Holiday World
On Saturday, we piled in the car and headed south towards Edinburgh, which isn’t an unusual event for the Lebanon Lawsons. But, when we go there, out trip got much more interesting because we met up with the Pattons to kick off a Memorial Day Weekend adventure!
After some shoppy shopping, we had a big lunch at Ruby Tuesday, then drove all the way down to Jasper to stay in a hotel with a pool! We played a game…I threw my floaties to the guys (Ethan and Caden) and they threw them back. Morgan was jumping in to the pool and swimming around. Then, we went to check out the game room and all of the cool video games. We didn’t play any, but we all pretended we were having fun with them.
After swimming, we got cleaned up and ready for dinner (the Daddies went to pick up pizza). We had two rooms side-by-side, and the kids had a room all to themselves! We all hung out in one room and ate pizza and watched movies while the grown ups just sat around in the other room. They didn’t even have swords or army men or jump on beds or anything. Boring! Finally, it was time to snooze for the evening and rest up for the big day at Holiday World.
The next morning, the parents had everything moving like clockwork and we were nailing all of our timing…almost. It wasn’t until about 8:00 that we learned that Holiday World was on Central Time…so we found ourselves with some unexpected time to kill! Those crazy teachers decided to improvise with something educational, so we swung by the nearby Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. We learned about Lincoln’s house and how they built things out of wood. Morgan learned that his mom died when she was 35 from milk sickness because the cow ate a plant called white snakeroot and he (Lincoln, not the cow) was the 16th President.
When we had killed enough time, we make the quick jump over to Holiday World and kicked off the adventure. Our first stop was the canoes where Ethan and Caden and I scooted around the waterway and resisted the temptation to splash. Then, we rode the Salmon Run and made our way to the Holidog’s Funtown to play on the big playground. Caden and I rode the Jeep ride back there and I rode on my very second roller coaster! Morgan and Ethan rode up front and Daddy crammed his knees in with me on the Howler. We went around two times and it was fast!
As we started to make our way over to lunch and big rides, we stopped at the Lewis & Clark Trail of antique autos and the kids got to drive! I rode with Ethan twice and he had to stand up to press down the petal. Morgan drove Daddy and Mommy around once, then drove Daddy in a two seater.
After lunch, Ethan, Caden and I hit Rudolph’s Reindeer Ranch full of rides that were just our size while Nate, Morgan, and Daddy went around the corner to the Raven, a very fast wooden roller coaster. Morgan says it was scarily fun! We made a trip to the HallowSwings, but Caden and I bowed out and decided to check out the games instead while the braver folks swung around like crazy.
We then jumped over to the HUGE water park called Splashin’ Safari. We got changed in to our suits and lubed up with sunscreen, then did a bit of divide-and-conquer. Daddy took Morgan and Ethan on the big kid water slides while Caden and I were all over Safari Sam’s Splashland. We met back up at the Monsoon Lagoon playgound for a while before going to Crocodile Isle and the Bahari River.
After a big day in the sun, we decided it was time to dry off and hit a few more rides. Morgan, Daddy, Maranda, and Ethan rode the Pilgrims Plunge the world’s TALLEST water ride. 135 feet, 45 degree angle. I’ll be down here waiting for you guys!
Finally, a few more rides on our way back through the park and some skeeball rounded out the day. With sweaty heads, rosy cheeks, and sleepy eyes, we said Goodbye to Holiday World and started the long drive home. We had a bunch of fun and I hope we are able to make it back sometime for more rides and water. Thanks very much to the Pattons for sharing your holiday weekend with us!
