Twelve Years

Two weeks ago (October 15 to be exact), Mike and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. Due to some well-advised (ill-advised?) family photos bribery on my part, we got to take the kids to Valleyfair to celebrate it. I don't suspect that is exactly what we imagined twelve years ago, but we have always wanted to have a family together and I'm pretty sure those babies who got married all those years ago would approve of where we have ended up!

We ate a quick lunch after church and headed over to the park about the time the Vikings/Packers game was kicking off. Solid plan! There was nobody at the park. Like nobody. Like so nobody that Mike walked up to Power Tower, got right on, and was the only one riding it!! He also took advantage of a very short line for Steel Venom. It was ah-mazing! And oh so much easier to keep track of all the short humans!

Before we went, the kids picked their "must rides" for the day. I have owed Q a ride on the hot air balloons for a couple trips; I had promised Fiona another round on the Scrambler; and Declan insisted we finally make a point to ride the Ferris Wheel.

Not only did we meet all the small V requirements, but we also took a couple trips on the carousel, checked out our favorite kid rides, did a family trip on the flying eagles (we aren't convinced that Bugs was really tall enough to ride solo ... but it helped out the uneven math, so we went with it), scrambled the whole family on the Scrambler, and stuffed our faces with cinnamon pretzel bites. Everyone enjoyed our inaugural Ferris Wheel trip - despite great trepidation by the blondes as we got on. There was a lot of spinning and Mike and I were about spun out by the end - but we all had a blast!

We loved checking out all the Halloween decorations in the park and made sure we boogied out of there before it turned into ValleyScare at dark. Our kids won't even watch The Incredibles because it is "too scary" (sigh) ... so we are pretty sure that ValleyScare would not fly for them. We were still able to spend almost four hours there (with no stroller, thank you very much!). And the nice thing is that it is really easy to get them to leave with absolutely no drama when the threat of zombies is imminent!

We finished the day with a visit from Auntie Tracey and Nate, spaghetti dinner, and some DQ cake thanks to Tracey. There may have even been a shared Crown and coke to toast the day. It's been a good twelve years!

Twelve years later. Not too shabby!