New Happy Memories

I was telling Alicia today that I think I get the same kind of happiness in sharing amusement parks with my kids as other men do sharing sports or other personal interests with their children. It is nothing but joyful for me to see them smile and laugh with excitement as we enjoy the experience together. That was the case today as we went to Lagoon.

For Ben, his enjoyment was having a greater portion of attention given to him since we weren't occupied in the usual home activities such as cleaning and running errands. Personally, I interacted with him much more than usual in holding him, tickling him and burying my face into his neck to get him to laugh. I appreciated the time and my love for him increased as I was able to be with him more.

For Claire, the highlight was swimming at Lagoon-A-Beach - a collection of pools and water slides in the center of the amusement park. She wandered in and around the kiddie pool for 10-15 minutes at a time - completely independent of course. It was cute to see her in her little blue Ariel swimsuit wandering through the foot deep water, climbing stairs and going down the slide. She also experienced some of the little kid rides at Lagoon. At first she was a bit apprehensive but she warmed up to them and began to have fun - or "pun" as she called it today.

Jace's favorite experience was very predictable and as endearing as ever. Lagoon has this train that loops a little lake. It's been there forever - I remember it when I was a kid. Jace was all smiles as he experienced it. He leaned on the railing and looked out to the lake as we passed in a smiling contented silence. Jace also got into some of the rides too. He is just tall enough to experience some of the more tame roller coasters and he loved it. At one point I was able to go with him in this little water luge ride and when we splashed down at the end he was jumping up and down with excitement wanting to do it again.

Ethan was quite a thrill-seeker. He went on his first big person water slide and loved it so much that he did it another three times. He also went on a total of five roller coaster rides. One of them was the Wild Mouse coaster which he and I rode together. This one scared him a bit. When he came off of that one, Alicia said he looked sad and he was clinging to my leg. Oh well, he enjoyed the rest. It was a lot of fun to enjoy some rides with him by my side.

Finally Emily's favorite was also swimming. Em's big enough that we were comfortable with her leaving our direct supervision to allow her to swim in the big person pools and the lazy river. She seemed to love the big person pool and she played in there for extended periods of time. Em wasn't too excited about the roller coasters and she opted out of many of them when it came time to choose who would ride but she loved the water.

We stayed until the park closed alternating turns picking attractions to experience and we ended with some bumper cars and then made our way for the gates as the excitement of the day began to wear off and our kids bodies started to limp. We weren't 5 miles down the freeway before all of them were sound asleep in the van. I remember doing the very same thing when I went to Lagoon as a kid. Finally we tucked them into bed and they were snoring before we left the room.

As Alicia and I lay in our bed, I thumbed through the pictures and videos of the day with my head full of new happy memories and my hopes high that the rest of my family had the same thing.