cousins' getaway

John's cousin's wife, Cindy, asked us to join them on a little getaway. Their boys wanted to go back to a particular amusement park they visited two years ago with us and they wanted to explore it together again. So we ditched a couple of days of summer camp last week and stayed at a hotel near the park.

The (mostly) fearless roller coaster riding team was assembled again.


Jake just turned 9 and was now way too cool to be seen holding hands with his cousin. But Brayden stepped up and took Erin by the hand most of the day.



Kate is the one who really isn't into fast roller coasters yet. Allison rode the ones she was tall enough for and both of them like spinning sorts of rides. Meanwhile, Jake and Erin were tall enough for most of the big rides and they loved them, as usual.



This amusement park has animal shows as well as rides and some of the neater things to see are dolphins playing in a pool (and there was a separate dolphin show as well in a big stadium), and the diving tigers. We also saw a killer whale show and a sea lion show.




The next morning we left this park area and headed to a new destination. Everyone was really excited to get there, though it wasn't always so obvious. Not even a new and exciting upcoming adventure could tear Erin away from Harry Potter #7, or the boys away from their books.