At The Amusement Park...25 years later

Before I tell you about Vacation day 2.... I need to be nostalgic for a moment. If you know me at all you understand right? Today we went to Holiday World. Darrel took this picture of us waiting in line to drive the little tin lizzie kind of cars. I asked him to take this picture because standing there with him I got an image of this picture in my head.

Do you remember me posting this one when I was telling you our dating story? This one is from 1984. We were on a date - sort of- to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee IL. It was during that time when we weren't sure if we were still just friends or if we were feeling something more for each other. It is just so cool to me to see these 2 kids standing there with new feelings of love just starting for each other 25 years ago and now I look at the picture above and wow... there they are 25 years later. Married, happy, still best of friends, still going and doing fun stuff together. Still enjoying "dates." Still enjoying and loving each other. Just feel so blessed by that. And of course... I am now thinking I have to get these two pictures and everything I just wrote here on a scrapbook page don't you think?

So back to vacation day 2. We started out the day with Darrel heading to church and me um not so much. I was torn about going, but as I have mentioned before, when I am on vacation it is so hard to go to church and not be at work. Sometimes I just need a complete break. I don't feel like God is mad at me about that. I feel like he understands. I LOVE my church and my church family and I am happy to serve and do all that I can. So serious about that. Just need some time away now and then. Darrel needed to be there because it was Annual Report and Ballot day and he was finishing his term as head of the church council. So he went and took care of that and then met me back at home and we headed out to Holiday World. I think I might have already mentioned that we had tickets to get in from Darrel's work. That was so nice. It was cool though when we got there someone else walked up to us and offered us a free ticket too. They said someone who was in their group that was supposed to come didn't show up. We turned them down of course, but it was nice.

We have been to Holiday World a few times before. It's a nice amusement park/water park although it is on the small side compared to like Six Flags and that kind of thing. Plus.. I am NOT a big rides kind of person. Um so NOT a heights person and I do not care for anything that is going to spin me around cause um then I'd have to puke... sorry... TMI right? This leaves out most rides, especially roller coasters and even log rides... Last time we were there I got brave enough to go on the log ride because for the most part it seemed tame.. UNTIL we got to the part where they drop you down this big hill. We were right at the top and Darrel was holding on to me and I said... "I don't want to do this anymore...can we get off now?" There was a ride monitor lady right there and she and Darrel both cracked up at me cause um there was no getting off at that point. Did NOT go on the log ride today. We did go on the tin lizzie cars and the raging river raft kind of ride. I got soooo soaked on that! My seat was wet when we started and then it was like someone poured a couple of buckets of water on my shorts. Darrel was saying how wet he was when we got off until I had him help me ring out my shorts.... He then conceded that I won the prize for getting the most doused! We also had some fun playing skee ball... Guess which one of us won? Apparently I am not too shabby of a skee ball player. We accumulated like 135 tickets to redeem for a prize. Of course all the prizes were little kid stuff. When we were deciding what to do with them, a little girl came and kneeled down in front of the prize case checking out the goodies inside. I said to Darrel "we could give them to the little girl." He walked over and knelt down and handed them to her. It was SO CUTE. The worker lady had this huge grin on her face and the little girl was looking at Darrel like she couldn't believe he as handing her all these tickets! She went over to tell her Dad and then he looked all puzzled. Darrel motioned it was OK and the guy accepted them but still seemed confused. It was kind of funny. I mean how fun would that be to be a little girl gazing at all this stuff you don't think you can have and then someone hands you a whole wad of tickets which will get you a couple of those things?! That was very fun and we walked away smiling.

About this time we were close to the water park side of Holiday World. Now all the other years we have been there, the most we did was walk thru the water park part and see what they had there. Probably the last time we were there was 2-3 years ago. It looked like lots of fun looking at it but wow I was way way too scared and self conscious to get in a bathing suit in public like that. No stinking way. I would not have had fun. It was sad though because like I said it looked like fun and I felt like I was missing out. Well today, before we went, I was feeling like maybe I'd be brave enough to go to the water park. Maybe... We were worried the weather would be too cool, but we packed our suits and towels and stuff just in case. So as we checked out the water side and again it looked FUN and even though the temps were in the mid/upper 70's people seemed to be doing OK and didn't look cold. So guess what... we decided to go for it. Darrel walked back to the car and got our stuff and we changed and headed to the new wave pool. I had never been in one before. It was SO FUN. When we first got in I stopped at like the 2-1/2 ft level because with the waves coming at you it was all I could do to stay standing. Seriously! It was about to knock me over. I am only 5 ft 2 people! Remember? After Darrel was sure I was steady and stable he headed up to the taller waves by the 5-1/2 ft mark and he was having a ball riding the waves. I eventually got braver and made it to the 4-1/2 ft mark. We spent quite a while there and had a great time.

After that we headed over to the lazy river thing. Once I finally managed to get comfy on my inner tube which was no easy task.. it was pretty fun. Well the first time around it was. The second time, Darrel got out to head to this giant water slide down a dark tube thing.... and I made a second lap on the lazy river. Well this boy and girl got in right near me and I think they were brother and sister and they spent most of the time picking on each other and making a ruckus. The boy told his sister at least 4 times that she was fat.... It was all I could do not to step in on that one. It upset me. That little girl has been me my whole life and it hurt to hear it said to someone else. I wanted to hug her and tell her she was beautiful if I didn't think I'd get like reported for being some weirdo in the lazy river pool. I did however pray for her and her brother. That is where it starts friends. It starts with those comments from people who are supposed to love and care about us yet for some reason do a great job in tearing us down so we can spend a lifetime trying to be pretty enough and get over being the fat ugly girl... Can you tell I have just a few feelings on this subject?

The whole afternoon at the water park was great. It was fun. It was relaxing. It wasn't crowded and there was like no wait for anything. We had an awesome time. You know how I keep mentioning Ruby and her show on the Style Network? Well she was on my mind again today because on her weight loss journey she keeps mentioning like this list of things that she couldn't do at her bigger size and how now she is getting to do some of the things. Things like going camping or riding a bike for her. Well today was one for me. I wanted to do the water park other years. It was just way to scary and intimidating for me. Today I know I still have a lot of weight to lose. However. I am better. I feel better about myself. I could put on my suit and feel OK and not feel ugly. I didn't feel like everyone was looking at me or pointing or laughing. I just felt normal and comfortable and ....gasp... even good.... wow. It was awesome and now I could totally see going back next summer on a good hot day and spending the whole day by the different pools just having fun and relaxing. It was great.. .did I mention it was great? I mean girls... I got my hair 1/2 wet and didn't even have a comb with me... I got my make up 1/2 washed off... I still got back in my clothes when we were done and felt OK... Wow.. unheard of huh?

A friend on facebook asked me if I was relaxing on vacation today. I told her the most stressful thing I did was to try to stay standing up in the wave pool. What I almost said was the most stressful thing I did was try to get a wet bathing suit off so I could go to the bathroom and/or change.... I figured that was TMI for facebook... yet here I am sharing on my blog. bwa ha ha ha... I mean you know how it is trying to get a wet suit to like MOVE... Is there like a trick I don't know about?














Since I am not a ride rider... and Darrel is.. poor guy has to go on some of the rides that interest him by himself. Well today he said he wanted to go on The Voyage Roller Coaster. I was a coaster spectator... Here is a picture I snapped as the climb before the first drop began. I pointed out Darrel there for you. Great picture huh? Ha! I almost had one of him coming around the curve in the lower part of the picture but I snapped it too soon and missed the shot. Bummer because that would have been so cool. He said it was the best coaster he'd been on... I said it would have made me pee my pants... I am unable to fathom how anyone can find climbing 163 feet and then being dropped FUN... something is definitely wrong with that picture....

After that we had another snack or two... including sharing a funnel cake.. and then my friends, we actually like closed the park. I figured we'd be there a few hours and head home like other years. We stayed in the water park so long we were there until closing. It was a good day and the memory of it is still making me smile.

So far we are thinking tomorrow will be a lazy day. Who knows though we may feel like heading out for somewheres. I love vacation time where you can just do as much or as little as you want. I loved the drive home tonight. Feeling relaxed and happy from a good and fun day and knowing you don't have to be anywhere in the morning. Awesome.... Hope you have a great Monday!