Idlewild

Dave and I took a vacation day to take Neil to Idlewild and Soak Zone, an amusement park east of Pittsburgh that is geared more towards younger kids than something like Kennywood is. Neil loved it. We got there when it opened at 10:30am and let Neil play until he wore himself out and then he napped on the drive home. Actually, he zonked out in the stroller as we walked through the park and slept through the transfer into the car seat, he was so tired.

We started out in Storybook Forest, which is just houses and things set up to show different stories and rhymes. This is pretty boring in general but great for Neil's age although I'm not sure how many of the nursery rhymes he's heard. Some of them I haven't heard myself in a long time.

Little Miss Muffett

Hard to tell but this is a Pirate ship

One of his favorites- the Little Engine That Could

He spent a lot of time in the train walking through all the cars

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Sword in the Stone

Then we stopped to eat lunch before moving riding any rides, and Neil was definitely hungry. They say they have kids meals but they didn't really have anything healthy- we got Neil a hot dog and french fries, along with milk. We already had some pouches so we gave him one of those as well for fruit/vegetables.

Then we went to Daniel Tiger's area, which is kiddie land and Neil loved the rides. He actually walked himself to them although he needed help to get on and seemed to really enjoy them although he seems to be like me and doesn't show any reaction so it can be hard to tell. But he kept pointing and wanting to go on more.

I have no idea who the other kid is and as you can see there were empty motorcycles but Neil headed right to the one here and sat next to this kid. Luckily the other kid didn't seem to mind although it looks like he's posing for us haha.

This was the ride he kept pointing at to go on

And finally we went to the Soak Zone part, which I was impressed with. They have a number of different areas, for all ages. There is a wave pool, water slides, one of those huge buckets that dumps water, as well as a few separate play areas for different age ranges. We hung out in the little splash zone and wading pool. I was looking for Dave at one point and Neil actually fell and swallowed some water, so the actual wading pool didn't last long but he loved the splash zone and we had to literally drag him away. He was way past naptime but didn't seem to mind.

I really like that we took a vacation day to do this- it was a lot less crowded than it would have been and the weather was perfect. It did rain for about 10 minutes earlier in the morning but Dave and Neil were in the Three Bears' house and I had the stroller outside standing under a tree. And it only lasted 10 minutes or so, then cleared and got pretty warm so that the water in the splash zone felt nice. If this weren't about an hour from our house I'd want to get a season ticket for next year- it would definitely be worth going several times. Neil enjoyed it this year but I bet next year he'll be able to ride some of the medium rides and would enjoy it even more. Hopefully we get back sometime next summer.