Field Trip Friday #49--North Pole at Seven Peaks

This year, for the first time, Seven Peaks Water Park has been transformed into the North Pole.  Wanting to capitalize on an empty park, they have instituted fun activities and given it a Christmas theme.  There is sledding on one of the waterslides, boat rides on the lazy river, a train ride, Santa, and short Christmas movie showings.  Doesn't that sound like a perfect Field Trip Friday activity?  I thought so, too.  Today I took the kids and we were joined by Christopher and Tysen, Ava, Lyla, and Rowen.  

We had a great time.  The sledding was super fun, though dragging the sleds up the ramps to get to the top wasn't a lot of fun.  Blythe couldn't pull hers very well, but she wanted to go with me or Ava, so that was one less sled to haul up.  I thought it was exciting and have decided that we need to go tubing again, something I haven't done since before I graduated from high school.  The boat ride around the lazy river was Brandt's favorite.  The boats are on large inflated tubes and can be driven forward.  It was hard to steer them, so we spent a lot of time going around and around in circles and bumping into other boats.  I laughed a lot!  There were lots of lights overhead and alongside which gave the whole experience a fun feeling.  The train ride was good, but we were forced to get off halfway through and watch a ten minute Christmas movie.  We probably would have skipped that, given the choice.  We did stop to see Santa; Lyla was pretty insistent, though she didn't really want to sit on his lap.  It was an amusing Christmas activity, and perfect for FTF.

This was a big chalk wall that anyone could write on.

That's my large yellow star shining down on the children.

We did sledding first.  They used the Avalanche run, which is not too steep, starts at the lowest level of waterslides, and has lots of lanes so the line goes quickly.  We got three runs in before the line got long waiting for sleds.  So fun!

Lyla was standing at the top of the slide with Tysen, unwilling to get in a sled.

I arrived, swooped her up and set her in my lap, and before she could protest, 

down we went.  

She loved it!

You had to schedule a time to do the boats because they were very popular and the line got long.  The park opened at 4:00, and though we were there right about then, we had to wait in a line to get our tickets.  I signed up for 5:00, figuring we would have plenty of time to get there.  We did.  Not only were we able to do our ride at 5:00, when we got off and were standing around talking about what to do next, and Brandt said, "Let's do the boats again!" there wasn't a line and the woman in charge let us all go a second time.  I was so pleased because later, as we were on our way out, there was a really long line and waiting in the cold stinks.

Brandt and I shared a boat.

He drove.

We went around and around and around and around and around.

As a result, I took a lot of blurry pictures with only partial people in them.

  

Crazy driver

The second time around, Brandt went by himself, Lyla came with me,

and Tysen went on her own to take pictures of all of us.

She wasn't much more successful than I had been.

Ooooooh! Twinkly lights!

Seeing Santa. 

He gave us all chocolate!

It's the demon family picture, with Lyla.

She wanted to be with us.

On the train in our winter wonderland.