A Weekend At Carowinds

Carowinds, North and South Carolina
How much can you pack into one weekend?!?! We did our best. On Friday morning we flew off to Charlotte, NC for our annual "roller coaster fix!" Our goal was to have a blast on the coasters, as well as spend some time with Kevin's sister Stephanie and her family, and Austin & Elizabeth. It has been a good six years since we have seen Kevin's old roommate from college and it was wonderful to see them again. Its awesome when you can hook up with people after so many years and it just feels natural, just like you haven't' really been apart (with the exception of a few additional kids of course!!) They welcomed Jadeyn in as part of their family instantly! Katherine, Adison and Ashton romped around with Jadeyn and us and loved showing us their playground: they live just about two minutes from Carowinds!

Stephanie and family were so happy that we were able to see them as well. Jadeyn was ecstatic to see his cousins again!!! This is our third long distance coaster park that we have been able to to with them!: Kings Dominion in Virginia, Hershey Park in Pennsylvania and now Carowinds in North Carolina! We love having them as our vacation buddies!

We were on our own for the second day in the park and crammed in as many coasters as we could, but still managed to spend a few hours in Snoopyville for Jadeyn!



Jadeyn loved the Swings!! He was a little unintentional rebel however. He would rock the swing, stretch to kick the swing in front of him, grab onto the swing in front of him and rattle his chains! Not because he was misbehaving, he just couldn't contain his excitement!

Jadeyn's first "big kid roller coaster" was a complete success the first time around. He went with Kevin and even held his hands up on the first hill. Once the car started to plunge however, he held on so tight! Then he demanded to stay on and go two more times! When I took him the next day though: no hands up and he practically hid under the bar for safety, but still wanted to go two more times! I think we were nearing nap time at this point!

The Intimidator

The Intimidator is the parks newest and biggest coaster opening up just this year. It was a thing of beauty! 211 foot drop at 75 mph. It was a smooooth ride and very thrilling. We went on it about 12 times each between the two days. It was similar in style to Apollo's Chariot in Busche Gardens, VA. So much air time that you don't even notice that you never go upside down!


Other favorites were Afterburn a nice coaster where your legs dangle down. I tried the Carolina Cobra, a coaster where they pull you up the track backwards, then drop you down, ride through the tracks to the other end, where they hoist you up again and you do it all again, but backwards!

We enjoyed all of Saturday with friends and family at the park and wore everyone out!! Dinner was in the lovely home of Austin and Elizabeth with some awesome Chinese food!

Sunday morning at breakfast all Jadeyn could talk about was "ride the park! ride the park!" We can see the park from our hotel, and it was almost more than he could handle. A nice leidsurly day followed treating Jadeyn to all the kiddie rides and then taking turns on the big ones! I'd play with Jadeyn at a fountain while Kevin would go on Intimidator a few times and then we would switch. We were amazed at how short the lines were today!!! If we didn't have Jadeyn to force us to take a break, we probably would have made ourselves sick!

We treated Jadeyn to a giant "fill up your own" pixie stick! He loved it until he got to one of the extra sour flavors, and boy did he dance! I got it on video, but it was his second taste so it wasn't quite as dramatic as the original.











Sunday night, Austin & Elizabeth had us over to their house again, and once more they amazed us by a gourmet spread! Homemade lasagna, homemade focaccia bread, angel food cake and fresh fruits! We stuffed ourselves and once again enjoyed their company while the kids played.

Over all, we had a spectacular trip! We usually reserve our coaster trips for the middle of winter, but we couldn't resist visiting and taking advantage of seeing everyone.



Oh, the plane ride. Jadeyn did very good. It was wonderful to have him be in his own seat with a seatbelt. He slept for one leg of the trip each way and the rest of the time we entertained him. I had to change a poopy diaper on the plane in the tiny bathroom and this one didn't even have a pull out table! Balancing his head and shoulders on the toilet seat (trying not to wonder if it was clean or not) I held is legs and bum in the air while doing my best not to ... you get the idea. Luckily, on the return flight, he at least waited until the flight was already boarding before I had to race to the bathroom and change him. Oh the adventures!