Countdown to School Part 2: August 29th

This year, sending Michael to school was a really bittersweet moment for me.  Preschool is not the same as Kindergarten.  Kindergarten is real school, and my little Michael was starting real school.

I really wanted to do something special so I decided to take him to Dutch Wonderland the day before school starts.

Dutch Wonderland is an amazing amusement park that caters specifically to little ones from age about 18 months - 10 years old.

Many of the rides are geared towards smaller kids with I think ages 4-6 being the best age for it!  Although there is PLENTY to do for 2-3 yrs of age!

Michael LOVES it there.  We've been taking him since he was 4.  Here he is on the self-propelled train:

I remember when he used to have trouble with those and we had to push him along with the long stick. Now, he does it so quickly on his own.

Before we rode the bumper cars, Michael had me go on the worst roller coaster in the park about 5 times.  It wasn't bad, but it was REALLY jerky.  So I could only handle so much.  It was hilarious though - Michael loved dragging me through it!  And he loved screaming with me all during it.

We also went down the giant slide and enjoyed the Sky Park thingy where you ride over the entire park!  We rode another ride that reminded me of Bamboo Shoot at Astroworld!  You get splashed on it.

After all this, Michael waited very patiently for the bumper cars.  He LOVED those:

After this, processed food lunch time!

 What park visit would be complete without a little Whac a Mole?

Michael was pretty thrilled about this slide.  Here he is tumbling out of it:

 Another fun one - it has a gun on it:

We also went to the splash park in the background there of the picture above.  However, Michael wasn't really into it!  Shocking!  So we got dried off and continued on in the park.  

Michael also had me going on Turtle Whirl, which is like Tilt a Whirl.  If you wanna get sick, that's the ride to ride.  It is AWFUL.  It whirls you around in a circle in your little car, and at the same time your car itself is going in a circle up and down.

Michael told me, "Mom, it's not as bad if you hold the outer bars as the inner bars."

And you know what?  He was right.  So i didn't lose my lunch.

Afterwards, we played putt putt too.  

Then, we were hungry and decided to use the Applebees coupon that's on the back of the Dutch Wonderland ticket.  We topped our dinner off with a strawberry cheesecake bite:

It was surprisingly DELICIOUS.

Then, an hour drive home and off to school the next day.  He only had a mini day - I think it was a couple of hours.

It was just so fun saying "YES!" all day.  I love saying yes.  I hate the everyday that always gets in the way of saying yes.  

I hope we can do it again next year because we had so much fun and Michael just loved it.  He apparently told Mrs. DeColli on his first day of school and she said to me, "Michael told me all about Dutch Wonderland yesterday and it warmed my heart because I used to do the same with my kids.  But I would take them on the last day of school to welcome summer.  So it made me happy to hear someone else does it too."

And yet - I am STILL scared of her!  :)