Oaks Park

We went to Oaks Park yesterday, for my youngest brother's 14th birthday. For you out-of-towners, this is a small amusement park in Portland. We went on a Tuesday because it was two-for-one day (I can see a running theme in most of my blog posts about how cheap we are...), so most of the rest of my family couldn't come because of work. It was just JR and our girls, my mom, my brother, Adam, and a friend of his, Stephen. The first ride we took the kids on was called the Spider. It looks like this:

Bad choice. It was much freakier than it looks, even for grownups, and both kids screamed and cried the whole ride. And the worst part about it was, they can't stop the ride - the kids just have to be freaked out until it ends. And I end up looking like a terrible mother who forces her kids to do crazy things. Also, Chloe's cry, especially, was unlike any other cry I've heard from her: it was true, primal panic. So horrifying for a mother to hear!

Chloe ended up crying and screaming on 3 different rides. Then I finally realized that she could really only ride the kiddie rides. That was plenty thrill for her! Thankfully, she didn't seem totally damaged by her ordeal, and recovered really quickly. She loved the carousel... And the rocketships...
And the cars...
And the motorcycles...
Maddie loved every other ride she went on. Here's a pic of her on the roller coaster with Daddy:

The great thing about Madison was that, aside from the Spider, she loved the kiddie rides as well as the thrill rides (the intermediate thrill rides, I should say - she didn't go on anything too crazy), so the girls got to go on tons of rides together. Maddie's at an age where she'd not too old for the little kid stuff, but she's old enough to enjoy some bigger kid stuff. Makes for some really fun family activities these days!

Today Madison and I are going shopping with my sister, Heidi, for school clothes and supplies. She starts kindergarten on Wednesday! Aaaahhh!