Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Summer Utah and Silverwood Trip 2021

 

We took a drive to Utah shortly after the kids finished up the school year to visit family and attend Oscar's 20 year High School reunion. We decided to take the long way down and spend a few days at Silverwood first. Both kids are quite a bit taller than the last time we visited in 2019, which opened up new rides and water slides for them. I also wanted to try their new single rail roller coaster - Stunt Pilot. There's a great view of it on the left of the middle picture above. It would have been our first ride, but it was unfortunately closed for maintenance the first day we arrived. There were people working on it and the entrance was boarded over, which worried us that it would be an extended, multi-day closure, but fortunately it did reopen the next day (more on that further down). 

Since it was a hot day we decided to start with water rides. Oscar dropped our bags and life jackets off in the water park while the kids and I got in line for the log flume. He took pictures of us coming down the flume on his way back. 

Bumper Boats was the next choice since the line gets long and slow if you don't get in it right when it opens at noon. Even getting in line right at noon we still had to wait about 10 minutes for the ride before us to have their turn.

I took Allison on a few rides while Oscar took Tyler on the Corkscrew roller coaster she's not quite tall enough for. For lunch we had their tasty barbecue buffet.

After eating we rode the two wooden roller coasters as a family, which was a large part of the reason for this trip. Allison was always too small for Tremors and Timber Terror on our previous visits. It was nice to be able to do them together and not need to swap on and off with Tyler. 

Oscar went out to the car to grab the lunch we'd packed while I took the kids on a few things.
Then we all met up at the Magic show. Allison made a new friend in the line for Tremors, who came up and gave her a hug when they saw each other again. Her dad told us they were heading to the magic show, so we tagged along with them before going into the water park.  

The kids and I started off in the wave pool
Then we rode the family raft slides. These were also slides Allison was too small for the last time we came, along with the racing slides and other slides we went on afterwards. The water park was way more fun with her being over 42 inches. The only annoying thing is that she couldn't have a life jacket on for the racing slides but was required to have one on for the one just across from them, and we forgot to grab it for her after doing racers. They provided one for her but we had to wait about 15 additional minutes for a supervisor to bring it up to us.

After the water park Oscar took the kids to do some kid rides while I ran off to do Aftershock. We got ice cream after the rides closed but before the park closed then wished we hadn't. On our way out we discovered that our hotel check in was 10pm and we wouldn't arrive until 10:15. I had to call them and drive as fast as possible to get there. We were late but thankfully they waited for us, and in spite of it being a small motel in not the best part of town, we really liked it. It was a good value for the price.

To our great delight Stunt Pilot was open the next day. Oscar took Allison into Boulder Beach to play and drop off our stuff while Tyler and I got in the line. We'd done a single rail coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, and the line had been incredibly slow with loading and unloading. Silverwood does it better. They kept the line moving with employees to grab your stuff so you don't have to take extra time putting your drinks, bags, and hats away. We barely had any wait at all, and it was just as fun as Wonder Woman at Fiesta Texas. 
We just rode Stunt Pilot once then walked over to the water park to swap off with Oscar so he could ride it with Tyler. I stayed with Allison while she played in the water then we walked over to the Thunder Canyon water ride to meet up with Oscar and Tyler. 

Oscar's head was getting hot, so he bought a new hat, the only kind they had that could shade his whole head. 

Here we are ready to get wet on Thunder Canyon. It had a bit of line when we got in it, but it wasn't too bad of a wait. We've seen the line pretty backed up on some of our previous visits.

Here are our cute kids randomly hugging each other while we were waiting in line for the wooden roller coasters. One minute they're adorable and the next they're trying to kill each other, so I try to get pictures when they are being cute.

After the coasters we hit up the waterpark for a few hours then came back into the theme park. I was able to do Stunt Pilot once on my own, then went to Aftershock, then did Stunt Pilot again with Tyler. After that I took the kids on the paratrooper (we're 2nd from the top on the backside) while Oscar took this picture of us after doing Aftershock and Stunt Pilot himself. Paratrooper is another incredibly slow loader, so he was done with both those other rides well before we were off this one.  
We let the kids do a few more kid rides then finished off with Timber Terror. Tyler wanted to do a sad picture because the line was long. 

Here's me cuddling with the kids that night. It was 10:39pm so it wasn't hard to get them down.

The next day we finished the rest of the drive to Utah, which was largely uneventful. We did enjoy this great bathroom sign on one of our potty breaks. 

I love seeing Tyler put quite a bit of effort into drawing and coloring his pictures, like the one on the right. I wish I could get Allison to focus on something this much when we're on a road trip. She goes through reams of paper doing quick little sketches, usually of dinosaurs. 

The next day we took Dillan and Justin to Lagoon. It was perfect cloudy weather to begin the day, but we got rained out later on.
I knew there was a decent chance of stormy weather so we did a bunch of roller coasters to make sure we got them in before any lightning hit.
Unfortunately we ended up getting totally rained out around 3pm. We returned to granny's house where I gave my kids their tablets while Dillan and Justin watched youtube videos then fell asleep. All those roller coasters wore them out!
The next day was the first day of Oscar's reunion, the one that was more casual and family friendly. Oscar chatted while the kids played on the grass. Allison was excited to climb to the top of the bleachers and pretend to be a bird flying high in the sky.

Allison and her cousin Jane share the same hair. Jane's birthday party was the next day, which we went to for the first part of the evening then had to dash away to Oscar's adult only reunion. We hadn't known it would be a wet event, but luckily I had a bunch of clothes in the car to hand down to Melissa. I put Allison in an old swimsuit that was clearly a bit small for her, but it worked for the day. The reunion was a banquet style meal with some tables for sitting at and some for standing. I have to say it was delicious food for the price. I could have eaten that trifle all day long. The chicken might have been the cheaper option, but it was tender and juicy and everything I ever wanted it to be. We went home stuffed!

There's a house near Oscar's parents that has a peacock and a sign saying "Beware of Peacock!"

Here's cute Allison spinning around at church on the stage at Oscar's parents' ward on Sunday. Later we went down for a barbecue at Mike's house where Allison played with Emma and Sophie's beanie boos. Here she's doing a "best in show" pet show with them and making them do tricks.

That evening we had dinner at Melissa and Matthew's house. Allison, Emma, and Lily all wore their matching "Reach for the Stars" shirts, so we took lots of cute pictures of them together.
We told them to get close for the pictures, so they all started hugging and Allison started kissing her cousins. It was so sweet!

The next day the Havertz family came up to play at Granny and Grandpa's house. Allison and Emma liked going for wagon rides with grandpa.

On Tuesday I took Rebecca and the Havertz family to Lagoon for their 2 for 1 after 2:00pm on Tuesday deal. Lagoon is horrible about discounts. They're doing this Tuesday deal rather than a bounce back this year. 
Here are the kids on the rockets and kiddie boats. I'm sure this was Allison's last ride on the kiddie boats since the max height is 46 inches. She was 46 inches then, but they still let her go on. The nice thing is being 46 inches opened up a bunch of Lagoon roller coasters and water slides for her. 
Here they are on Puff the Magic Dragon and the teacups.

Mom, dad, and Ethan came up later, which meant we could swap off with the adults. I was able to do Jumping Dragon, Rocket, and Cannibal with Melissa and Rebecca. Towards the end of the day we went on the train with the Havertz family.

That night we slept in Mike's motor home. He'd let us borrow it since Emily's family of 9 had arrived and we needed a bit more sleeping space. 
On Thursday I took the kids out to play with their cousin Nolan on at the Olympic Oval Playground. It's neat! It's easy to see why it's a popular, award winning playground. We'll be back.

Nolan is their second cousin (my cousin Justin's son), but all of Nolan's first cousins are much older than him. He's 5, and the youngest of his 1st cousins is 13. My kids are really the only cousins he has that are close to his age, so aunt Kathy likes having them play with Nolan whenever we make a trip out. 
After playing at the playground we ate lunch at Arctic Circle then went swimming at mom and dad's pool.

Later we had a family camp out at granny and grandpa's house. Here's a video I took when Allison was trying to take a tricycle up the hill but couldn't quite make it. Cousin Lily got behind her and pushed with all her might. Even though Allison kept rolling back down and getting frustrated, Lily kept going until they'd gotten up over the hill. It was so sweet!

On Saturday we made one final trip to Lagoon, which sadly, was not a great day. I took the kids early before mom, dad, and Mike's family could meet us there because we'd missed doing the adult bumper cars and tilt a whirl on our previous visits. We got there to find both rides were closed for the rest of the day. We rode the sky ride to get over to Colossus, and it stopped around 4-5 times, one of which left us sitting in the hot sun for several minutes. When we finally did make it to Colossus, it closed right when we got in line for it, and being that it was Saturday, all the other lines were super long.

We did make it over to the kids' bumper cars, which were working but loaded super slow and the kids had trouble figuring out how to drive them, then we went into the water park. Allison was barely tall enough to do the blue tube slides.

The next day was July 3rd and hot! We went swimming at the outdoor pool at Mike's gym and hung out at his house until the evening. Allison fell asleep next to the hot tub.

That evening we went to the West Jordan Carnival and fireworks show, which was conveniently held at a playground we love at the Veteran's memorial. At one point Allison couldn't find me (I was circling the playground looking for her), so she showed a police officer her safety tat and they called me and Oscar to let us know they had her. I came around the corner to find her surrounded by about 8 officers all asking me where I got the tattoos and wishing every kid had something like that. I think I would have found her soon enough since she was on the playground and I was circling it, but I'm glad to know she knew the right kind of adult to go to when she was lost. She'd also done that at Lagoon-a-beach the previous day. She couldn't find me so she showed her tattoo to a lifeguard. Fortunately I saw her from a distance and yelled down until she spotted me, so they never needed to call me. 

I hadn't intended to buy tickets for the carnival since it was late and lines were long, but Mike's friend gave us his leftover tickets when his kids were worn out. We did a couple of fun houses, the giant slide, and one kids' ride before heading back to watch fireworks (we actually ran out tickets on the ride since I'd miscounted and didn't realize we only had enough for one kid, but the operator was kind enough to let both kids go through). Unfortunately the fireworks were 18 minutes later than announced, which was a bit concerning. Once they did start it was a great show, but the kids were super tired. Even Tyler fell asleep in the car on the drive back to granny's, which almost never happens.

The next day we packed up, went to church, then started on our drive home. Our friends in the tri-cities were visiting Boise at the same time, and they invited us to their friend's July 4th party. They have beach front property that overlooks a lake in the middle of their neighborhood. They'd purchased about $800 worth of fireworks and put on a great show for us. They weren't even done when we needed to leave to get the kids to bed at our hotel. 

Cambria and family made it back to the tri-cities before we did since they drove overnight while their kids slept. We met up with them at their house for a late lunch. Allison and Avery spent hours playing together while I got in some good adult conversation and had a nice break from the drive. We made it home that night shortly before 9:00pm. 

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