Amusement Park Miracle

So on Saturday, we had originally planned to take a long trip to visit some online friends of mine. That trip ended up not happening because of financial constraints, but we really wanted to go do something fun. After some thinking and Google-ing, we decided to head out to a much more local amusement park, Lake Compounce. I was slightly reluctant to go to another place like this, especially after our Quassy disaster. The odds were more in our favor this time since we would have three adults (Auntie Nicole was joining us.) around to deal with Miranda if she started getting ornery. I noticed online that they do not open until 11:00am on Saturdays and since it was only 9:00am when we were all ready to go we decided to make some breakfast first. By the time we left it was somewhere around 11 and I thought that we'd get there shortly with no problems. Things in our world, rarely go as planned, and we ended up on the wrong side of the lake near the service and employee entrances. Thanks to our phones and Google though we made it to the right side. It was noon by the time we made it through parking, admissions and into the park. Luckily, none of us were hungry just yet so we were able to go straight to some rides.

The first one we hit was their lazy river. We thought it would ease Miranda into the water rides as well as cool us down a bit because it had warmed up at this point. They had some strict rules about her riding in the double tubes a certain way which was weird and slightly inconvenient. It made her less comfortable with the whole situation so there was a couple tears, but nothing too bad. We had our big stroller with us for the first part of the day which made it easy for two adults to go on a water slide while the other one hung back with Miranda. She rested a bit, but never actually fell asleep. She is still very  hesitant about any and all water rides or any water features. They are just not her cup of tea at this point, which is fine. After we had explored the water park enough, we decided to head out into the main part. Adam was annoyed with our stroller by this point so he went to take it back out to the car. Nicole and I took Miranda on a long train ride throughout the park. She kind of relaxed during it which I believe helped cheer her up a lot. When we got back we were all a little peckish so we stopped and picked up some cheeseburgers to eat. Miranda ended up getting a hot dog which she didn't really want to eat. I bribed her to eat a few bites though with the promise of ice cream afterwords. We passed by a Dippin' Dots vendor and got her some of those, Cotton Candy flavored, she LOVED them. Adam, Nicole and I made ourselves some Slushies while she ate. It was fun to mix and match flavors to see how they tasted all blended together.

After our pit stop we took Miranda to the little kid section of the park and let her go on a few rides that were meant just for her. She really enjoyed them. They had little swings, a roller coaster, a tiny pirate ship, carousel and few other rides that she didn't end up going on. She had great fun! I even took a few videos which I'll have to upload off of my phone to show you. Finally, it was time for the adults to go on some rides. We went on just about everything. Throughout the whole rest of the day though, Miranda was an absolute angel! Even though she was walking for most of it and hadn't had a nap she did amazing! I was shocked and very impressed, kind of wondering who stole my child and what did they do with her. I think it worked out really well always having one person stay behind with her while the other two enjoyed a ride. Everyone was able to have a good time that way.  Miranda did get to go on few 'adult' rides. The Ferris Wheel is always a favorite. There was also a plane ride called American Flyers that she ended up getting to go on twice, she loved it that much. We kind of 'forced' her to go on the river rapids ride and she was not a huge fan of it although we got her to admit it was fun.

At one point during the day we stopped to have a snack (fried dough and fried oreos, YUM!) and Adam went over to the Whac-A-Mole booth to see if he could win her a little prize. Wouldn't you know it, first try he ended up winning and got her a pink stuffed animal. (Not really sure what kind of animal though.) She was instantly smitten with it, but ended up being a little too rough on the poor thing and almost ripped its arms off. Oops! Miranda stayed in such a great mood the whole time that we were able to stay until the park closed at 10:00pm. We're going back in a couple of weeks and we're getting season passes because we had such a GREAT day!