Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sunny Day

The girls were such troopers (sort of) during days and days in Boston that I didn't have the heart to take them on the detour by Washington, D.C. that I'd been planning for the drive home. Sure, Syd's a big fan of inter-city mass transportation, and Willow would looooooooove the Smithsonian, but it just felt like it was time for something much more young child-centered.

Instead, we went to a place where there was a sunny day.

A place where everything was a-ok.

Yep, we went to Sesame Place.

Was it naive of me to be surprised that Sesame Place was completey un-educational? It was, however, an excellent full-size, child-friendly amusement park. The kids got to ride some pretty great rides that you don't usually find available for the child set, including a full-on and only slightly scaled-down roller coaster--it had the height and the big drops and the speed and everything. Here's Will and the Dadda ready to ride:
Moment of truth, can you tell? Fortunately, five seconds in she seemed to be doing just fine:
Sydney and I were in the car just in front of them. As soon as the ride was over, I asked her, "Did you like the roller coaster?" "NO!" she replied. Of course, when I asked her again at the end of the day, it turns out that the roller coaster was her favorite ride. Go figure.

Fortunately, there were many mild rides, as well:
And MANY water rides, thank goodness, because otherwise I think the day would have been unbearably hot and full of whines.

And there was active stuff--
--and parades--
--and shows--
--and yummy over-priced theme-driven munchies--
Sydney was way into character hugs, and so she met Oscar the Grouch and Elmo and Zoe and my personal favorite, Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster's costume is the least cumbersome and so, when he saw Sydney coming, he was able to get down on his knees and give her a great, big bear hug. She was thrilled.

Sydney didn't get to meet her own favorite character, but she did catch up with her later at the gift shop, and so they ended up going home together:
Willow completely refused to meet any of the Sesame Street characters, but shrubbery, it turns out, was acceptable:
As for me, I can't tell you how happy I felt when I spotted this sign--
--or when I stopped for a little breather on this particular stoop:
Yep, it was a sunny day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How Totally Fun!

Save the Smithsonian for a few years, for when the girls are a tad bit older and you have time to stay in D.C. for more than three days. I'm always disappointed at the lack of time to see what we want to see whenever we pass through the D.C. area.

julie said...

Yeah, we eventually decided that D.C., at 10 hours from our house, is feasible for another road trip later on. But Sesame Place, mostly fun for preschoolers and over 12 hours from our house, was a definite to-do. I was especially happy with it since we'd kicked around the idea of Disney earlier this year, but one of the things that turned me off about Disney is the fact that my girls don't watch Disney, so they wouldn't know any of the characters. Sesame characters, they know!