Darien Lake

Every year M&T offers cheap tickets and free food at the pavilions to one of the two theme parks near us. This year it was at Darien Lake, and we decided to do it for the first time. In previous years I've been either pregnant or we have a baby and we didn't think it would be very fun. But I'm not pregnant and we thought Hannah would be more manageable this year, so we decided to give it a try. Marshall's birthday was on the Tuesday before, so instead of giving him a party this year we told him this was to celebrate his birthday.

We had a great time. There were more kids' rides than I expected, and they loved riding on them. It wasn't as crowded as I was afraid it would be, either. It was the first Saturday after school let out, so I was afraid it would be crazy, but it wasn't bad. The worst lines were at the waterpark, so we didn't let the kids go on the big slides, but they had fun in the kids' area and at the wave pool. Hannah was a trooper, considering she only slept for about 20 minutes in the stroller. She started to lose it at the end, but overall the kids were very good.

Spencer loved the bumper cars. He's asked to go on them since last summer, and I was very happy to see the there were some just for kids. They were down for a while when we first got there, but once they were up and running, he got to go about 5 times. There was no line, so once he was done he would run out and back to the entrance and get to go again. He loved it.

M&T also had foold pavilions available for us from 12-5, so we had lunch and dinner there. They had hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, mac and cheese, fruit, drinks, and desserts. It was definitely the way to go. Here's Spencer after enjoying his frosty treat. Can you tell what color it was?

He was a little excited. Spencer was almost exactly 48" tall, so he could go on some of the big rides. He went on a motorcycle-type ride with me, and then went on the Viper twice, once with me and once with Peter. He probably would have gone on more, but we didn't really want to. I went on one fast circle ride with all of them (even Hannah), and felt sick for about half an hour afterward. Too much spinning! So I was a little more cautious after that.

Anyway, we had a great time. Here's a picture of Marshall and Spencer on the merry-go-round, the last ride of the day. I got my fried dough while they rode and then shared it with them when it was over. We had a great time. I think we'll try it again next year.