while Daddy gets things set up

Relaxing for a couple minutes

Emma checking out the campsite

Waiting to go into Dutch Wonderland

Such a hard life!

Crazy kid!

Mommy's girl

Aiden wasn't interested in pictures

Emma are you ready to go in the park?

Yes! Let's go ride rides!

Yes, he's huge in there, but it's easier than fighting him to walk!

In line for our first ride

Checking out the log ride

Shew! Mommy looks rough!

On the train ride

Riding the shuttle

Panda party!

Riding the bulldozers

Emma's modeling

Riding on the little rollercoaster

Wahoooo!

I know it's a little far away, but I love their faces here!

I'm not getting on that roller coaster!

Aiden's favorite...the sky ride

What a great first night!!

Once the kids were in bed that first night Patrick and I were able to enjoy us time around the campfire.  So relaxing...I love a good campfire and great company/conversation!

The next day we had to decide what to do...water park, lunch at the camper, Emma's nap, amusement park, dinner at the camper...that was a lot to do and have enough time for it all! That was stressing me out and you can't stress on vacation!!!  So we decided to do the water park in the morning, then come home for lunch and then head straight to the amusement park after that until 4 ish to come home for dinner and after that head back to the amusement....sorry Emma! No time for long naps! Thank goodness she fell asleep for a little while in her stroller while we were walking around!


The water park was FREEZING but that didn't stop Aiden from running all around like a crazy man getting soaked! His most favorite thing to do was the big water slides with Patrick and I (I didn't get a picture of these though.)  Emma was not a fan of the water at all...like I said, it was freezing! The second day we went she did play in a little puddle a lot more and even tried the baby water slide a few times.  Here are some pictures from our time at the waterpark:

Going to the water park!

Breaking the rules and running around the water park

Can you tell how excited he was?

At Duke's Lagoon

Under the water tree

It's cold!

Trying to get Emma to play in the water

Wheeee!

Splash!

Trying out the blue slide

Headed to the water park on our second day

King of the castle

Emma trying out the baby waterslide

Wheeee!

Let's go again!

Aiden, no pushing!!

I wanna ride the fish!

Aiden & Patrick under the water tree

Emma's had enough!

On Friday we went back to the park after eating lunch and again after eating dinner. Yes, we were constantly busy!

Sleepy girl

On the monorail...his other favorite ride

Riding the monorail

Still knocked out

Aiden's driving!

Waiting in line for a ride

We're flying!!!

Playing in the swan

Now she's driving the train

How do we drive this thing?

Train conductor Aiden

Emma's favorite...the merry go round!!

Love this picture

Go Aiden Go!! (We tried Emma on this and she lost her mind!)

Aiden and the big man

Amish Aiden

Hahaha

The family with the pretzel

Daddy's turn to fly!

We got wet!

And Mommy's turn!

Riding the train before calling it a day

Last ride for the day

Friday night we put Em to bed and let Aiden stay up with us for a little while so he could roast marshmallows and have his version of a smore. (He only likes the marshmallow and graham crackers.)

Men like fire!

Handsome boy

MARSHMALLOW!!!!

Roasting his marshmallow 20 feet too high

Getting a little closer

Daddy, you just do this for me

Yummy!

The next day we did a repeat of the day before, but this time we went mini-golfing (Aiden & Emma's first time).  I'm gonna do that in a separate post later because surprise, surprise...there are LOTS of pictures!!  The kids got to get there souvenirs before we went back to the camper for lunch.  Emma high pitch squealed when she saw picked a stuffed puppy and Aiden picked a $6 rubber snake...yep, I know we could have gotten 6 of them at the Dollar Tree, but it's what he wanted.

Em with her puppy

See my snake??

Emma & Patrick on the merry go round

On the Frog Hopper

He had to ride it again with Daddy

Put your hands up!!

Around 4:30, while we were enjoying ourselves on the rides, big black skies rolled in.  We were going to head to the camper, but I promised Aiden we would ride the lay down flying ride one more time since we were leaving the next day.  As we were in line it started to drizzle, but we were determined to ride it.  Well in the middle of flying the skies opened up and it poured down rain...HARD!!! And that rain was FREEZING!!! Now of course we were on the ride that was allowing us to lay down and fly so we were drenched by the time the ride ended and we had no clue where Patrick and Emma had gone so we walked around a little getting even more wet and finally went under a tent.  I don't know why because there wasn't an inch of us that was dry.  Patrick was concerned with the camera getting wet (because it had) so we decided to just go and get to the camper to dry it off!  Even though we were SO cold at the time, it was a great memory to make!

Everyone is SOAKED!!

Since the rain didn't stop until maybe 9:00 pm we weren't having a fire so we didn't have a choice but to order pizza.  What?!?! It's okay to eat pizza while camping! :-) And thank goodness the waterslides Aiden loved so much were near the road so we could see the Pizza Hut right across the street!

And what do you do when you're stuck in the camper because it's raining outside...take pictures while making silly faces and then have a dance party, of course!!!

Doing the funky chicken

Go Patrick!!

Dance Par-tay!!!

Go Aiden!!

Mommy's busting a move!

DJ Emmy Em spinning the tracks

DJ Emmy Em spinning the tracks

Oh, taking a break to shake it!

As you can tell we had a blast! It was great to get away with the family! After all that running around though, it took us a couple days to get back into the groove of things. Shew! Vacations are exhausting!!