Addie's Adventures : August 2012

I've been waiting for Addie to be tall enough to take her to Kings Island! It finally arrived! I loved KI when I was a kid and couldn't wait to take her... it's been on the travel list since I knew I was prego!

So it started off as a last minute trip to begin with. Addison's school closes for 2 days in August and we have to take the days off since we don't have child care available to us. So with that being the plan, we were going to originally leave on Thursday... drive to our hotel in Blue Ash, OH spend the night do KI on Friday and then drive home once we were done at the park. Well I was checking the weather and they were calling for 30% perception, which then changed to severe storms right before our trip. I convinced Jeremy to take off Wednesday night after work, drive as far as we could and just get a hotel room and then do KI on Thursday. Spend the night at the hotel that we already booked in Blue Ash. He was on board.

Wednesday, August 15th- we took off at 6:00 and it's 260 miles to KI from our house. So the planner in me thought if we got to Shelbyville, IN or Greensburg, IN that would be a good resting stop. Well we were making great time, stopped for dinner in Indianapolis and then continued on our way. Addie was doing great in the car (will post pics of some ideas from pinterest and her teachers). We passed Greensburg, IN around 9:30 at night and kept on trucking through to Blue Ash. The hotel that we booked for Thursday night was the Hilton Garden Inn. We arrived about 10:45 at the hotel and as we drove up and around the surrounding hotels were all packed with cars. I got this feeling that it wasn't going to be good news at all. So I walk in and they were sold out... I couldn't believe it. There was a tennis tournament in town. Who would have thought on a Wednesday night that hotels would be sold out. Addie was still up and so tired at this point because she knew it was close to Snoopy! So needless to stay we backtracked our way back to Indiana. I called 1-800 numbers of hotels and they were able to direct us but it was smoking rooms available within 30 minutes. At this point we were getting closer and closer to Greensburg, IN. I finally called the number I had written down and booked a room and said we were on our way. They only had a few room left and the king size room that was available was the Presidential Suite. I said we will take it. When it's midnight and you are ready for bed, I didn't care about the cost at all. It ended up being $130 with tax! The room was huge too! Sofa, kitchen, bathroom separate from the vanity area.... free breakfast and free parking. It was the Hampton Inn in Greensburg and I would stay there again. We went to bed at 12:30 and Jeremy's orders were don't wake me up early to get there... we will wake up when we wake up!

Thursday morning. I was up at 7:30 and got ready. Jeremy and Addie were still sleeping. They finally got up around 8:00 and got ready. We went to their free breakfast and ate. We were out the door by 9:15 and on our way to KI!

We arrived at KI at 10:45 (we had to stop for gas). parked and were ready to go!

Addie has this thing where she doesn't like to smile for professional photographers at parks for some reason. She did it in Florida and she did it here too. Oh well. So after we made it through the picture photo stuff, we made our way to Planet Snoopy.

We saw Snoopy right away and got our picture taken with him! After Snoopy, we had Addie measured and received a wristband. Luckily enough she received a blue wristband and was able to go on the rides that she had to be 40 inches tall!!!! She was able to go on several rides and enjoyed them all.

Bumper cars- either she is oblivious to what bumper cars mean or she is going to be a great driver and avoid accidents! She got her self immediately out of the traffic jam and was able to steer the car!

Swings- she liked them, but didn't love them as they didn't go super fast.

Peanuts 500- she loved and even ducked when it went under the bridge!

Helicopters- first ride that she went on and she liked it.

Whirly birds- ok..standing in line for this ride really wasn't' worth it, but it was still fun.

Tree hopper- she loved this ride!

Great Pumpkin roller Coaster= she liked this and asked to go on it again. Once with mom and once with dad.

The Big Roller coaster- Woodstock Express- She LOVED this ride... it was her favorite and couldn't wait to go back for more. We rode it 4 times!

The Boo Ride- We got to shoot ghost on this ride. At first she was a little scared when we entered, but she wanted to go back for more and did the ride 3 times. I think she also enjoyed the competition of watching mommy and daddy shoot the ghosts. Let's make it known that mommy was a master apprentice at shooting the ghost and beat daddy every time!

In between rides, we ran into Peppermint Patty, Lucy and Linus! No waiting in lines either!

After all the rides we went to see the Party Parade and watch the 15 minute dance party. Addie enjoyed it and we had 2 more characters to meet, Charlie Brown and Sally Brown.

We went to Sally Brown first and got our photo and then we went to see Charlie Brown and he started dancing as Addison wanted nothing to do with it so I jumped in the photo with her.

After the parade, we made our way to Dinosaurs Alive since she just wanted Ice Age- Dinosaurs version and it's currently her favorite along with Rapunzel movie at the moment. She was hilarious as Jeremy was taking photos and if Jeremy was too close to the dinosaur, she would tug at him and make him move back because she didn't want daddy to get bit by the dinosaur. How cute!

she was done after all of this and we made our way out of the park and as we were leaving, there were college students/high school students that won the huge prizes and asked if Addie wanted a toy and it was this huge pink fish. Her eyes lit up! I asked if we could give them money and they said no and it was all about the smile on her face! How nice of these kids...there are parents raising their kids so nicely! We appreciate it and it made Addie's day. She named her fish Sam!