Mr. Crackers' birthday weekend continues...

We've been celebrating Mr. Crackers' 40th birthday since Thursday. Here at the House of Crackers we don't settle for just one day of celebrating...we like to drag the festivities out for as long as we possibly can. A week is ideal, but in a pinch we'll settle for a long weekend.





Yesterday Mr. Crackers took the day off work & we took our two hooligans to our local amusement park. A lot of our friends and family have season passes, but we've resisted buying them so far. We thought we'd get a 2 day pass & do a trial run to see how the kids liked it.



We got there right as the park opened and had the entire kids area pretty much to ourselves for most of the morning. We didn't have to wait in line for a single ride.



After some initial trepidation, the two kids threw themselves right into the fun and we spent much of the day running between the 7 or so rides that were open (& that they didn't think were too scary - the Cracker children are not really thrill seekers).

K's favorite ride was the kiddie swing. She loved spinning (slowly) around & around. My favorite part was that I didn't have to push her (for once). I'm wondering if Mr. Crackers can get something like this set up in our yard soon. Maybe it can be his next large building project.

Of course, C liked the ride as well. By next year he'll probably be too tall to ride it, so I'm glad he got a chance to try it out.

But his favorite ride by far was the bumper cars. I lost track of how many times he rode this ride.

The ride that they both seemed to love in equal measure was the miniature driving course. It had a small hill that was as close to a roller coaster as K would come.

Trouble, pure & simple.

C has also been a little resistant to riding roller coasters in the past (It must be a family thing - Mr. Cracker only started riding them himself in the last couple of years). I've always loved roller coasters & thought maybe that once C took a ride on one he'd have so much fun that we'd wipe all those fears away.

Unfortunately, the coaster I used to try this theory on was the Thunder Mountain Railroad Coaster at Disney about a year and a half ago. I told him it was a train & a roller coaster. (I may have overemphasized the train aspect of the ride). In hindsight, I can say that my trick did more to confirm his fear of coasters than alleviate them. I just remember him screaming over and over " OK, Mom I'm done now. It's time to stop the ride!". It was a lot more than he bargained for...Mr. Crackers thinks I may have scarred him for life.

This is why I was glad to see him having so much fun on the kiddie coaster. We tried to get him on something a little bit bigger but when he resisted, we let it drop (proof that occasionally I do learn from my mistakes!).

After about 6 hours spent on the same 7 rides and more money than I care to think about spent on really bad amusement park food, we took a ride on the train & then made a beeline for the exit.

In all of the fun, we skipped K's usual mid-afternoon nap which we were punished for the rest of the evening. After a light dinner and a bath we got the kids down early for bed.

After another day of tears and whining from my little K today, I think Mr. Crackers & I have decided that we will not be getting a season pass this year. It was fun, but I think the 10 hours of tears & whining we've experienced since our visit have now officially offset the 6 hours of fun we had while at the park. Thankfully, Mr. Crackers' headed out to the golf course today for some more Birthday fun, so he was spared at least a portion of the amusement park backlash.

Next stop on the Birthday Party weekend of fun, our very first beer brewing party. I have no idea what to expect other than a good time. Happy Birthday (day #3) Mr. Crackers!