Saturday afternoon I gathered the family together. They were all excited-NOT. I told them I had something I wanted to do.

I then proceeded to hand them all the gifts I had put under the tree for them. They were in shock, we never open presents early (despite Kyle's days and days of trying to convince me every year that we really do open presents on Christmas Eve).

They all opened their boxes to find a Seasons Pass to Six Flags, then they were told they had 10 minutes to get ready, we were leaving to go. After that they actually perked up (once the shock wore off). Now you have to understand that we have lived here 11 years, 11 months and a little more than 11 days and have never been there, despite it being only 45 min. from our house (ok, actually the boys had both gone there once for a middle school field trip), we are not theme park going people (yes it is true, our kids have never been to the D-land place).

Once we got there, all the boys and Krystal took off to go on the scary rides. The girls and I went off in search the good rides. We got a little lost and ended up finding all the animals before we found the rides. The tigers are huge (I'm pretty sure that the fence was at least 20 feet tall, so we were safe from tiger attacks, and we didn't try to taunt it. It's feet looked almost as big as my head.)

There was an elephant out that you could pet. All the animal areas had workers by them to tell you about the animals. It was kind of neat.

I think the male lion wanted its picture taken, it was looking the other way, right after I took a picture, it turned to look at me, so I had to take another one.


There is a snow hill that you can sled down. Cammie was scared so I had to go with her the first time, then she wanted to go by herself. When she was almost down, her sled crossed over the divider and ran into another kid in the next lane. She didn't look like it was much fun. We all thought it was funny.


We finished the day with the dolphin show. We were warned not to sit in the front. They make the dolphins splash all the front rows of people. I was glad we listened to the warnings. We stayed dry.


By the end, everyone had had a good (although cold) time.

Why this made a great present:

5. Everyone liked it (halfway there Travis realized it was actually a season pass, not a one day thing, his look of shock was priceless).

4. One-Stop (web-site) shopping for 8 people.

3. It can be used over and over for a year.

2. Using it will be a good family activity and create good memories.

1. IT DOES NOT MAKE A MESS IN THE HOUSE OR ADD CLUTTER.