My awesome mother agreed to help me take this on. We found a deal for a two day pass and got a hotel with a shuttle to the park. We figured we could drive up and spend the afternoon at the park, sleep at the hotel, go back to the park in the morning, and then drive back to Virginia.
The ride there went really well. Vivian only had to stop once to go to the bathroom. Elena screamed for a bit, until Vivian (the world's best big sister) gave Elena her book. Elena "read" it for a minute before falling asleep.
We made good time, so we were early for check in, but the hotel was fine with us dropping off our luggage and hopping on the shuttle to the park. The first ride we saw when we came in was a Super Grover roller coaster. Vivian had never ridden a roller coaster, so she really wanted to try it. There was no line, so it was easy to get on.
It was a relatively tame roller coaster, but there was a moment while we were whooshing along, that I was worried. Vivian was huddled over making whimpering noises. When we got to the end, I expected her to be traumatized, but instead she said, "I think we need to do that again. I need to get used to it." We looped back around to the entrance side and got on again. This time she looked up and giggled nervously. At the end, she said we should probably do it one more time, because she knew how much I liked roller coasters, and she wanted to be able to keep me company when I went on it. I said she was very thoughtful, but we were only going to do it one more time. She agreed and we went around again.
After that we walked farther into the park. Elena kept spotting Elmo's face everywhere, and exclaiming, "Elmo!" with equal parts surprise and delight. You would think the enthusiasm level would fade after a while, but no. It was "Elmo!" all day long. We tried to find a ride that Elena could go on and enjoy. The carousel seemed like a safe bet.
She started crying when the horse went up and down, and after a minute she was reaching for me and begging me to get her off of it. I held her, hoping she would at least like the spinning, but she didn't seem to like that either, so that was her last ride. Instead, she spent most of the afternoon playing in the Little Monsters area with my mom.
While they were hanging out in the semi-shade, Vivian and I went on as many rides as possible, some of them more than once.
Her favorite (after the roller coaster of course) was the swings ride.
We took a break for the afternoon parade, "Elmo!"
We also found the Elmo photo spot next to one of the rides Vivian and I went on. Elena wasn't so sure about getting up close and personal with this giant version of Elmo, but she followed Vivi up to him, because big sister must know what she's doing.
Since we hadn't had enough Elmo yet, we then went to have dinner with Elmo and friends. The timing actually worked out perfectly, because the sky had been getting darker and darker, and a few minutes after we went into the dinner it started pouring. It rained the whole time we were at dinner, and then stopped just as we were finishing up.
Elena thought it was very exciting to have Elmo on her cup and her bib.
She wasn't so sure about the characters coming up to the table though.
Vivian, on the other hand, was in her element.
And when the dancing started, she literally kicked off her shoes and got down with the characters. The funniest was her following the Count to learn the moves for YMCA. She had this focused expression on her face that was super cute.
She took a break from dancing to chat with Elmo.
She got her photo op too.
Elena was just awestruck.
After dinner, we took the shuttle back to the hotel, and, what do you know, "Elmo!"
Apparently, the cardboard version is more approachable. My mom followed Elena around the lobby on her character discovery, while I got us checked in.
The girls were so wired from their fun that it took a while for them to settle down and fall asleep.
Elena wanted to call Dada to tell him about our day, but the timing wasn't quite right for a real call, so she made an Elena style call.
By 9:30 both girls were sound asleep, and we didn't hear much from them until about 7:00am, which was great. Vivian has been talking about pancakes with strawberry syrup at IHOP, so I figured this would be a good opportunity for her to get that special treat. She insisted that she could pour the syrup herself, since she's almost seven.
She did a great job and was very proud!
This was also Elena's first time having pancakes. She liked them :-)
After eating a mountain of pancakes, we were all fueled up and ready to go back to the park for a few more hours. Luckily, we had a bit of a digestion break, because Vivian wanted to go on the roller coaster three more times as soon as we went in. Then she went on the swings twice. Turns out pancakes make Elena sleepy.
Vivian decreed that Safta needed to go on a ride too, so my mom picked one she thought looked pretty tame.
We were meeting a friend who lives in the area for lunch, so we tried to move Vivian towards the exit. Of course, that's where the roller coaster is. We had to go on it "just one more time", but after that she wanted just one more time. I made a deal, we would do one more, as our good bye to Sesame Place, and then we would leave without tears. She agreed. As we were leaving the ride, I saw the pictures they take while you're on it. I thought the start of Vivian's roller coaster addiction was important to document, so I splurged on the photo.
It came with two key chains, and Vivian held on to hers for most of the rest of the day. When we got back home and got everything into the house five minutes before it started pouring rain, my mom and I decided that we had pulled off a practically perfect trip and gave each other a congratulatory high five.
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