Weeeeeeee......

Our exchange student, Nao (pronounced now), asked for a few things in her first letter. She told us she wanted to go to a movie or concert, an amusement park, and a handball game... we met her requests, except the handball game. We had a hard time finding that one. But, she brought one for us instead - we watched a DVD of her playing a game last fall. :)

Day 1... Nao arrived Friday night and we figured what better way to keep her awake all day on Saturday then to take her to ride roller coasters! It definitely worked! We started the day with Alyssa and Nao on JetStar.
She loved it! She was the perfect roller coaster rider ... arms up and screaming the whole time.
The Samurai was our next stop ... Alyssa wimped out and wouldn't ride, so I did. :)
Since the Tay and Jess can't ride the bigger rides, we split up. Me, Alyssa and Nao headed for the big rides while Steve took Jess and Tay to ride some smaller rides. Next stop, The Bat...
After the Bat and the new ride, BomBara, we bumped into Steve and the girls. He had convinced the little girls to try BomBara. THEY LOVED IT!! Yikes, my little girls are riding the big rides ... just wasn't ready for that. But it was hot, so we took a break and headed for the water park. So glad that Nao's knee was doing well enough that she could traipse around Lagoon and get wet and cool off in the pool.
After the water park, the girls all wanted to ride BomBara again. Since the roller coasters remind Steve and I that we aren't as young as we once were, we sat back and watched.
Although it was exciting that the little girls could ride the big rides, it made me a little sad. No traditional picture of the girls riding the little kid boats that have been there since Steve was a kid. But, it does mean no more ridiculously slow moving lines in the kiddieland. And it meant that we could all stick together and they'd ride all the rides. But first, we still rode the carousel.


Off to Mousetrap!! This was Jessica's favorite ride of hte day! She loved it! Taylor loved it and wanted to ride again right away. But we did convince her to try some other ones first.

Spider was next!
Tay loved Spider. But next came Wicked. Alyssa rode it last year and convinced Jessica and Taylor to give it a try. She promised Jessica a "treat" if she didn't like it. So off we all went! Steve sat on one end, with Jessica, then Tay and me. If you don't know what Wicked is ... it is a propulsion launch so you go from a stop to high speed almost instantly and you go from a dark tunnel to staring straight up into the sky as you shoot vertical into the air then peak at the top and go straight down before you spiral into some loops. ... I'd give a lot to have a picture of their faces as we rode this ride. Taylor laughed and giggled and screamed with joy all the way through.... a real adrenaline junky! Jessica, on the other hand, lived up to her "baby of a million faces" nickname we gave her when she was a baby. Steve looked over at her when we reached the top at the beginning of the ride and as she looked over the edge and realized she was going to be heading straight down, she didn't look panicked or scared ... just pure MAD! She got this angry look like "nobody told me about this!" expression. It was priceless When the ride stopped, she had a very stern, grumpy expression. When we asked her what she thought, she angrily told us "I'm mad at Alyssa. She owes me a treat." Steve and I both cracked up laughing ... which made her even more angry.
All in all, a wonderful day! We all enjoyed it so much, we agreed it would be fun to bounce back a 2nd day! :) So, more to come!

After Lagoon we went to a late night dinner at Applebees. While we waited for our food, Nao taught us a hand game called Yubisuma. Yubi means thumb. Everyone puts their fists into the center of the table. Five people means 10 thumbs. One player says yubisuma and then a number. The number represents the player's guess of how many thumbs the players will all put up. As the player says yubisuma #, all the players tap their hands to yu-bi-su-ma and then they each put up zero, one or two thumbs as the player says their guess. If the player said 5 thumbs and 5 thumbs go up, then that player removes one hand and the next player continues. If their guess is wrong, than they keep both hands and it is the next players turn. Play continues with the next player saying "yubisuma" and their guess. When a player has guessed correctly 2 times that player wins. Our kids loved it. I'm sure we will play it for a long time to come.