Survivors

While the cousins were visiting, we went to the fantastic old amusement park that I've talked about before. It has a 100-year-old roller coaster, which (cover your eyes, Caity), Xavier thoroughly enjoyed. Seriously. It's scary. I've told the story of how I was once driving by the park and saw workers tossing pieces of white lumber back over the fence beneath the roller coaster, which, I should point out, is constructed of white lumber. Also, there was the time my friend Mark and I got summoned to the office for taking pictures of the rides, and I really, seriously, thought they were going to smash Mark's camera until we insisted we were just taking pictures of the signs and not of the rides themselves. Instead they made Mark sign a statement saying he'd delete all the photos and never ever ever ever share them with anyone. Most especially not people with any amusement park regulating agencies.

But it's also FUN! And CHEAP! Yay!

So it's noteworthy that the children all survived their adventure, but also significant is the fact that Greg and I survived it. As we were leaving to go to the park, our 5-year-old next-door neighbor (who is probably more accurately described as Sidamo's roommate for all the time they spend together) was hysterical at the thought of missing out on all the fun. Easily swayed by little boy tears (and probably a little delirious from exhaustion), we decided to bring him along.

Which, if you're counting, means we went to a deathtrap of an amusement park with FIVE children. And we returned with FIVE children. Including TWENTY limbs. Miraculous.

Our one faux pas was arriving with an almost-dead camera battery, but it's probably for the best that neither of us was focused on taking pictures, leaving us both able to focus on counting children—and children's limbs.

Here are the couple of pics we did get, though, on a decidedly more innocuous ride.

Clearly the sunscreen issue remains unresolved.