Dutch Wonderland

Colin and Melissa invited us to go to Dutch Wonderland with them and their two kids, Cameron and Claire. I've been wanting to take Emma all summer and really wanted to go, but was too exhausted and knew it would be a bad idea so we declined their invite. Their response, was something akin to, well, you're sticks in the mud anyway, all we really want is the cool kid, Emma. (Ok that's completely an exaggeration and completely out of character for them, but funny in my mind.) In all seriousness, they offered to take Emma with them. Kurt and I went back and forth. This was a HUGE thing. Emma's first amusement park (Kurt says I have to get over not being around for all the firsts). Emma traveling with another family to a destination 2 hours away. Emma being away from us for approximately 12 hours (Not including daycare, she's really only spent that kind of time away from us with family members and even that is rare). What if she has a tantrum?

In the end, we decided that she shouldn't be punished because her parents are sticks in the mud and sent her on her way. She did ask us a couple times if we were going with her and we reassured her that she would have fun with Cameron, Claire and their Mommy and Daddy. Also before we left the house to drop her off, we drilled her on who she was traveling with. We didn't want to stress her out with getting lost/separated, so we just told her that if someone asks who she came with she should say Colin or Melissa Rxxxxxxx. Luckily, she didn't need to divulge this info to anyone.

She had a great time! She got to ride the Merry go round, cars, trucks, and numerous other rides. I'll transfer pictures over at some point. When they dropped Emma off that evening, she was crying. We think she was exhausted and over stimulated. She said her feet hurt, which makes sense for the amount of walking they did. It took us almost an hour to get her calmed down, bathed, and give her a snack before she was ready for bed. She passed out almost instantly.

She has a map of the park and enjoys 'reading' it to us and showing us different spots on it.