Florida Summer 2011, Part XI
Back at the Sesame Street section of the park! We told you we’d come back Nina! See this image larger.
We posed for a shot with Elmo. Both kids immediately freaked out at the big, non-speaking Elmo, we’re lucky we got us all in the same shot. Some photoshoppery on the part of the technician at the park resulted in us magically being transported from a room with a green screen, to Sesame Street! See this image larger.
This one turned out much better and was free! I really do think that it was Elmo’s scale-change that bothered the kids. Big Bird didn’t scare either one of them! (The internet calls the sneaking of one’s face into a photo where one is not expressly meant to be the subject of the photo a “photobomb.” Thus, Grover, looking at us through the window, is photobombing us. You might have to look at this larger to see what I’m talking about — regardless, it is a good shot of all of us, so it’ll be worth the click!) See this image larger.
Time for another run on the Air Grover! See this image larger.
Ian’s third time, and he loved every second of it! See this image larger.
Gramma Barb was on Nina duty during the ride, thank you! See this image larger.
Ian managed to get to a place where I had to run all over to catch up to him… and in fact at one point I didn’t think I could get to him at all. See this image larger.
Cousin Connor to the rescue! He helped me keep an eye where I couldn’t go, and gave me status reports. SUCH a good kid. On the way out of the park, Connor played a basketball game and won a bunch of little basketballs. A park ride manager asked Connor if he’d like to exchange them for one big professional-sized ball. HE REFUSED. “I’m going to give them to my cousins and sister.” Awesome. Just awesome. See this image larger.
Hard to see, but Nina got a little rope burn on her face… it was amazing how quickly it went away. Ah to be young and quick-healing! See this image larger.
*Merry-go-round!* Nina took a couple rides on a merry-go-round, and I don’t think anybody got pictures of that. 🙁 See this image larger.
These three ended up on a big bouncy inflatable trampoline thing for awhile, I did get some pictures of that, but decided not too many of them were keepers. See this image larger.
I have no idea what I’d call this ride, but I’m going to guess it wasn’t much fun. It just rotated around a central stem. It didn’t rotate sideways at all… and it took about 5 minutes to load the kids because the person manning the ride had to secure and lock the gate as she returned each kid to a parent. The kids look a little tired, no? See this image larger.
On the other hand… good ride for this little girl, one of the few that she could actually go on. So I’m glad they had it there! See this image larger.
Ok, so… next time we go to an amusement park, I’m going to explain that we have to leave in a different fashion. You can’t just spring “we’re going to leave now” on a kid. The trick is good cop/good cop. “Mommy, do you think we have time to squeeze ONE more ride in?” “Yeah, I guess so. It’ll have to be quick.” Generally Melissa and I fall into this rhythm automatically. It is much better than what we had to do here, which was more or less giving him another ride to stop him from crying. See this image larger.
So here’s Ian’s one more ride! He loved it! See this image larger.
And took it very seriously! See this image larger.
At long last, time to go back to The Villages. They slept very well that night. Thank you again Grandma Barb and Grampa Ray for an excellent vacation, your hospitality and generosity! See this image larger.
