Christmas in July

We took a little family vacation this week to Holiday World.  It felt kind of like Christmas in July with all the Santa statues, holiday gift shops, etc in Santa Claus, IN.  The kids even saw Santa at an ornament shop we visited.  

A theme/water park with our family dynamics is a bit challenging but it seemed that we managed everything pretty well and we all had a really good time.  

 We saw many displays to remind us of the REAL meaning of Christmas (Santa even gave the kids a reminder about this!)

 Samuel got to drive a car (with Mom beside him)!  
(As did Nathan with the rest of our crew)

Nathan flying high (he's the highest one in the picture)

While Nathan was off riding bigger rides with Dad, the little kids and I rode the Freedom Train through Mother Goose Land.

Lucas really enjoyed the playground!

 Holidog!

 Nathan's 1st roller coaster-- he rode it once with Dad and once with me and LOVED it!

We spent most of the afternoon at Splashin Safari where we all enjoyed floating in the Congo river (Lucas napped there), the wave pool, some water play areas, and Nathan & Dad rode the Mammoth!  Emma and Samuel got a huge bucket of water dumped on them from high above their heads, and have been talking nonstop about it since... this was certainly the low point of the trip for them.  Samuel now calls that part of the park, "The dump" and tells everyone he comes in contact with, "I got dumped!"

From the Holiday World website:  "There is a gigantic bucket, 40 feet up, which constantly fills with water. And every few minutes, as the bucket fills up, it tips and splashes 1,000 gallons of water on the folks below."

We made it to most of the Christmas area, 4th of July, and some of Halloween but didn't even go into the Thanksgiving part of the park.  Maybe next time.

We spent the night at a nearby hotel and all slept well after an extremely full day.  Then we swam for a while and check out to explore the city of Santa Claus before heading home.

Santa's Candy Castle

Frozen hot chocolate!  YUM!

The 22-foot-tall Santa statue!

 One of the inscriptions...

 Lucas slept through all of this.  He was worn out!