Discovery Kingdom on July 30, 2007

This morning we meandered a little around San Mateo so I could show the kids where I went to school. We drove by my elementary school, middle school, and high school. Then we drove by the church where Papa was the pastor, the kids liked that. Also, we headed to the house where I grew up to take a picture. My, how property values have soared. This house is worth about $1.2 million in the current market!!!



Then we made our way to Vallejo to go to Discovery Kingdom. When I lived here, we used to take Youth Group trips there in the summer. But, at the time it was called Marine World, and there were no rides. It was more of an animal and marine park. It's kind of sold out since then--there are 'sponsors' like Papa Johns and Cold Stone Creamery, whose signs are all about. The whale show even had a commercial on the big screen before it started, from the sponsor, Toyota. And, Toyota's were on display throughout the park! But, the kids were no less impressed.

When we first got there, Jacob was so excited to ride the upside down rides. We headed straight for the roller coasters. He didn't meet the height requirement for the first one, so we went to the 'junior coaster' next door so all the kids could go on. Noah was hesitant, but went with me. Jonah completely refused and stayed off with Robb. Jacob was Mr. Confidence. When we emerged from the ride, Noah said, "That was awesome!" Jonah wished he had gone, and Jacob was wailing because he was so scared since he'd had to ride alone. Jonah did go on later with Robb and he loved it, but still had to be cajoled to actually get on.We saw a dolphin show, an acrobatic show called MaBoomBoom, and a show with a killer whale named Shouka. Even though they were really excited about the rides, they also were really captivated by the shows.At the end of the day, even though everyone was totally wiped out, we all wished we had more time. The kids got to go on lots of littler rides towards the end.

Here, we were standing in line for the water rapids line. It was hot and the kids were spent. It wasn't too long of a wait, but boy did we all get drenched!

As you can see, while we were on the water rapids ride, Rebecca, Jacob, and I went right under a water fall and it drenched us from head to toe, right down to our underwear. The kids thought mom and dad looked funny so wet. What do you do?

This is one of those rare moments, that when you are a parent, you take it it, take pictures, and stand there in awe. Thought this was a cute picture. This was how the whole day was.......right!

Noah loved the Tomas the train town the best. We rode the train and the kids played in the gift shop afterwards with all the trains.

We took the tram back to the parking lot with the same family who had sat behind us on the tram on the way in this morning. They took an after picture of our whole family. We all had a great time today, but were so tired. We had an hour car ride back to our hotel and the kids fell asleep since we didn't get home until 10:30 p.m. To another full day of play.

RnR