Life as a Yowler

We went to Busch Gardens today. I don’t remember the park being so big. The last time we went was two years ago. Our kids were too little to do much, so we mostly hung out in Sesame Street Land. This time the kids were older and taller and able to do a lot. We weren’t even able to do everything we wanted to. The park closed at 7. We chose to do mostly rides instead of see animals, because we already went to a zoo plus Sea World on this trip. We still walked by several animal exhibits and saw them. We just didn’t take a lot of time to look. We saw gators, penguins, elephants, flamingos, giraffes, rhinos, and zebras.

Isla is such an adaptable baby. She has done great being taken all over the place. She’s learned it’s just a way of life for us, and she willingly comes along for the ride.

We went on so many rides today. I didn’t take pictures on several of them because I didn’t want my phone to get wet or fall.  Joah did a lot of the big rides with Brandon while I took Caed and Brielle. Grandma Yowler sat with Isla a lot between feedings.

Caed was really excited to ride this airplane ride. The problem is he is so big for his age, and everyone thinks he’s much older. Caed is still only two, and isn’t always the best communicator. There was a lever on the airplane that you could push to raise the plane up. Well Caed was trying to push it, but kept just shaking the lever up and down. The lady running the ride kept yelling “stop shaking the lever.” Caed wasn’t understanding. Brandon was yelling, “Caed, stop shaking the lever.” He still wasn’t understanding. After the ride Caed was so frustrated and embarrassed. He knew he did something wrong, but didn’t understand what. He came over to me and starting crying. Poor little guy. I told him he wasn’t in trouble, we were all just trying to get him to not shake the lever.

There definitely are some perks to being tall though. Caed was able to ride his first roller coaster today. He rode next to Brandon. He was also tall enough to ride the log ride. He loved the log ride, but was clutching onto my hand really tight.

The kids got to meet Elmo and Big Bird today.

I took Brielle and Caed on lots of little rides. I don’t have many pictures of Joah because he went on so many rides with Brandon. All day long Joah would panic at the thought of going on roller coasters. He would say he didn’t want to go. He even tried the old “I have to poop” thing while standing in line. We are those parents that forced him to go. Every single time he loved it once he was on. We knew he would regret it if he didn’t ride on anything. He had been talking and talking about it before hand. At the end of the day he kept telling us his favorite part was the roller coasters, so I know we made the right choice forcing him. He even went on a roller coaster that took him upside down. That was a first for him.

Check out this amazing teamwork. Paul Shupe and a very nice total stranger were helping us with strollers. It’s amazing how people just pitch in when you have two double strollers and steps.

Checking out the flamingos.

The day ended very well. There was no wait on The Scorpion(the roller coaster that Joah rode that went upside down), so Brandon took Joah again. The rest of us waited in line and got Dippim Dots, my favorite. It was a great ending to a fun day!