Wonder (Steph)

Hey, all! Second full day in Amarillo, TX. Theme of the day: making the best of it! The girls slept until like almost 8am which was a THRILL to us. Unheard of, really, for Mari and it's been AGES since Faith slept past 7am! Pretty awesome.

Got dressed quickly and headed out to "The Big Texan" because Matt had heard that they had a goood breakfast buffet. Oh wow was this place every stereotype you've ever heard of BIG, Texas cheesiness! It was hilarious! A HUGE fiberglass-type longhorn cow out front with those board things that are painted up and have holes in them to stick your face through to take pictures with. Like, cowboy outfits painted on without the heads and you stick your face through to make it look like you're the cowboy. So cheesy and fun.

Inside, there are just about every southwest "huntable" animal you can think of dead, stuffed and hanging on the wall. But wait, I've saved the best for last. "The Big Texan" is home to the 72 oz steak that you get for FREE if you can eat it within one hour!!! They have this clock set up front in the restaurant already set to 60:00. So funny. The food was decent, by the way.

Went back to the hotel and chilled.

Then we headed out to "Wonderland Park" not too far away from the hotel. It was a GREAT amusement park, kind've in the older style of amusement parks and carnivals and county fairs and the like. You pay $4 for an entrance fee and then you can buy tickets to ride the rides. Or you can pay $20 to ride all the rides all you want. Matt, Bob and Faith got the all you can ride passes (we had coupons of course) and we bought a few extra tickets for Mari (she could only ride a handful of rides due to height restrictions), Karen and me (I could only ride a handful of rides due to pregnancy restrictions).

Last year in Toronto, we went to a sort've similar park very much geared to young children and Faith astounded us all when she actually was not afraid to ride rides. We took a chance again and again were pleasantly surprised to see that she would try every single ride she was tall enough to ride. She threw a few minor fits when she couldn't ride the roller coasters Daddy and Zayde were riding. This is Little Miss I Am Afraid of All Bugs and of Trying ANY New Foods and of ANY New People and of Getting My Hair Brushed. Seriously. You would not believe how fearless this child is on amusement park rides.

ANYway. She says her favorite rides were the ferris wheel (she rode that twice) and the little cars (she rode those 3 times). She did not like the Scrambler or the Frog Hopper. Mari was able to ride the merry go round (with me), the little helicopters (with Zayde) and the cars (twice) with Faith. She couldn't ride the boats, much to her dismay, because there was no way to strap her in and we knew we'd be going after her in to the water. She's at a hard age for amusement parks -- too little to ride most rides but old enough to sort've understand what she was missing.

We were at Wonderland for about 3 hours and it was getting hot. On the way back to the hotel, Matt and I (in the front seats) hear this little voice from the "way back" saying, "I wouldn't mind a Sonic stop!" It was Karen, who was very thirsty! In Santa Fe after a particularly hot day, Matt and I introduced the family to Sonic. Karen had a strawberry fresh fruit slush. It was total and complete love at first drink! We knew for sure she was hooked when she asked for it again today. Yum. The only one in the Cincy area is all the way up in Mason. My best friend Katy had introduced me to it a long time ago in Kansas City, MO. If you've never had it, you don't know what you're missing!

Back to the hotel after Sonic to hang out some more. Ordered pizza from Pizza Hut and were, once again, amazed to see our daughters actually eat pizza!!! Faith ate an entire piece of cheese pizza by herself and Mari, grazing off of all of our pieces, probably ate more!

The girls were pretty tired so we put them to bed early and now here's the end of the day!

Yes, I know my blog posts are long. I can't help it. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you I try really hard to be brief (Matt's rolling his eyes right now, I know it). Matt's already working on the trip dvd!

OK. More later. Hopefully we'll have some updates on the rv repair situation tomorrow.

Love, Steph