On Saturday night, August 13th, my whole family headed to Bartlesville to take the kids to the Kiddie Park. The last time we had been to the Kiddie Park was in 2009 when Emma was only 2 and a half and I was pregnant with Foster. You can see that post here. On that trip, Emma was very scared of the rides and only ended up riding the swings, the carousel, and the train! This year was so different! Emma rode almost every ride! It was so fun to watch the excitement on her face. Foster had a blast too. He only rode about 3 or 4 of the smaller rides and he loved watching Emma on some of the bigger rides.
We made quite a day out of our trip to Bartlesville… We had almost the whole crew there: Robin, Myself, Emma, Foster, Nana, Great-Aunt Judy, and Uncle Boom were all there. The Foster family has a lot of memories from Bartlesville because that’s where my Grandma and Grandpa lived for most of their lives. On our trip on Saturday we stopped at the Gap Outlet, the Cemetery, Dink’s BBQ for dinner, then the Kiddie Park. I always love being in Bartlesville because it brings back some great memories! it’s a neat little town.
Here are Emma and Foster before heading into the park…
the fam…
Here are Uncle Boom and Foster waiting in line for Foster’s first ride. I thought that if I had Uncle Boom put Foster on the ride he might actually go for it because he likes to act tough for Uncle Boom.
WRONG! Foster did ok until the ride STARTED and then started crying and asking for Mommy. That’s such a helpless feeling! Do ask them to stop the ride so you can get your child off? I hate to admit it but we all just kind of stood there and laughed… and gave him a little pep talk from the sidelines. After one go-round of the cars, he had stopped his crying and decided he’d just try to have fun. :)
I love this next picture… here he is saying “I guess this is ok… yeah, I’m cool with this.”
Clearly, Emma enjoyed herself!
There’s a new sheriff in town…
I love to see this big smile on Emma’s face- pure joy!
Next up was the boats…
One of the things I love the most about the Kiddie Park is that siblings can often ride a ride together or the child can ride with a parent. They loved having each other as their little security blanket.
By about the third go-round Foster really got a hang of turning the steering wheel- he really thought he was making that boat GO!
Next up… the roller coaster!!! I was shocked that Emma wanted to try the roller coaster- but she definitely did, she was so excited. She picked Mommy to ride with her and I was so excited! Here we are in line talking about what the roller coaster would be like! (On a side note, my Brother and I rode this roller coaster many times as young kids- we remember it being a LOT bigger than it really is!)
Getting ready to ride the roller coaster…
I love how we both have our mouths wide open here, we must be having fun!
Here we are on the second little dip… can you see Emma’s face? she loved it!
Emma loved the roller coaster and I’m so glad…. I LOVE amusement park rides and will ride just about anything. I hope someday she’ll be my little ride buddy.
After the roller coaster we stopped for some silly family pics…
Next up was the swings… Emma remembered them from her last trip and was so excited for Foster to ride them with her! He did pretty well. He looked kind of scared for the first half of the ride but then just chilled out and looked like he was about to fall asleep!
Next up was the tilt-a-whirl. Emma picked Judy and Brandon to ride this ride with her. It’s a GOOD thing she chose Aunt Judy because she held on to Emma very tightly as Brandon spun the tilt-a-whirl to it’s maximum speed. Apparently there was so me “miscommunication” between Judy and Brandon- Judy was telling Brandon to SLOW DOWN but Brandon must have thought she was saying SPEED UP! Not really. The reality is that Uncle Brandon is quite a stinker. Thankfully, no one got sick.
Here they are before the ride…
Having fun on the tilt-a-whirl.
This face says it all- she had fun on the tilt-a-whirl with Uncle Brandon and Judy. She LOVES to spin, so I knew this would probably be a hit with her.
Daddy and Foster waiting to ride the carousel.
Daddy rode the carousel with Foster and Nana rode the carousel with Emma. They each got on a horse and had a great time together.
It was very difficult to get a good picture of Emma on the airplanes but she did ride them… twice.. because she couldn’t figure out how to pull the lever back to make the plane go in the air. She’s so little, she just couldn’t pull it hard enough!
For the last ride Mommy rode the turtle roller coaster with both Foster and Emma. It was very dark outside and hard to get good pictures but here are a few…
We closed the park down at 10:00. Here are Emma, Foster, and Nana taking a break before getting in the car to drive home.
Foster got a little slap-happy right before we left… maybe it was the ice cream, cotton candy, and snow cone bites that he had just sampled? He didn’t sleep a wink on the drive home- he just laughed the whole way home- clearly delirious!
Wanna know my favorite thing about the Kiddie Park… it is dirt cheap! We spent about $14 for rides and snacks… total. Fun was had by all. We’ll see you again next year Kiddie Park!