A Fun Trip

Well, I shouldn't say it was a fun trip. Being there was really fun, but the actual driving trip part was not so fun. It never is. The way up to Williamsburg was okay; we left right after church. I was sure that Corban would take a little nap in the car, but I should have known that thinking that always means it won't happen. So, that was the only problem on the way up. We got there and hit Busch Gardens hard! Unfortunately, that meant that we did not get back to the hotel until around 9:00pm. So, the kids did not get to bed until 9:15, but of course they woke up at 6:30 the next morning. However, we had such a good time at Busch Gardens. One of the best parts was watching the kids experience it; seeing the joy and amazement on their faces was so much fun for me. When we were there Sunday evening, I was still a little queasy from the car ride, so I decided I wanted to wait till Monday to ride the Griffon (the CRAZY big roller coaster). We got to the park a little before they opened on Monday, and Zach and I headed straight for the Griffon. We were one of the first ones in line. We rode it, and I did not want to sit in front, so we sat in the middle. It was not quite as scary as it was the first time we rode it last year. We got off and were feeling emboldened, and there was still no line, so we rode it again. This time though, we sat in the front row! It was a whole different experience sitting in the front. The Griffon takes you up (slowly) about 205 feet then dangles you there for what seems like 5 minutes, then drops you straight down. It was really fun. This video hardly does it justice, but is the best I could find.


Like I said, the kids had a great time. There was really so much for them to do. They rode all the kiddie rides a couple of times. The only problems were that it was really hot and was really sensory overload for both them. By mid-day they were having pretty massive meltdowns. So, we headed for home about 4:30pm. Calvin was talking really slowly, and his conversations were fewer and farther between then normal. I was still able to get some really good material for the next "quotable Calvin" installment. His behavior was pretty normal except that about every 15 minutes he would let a huge sob and say how he missed the hotel and wanted to live there forever. He also kept asking me if I had remembered various objects in hopes that I had forgotten something and would have to go back to the hotel, thinking maybe if we went back to the hotel we would have to stay. But we eventually got home, close to 9:30pm. The kids are still suffering the effects of being wildly off schedule for a couple of days. It is not fun, but they are starting to get better. Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying themselves.

This is them at the start of the day ready for fun!

This is them after lunch where it started to get rough!

This is the end of the day when they were too exhausted to move

Here they are having the time of their life!