Rides, rides and more rides!

We purchase Busch Gardens season passes every year with a bunch of our friends and enjoy spending the morning/early afternoon riding rides, packing (sneaking in) a picnic lunch and visiting the Sesame Street characters.  Last week, I decided to let Madelyn skip school so we could enjoy a beautiful 75 degree day at Busch Gardens without any crowds.  Unfortunately, the other family we were meeting came down with the stomach bug (8 miles from the park) and had to turn around and go home.  Since the girls and I were pulling into the parking lot when we got the news, we decided to spend the day at Busch Gardens just the 3 of us.  Despite the change of plans, it ended up being a really fun day and the girls were surprisingly very well behaved the entire time.  Madelyn was a trooper because she wasn't able to go on any of the "bigger" rides, but she enjoyed riding the rides with Ellie.  They even convinced me to go on the Tea Cups (I hate that ride because the spinning makes me sick), and I actually enjoyed the ride because the Madelyn and Ellie laughed the entire time.  It's easy to go on the Tea Cups with a 4 and 2 year old because they don't realize that you can turn the center wheel to make it go around and around so we did a little less spinning than the other people on the ride.   Madelyn's favorite part of our day was climbing the ropes on the big treehouse.   Ellie loved the airplane ride but hated any of the boat rides.  Our first trip of the year to Busch Gardens was a success and I LOVED spending such a special day with my sweet girls!

Here are some photos from our day: