March 30, 2019
For Gabe's birthday party, we allowed him to invite 3 friends to spend the afternoon at Castles 'n Coasters. He invited Sam, Lukas, and Jayden. They are all in his grade, but Sam is the only one who lives in our neighborhood. Erik took them for about 3 hours. The boys had unlimited access to the rides. We were going to let them play in the arcade for a while, but they had so much fun on the rides that they only got to spend 30 minutes or so in the arcade.
Four boys waiting in line to ride the bumper boats.
The Desert Storm roller coaster goes right over the bumper boats. It caught the boys' attention every time it went by.
This was about the only time that all 4 boys were riding close to each other.
They rode the Freefall next. Sam was a little nervous and waited with Erik. None of the boys wanted to ride the similar (but much higher, 120 foot) Skydiver.
A moment of panic followed by enjoyment.
After that, they rode in the swinging boat. Sam didn't want to ride the Sea Dragon. Lucas and Jayden didn't want to swing very high, so they sat in the very middle. I think Gabe wanted a bigger thrill and sat just behind the other 2 boys.
It was harder to get a picture of all the boys on the bumper cars.
Then they got in line for the Magic Carpet.
The ride starts out slowly.
Then it gets faster.
Finally, it goes backwards.
Gabe rode with Sam on the Patriot roller coaster.
Lastly, the boys spent some time in the arcade. Gabe was off playing a few classic arcade games from Atari and Super Nintendo. The other boys gravitated to games of basketball and air hockey. They pooled all their 200+ tickets together and split them evenly. Then they each picked out their individual prizes. Every boy said he wanted to play in the arcade longer, but we had already stayed much longer than planned.
All the boys had a good time and can't wait to go to Castle's n Coasters again.
When Erik and the boys came back, I had cupcakes with blue frosting waiting for them.
Ian loved the cupcakes, no matter what his face says!
