Mystery Outing

Seth works with Oracle through his job. Each year they do a party at Lagoon for customer appreciation. Only a few employees get to go each time and this year it was us! We were thrilled. The kids love Lagoon but it doesn’t justify the cost for our family of eight. It would cost us about $250 for a day. Needless to say, we had a GREAT time!

We decided to make it a mystery outing. This entails nothing more than telling the kids to get ready in their summer attire and to get in the car. Some kids liked the suspense more than others, but Seth thoroughly enjoyed surprising them.

We headed out at about 9:30 am and dropped Ellie off at Grandma Jan’s house (thanks Grandma!). We decided leaving her would make the long day a little easier. With their blind folds on, we approached Lagoon. Someone that chose not to wear their blindfold yelled “Lagoon!” All the blindfolds came off and the kids started screaming! They were so excited. We kept hearing: “Is this for real?” “No way?!” and several other similar expressions. It was really cute.

Once we got through the door the fun never stopped. Megan, Jake and Seth hit every scary ride/roller coaster several times. Katelyn and Claire tried most every ride at least once, but were a bit hesitant to do a few of them more than that one time. Everyone was surprisingly brave (except me that is). I hung with Drew most of the time. Looking back I should have probably done more but it was a little tricky with Drew not being tall enough for most of the “big people” rides.

Some of the favorite rides were: Wicked, Rocket, and Colossus. As a family though, we were only able to do a few rides together. Those were the pirate ship, the ferris wheel, the log run, and the rattlesnake rapids.

This is the four oldest on Wicked. They are on the back row so it is hard to see them, but it is them.

Seth and Drew on the lift

Claire on the swings!

Meg, KK, Jake and Dad on the Rocket

Meg, Claire and KK

Drew having fun in the airplanes.

Oracle provided and “all-you-can-eat” lunch for us as well. The kids ate SO much food. After lunch we were so full that we didn’t dare ride any super crazy rides. Megan, our little daredevil, begged for someone to ride Samurai with her, but nobody was willing. That was the only ride I think we skipped.

The kids weren’t looking forward to getting wet so we put off Rattlesnake Rapids till later. As we stood in line, the kids got nervous watching everyone exit the ride soaked. We made a deal that we would all move around in the raft to help avoid getting too wet. The kids all put in their free Oracle hats (to block some of the water that would soak us) and got in the raft (see pic below). Unfortunately you can’t avoid all the water. Katelyn, being our more timid child, didn’t move around enough and was completely drenched afterward. She wasn’t too happy about it but was a good sport. I actually really like that ride a lot and wanted to go again, but couldn’t get any of the kids to go with me.

Toward the end of the evening we ventured around the Pioneer town with the little kiddos while the bigger kids went over and rode some of the bigger rides again. We came home completely exhausted but so happy to have spent a day of fun together!