Fun day at Oaks Park

We spent the day at Oaks Amusement Park today!  It was Hubby's work picnic and they held it there this year.  They had yummy food, and bracelets to go on the rides all day.  We ended up spending  almost 7 hours at the park.  The kids were exhausted by the time we got home, but they had loads of fun.  When we arrived at 11:30 the rides weren't open yet... they weren't open until 12:00.  And, on top of that we made them eat lunch that was served at 12 before we could go out and start rides.  They had a hard time waiting, and were almost too excited to eat.  Finally, when it was time to go on the rides they started chickening out after we got done with the 2 kiddie rides they wanted to go on.  They didn't want to go on the BIG rides.  I said to Hubby "do we have chickens for kids?"  I thought we were going to have to call it a day way earlier than I thought.  After some talk and convincing that the rides would actually be FUN, they decided to be brave.  Oh, and I'm talking about the OLDER 2 that were scared to go on the big rides.  Not Aric, he was game for any ride we asked him, and not only that he loved all the rides he ended up going on (even the big ones).

See this kid!  His first ride was the Motorcycles... 







...while the older 2 went on the "mini" roller coaster.  Look at Aaron, he did NOT like the roller coaster.  This was his 2nd ride.  He said he really liked the 1st ride better (which was the rockin' boat, and ended up riding that one a total of 5 times today, I think)


Here's Aaron on the Rockin' boat by himself, he kept asking to go back to it, he loved it.




Then Aric wanted to go with Daddy on the mini roller coaster too.  Look at that smile!  He liked it.




Now is when we started asking the older kids which big rides they wanted to go on.  Neither one of them wanted to go on the Tilt-a-whirl with Daddy, but finally Aric and Aaron did!  Here's Aric, Aaron, and Daddy on the Tilt-a-whirl (but you can't see Aaron).  I didn't get pictures of it, but April did eventually decide to try this ride later in the day.  It was another one that Aaron didn't like, but April liked it.


Then we headed back to the picnic area to get some more drinks, and pick at the desserts some more.  Here is Aric eating his "sprinkle" cookie.  It was so cute, he saw that last sprinkle cookie left on the dessert table, and he quietly said to me "look Mommy, that's a sprinkle cookie" as he was pointing to it.  I could tell he really wanted it but wasn't sure if he should take it.

There was a nice cloud cover all day so it made for a cooler day.  Aaron took this picture.

We did some people watching.  This was the view from the picnic area.  There were a lot of people there today.  Aaron also took this picture.


These are the rainbow cupcakes we made for the shared dessert.  Hubby works with lasers, and they have almost every color of the rainbow in lasers so they have a joke that they "own the rainbow".  He wanted to make that the theme of our dessert.  They turned out pretty cute.  The star looking thing on top is the company logo.


Alexander had a good time just hanging out with me for most of the time.  I didn't ride any rides because there was a little miscommunication between Hubby and I, so I didn't get a bracelet.  I kinda wanted to go on some, but that's okay because I just got to hang out with this little guy the whole time.


A ride on the train is always a must.  The boys loved watching this train go around the whole park.


Nobody wanted to brave the Disk-o ride with Daddy, so he went by himself.  I would've went with him if I could have.  He really tried to get Aaron go to on this one with him because it is a lot like the boat one that he liked.  Aaron never braved it.


I love this picture.  It's a side of my Hubby I don't see very often.  He sure made the kids laugh everytime he came around doing silly things.  Really, it made us all laugh.




I think this ride was everybody's all time favorite.  The scrambler.  That is after Daddy finally convinced them all to give it a try.  They ended up riding it 3 times.  Even Aric loved it, just look at that smile. 

Before we left for the park this morning April was telling me that she really didn't want to ride a lot of rides, especially the big rides.  She really was worried that something might happen while she was on the ride, like she would fall off or the ride would break.  We don't usually go to amusement parks, so this was a big step for a lot of the kids.


I didn't get a picture of it but April finally ended up going on the BIG roller coaster, you know, the one with a LOOP.  She was so scared of the loop, but I kept telling her that the loops are what make most roller coasters really cool.  Of course, she really liked it, and went a few times (surprisingly it was the shortest line).  She also braved going on the Rock 'n roll ride, which we named the flyin' cars ride, because it's like you are flying in a car going around in a circle really fast (that's the best way to describe it).  I wish I would have gotten a picture.  Oh well.  She ended up really liking that one too.  All in all, it was a super fun day.   I think it's funny that they were so scared at the beginning, but by the end they were ready to try more and more new rides.  I loved that they tried it and liked it.