canobie lake park

The weekend after we moved here, Sam's work had an employee day at a small local amusement park called Canobie Lake Park. It only cost $20 for all 4 of us to go and included a surprisingly good lunch of burgers, bbq chicken, corn, watermelon, and ice cream. Anna, however, didn't eat anything because she could see the big swings that spin around in a circle and was mesmerized.

So, once Sam and I ate, we headed off. It took a lot of convincing to get Anna to wait in line for the first ride, the sky coaster, but she loved to see the "yeshi" (her all purpose word for when she doesn't know the name of something), or Star Blaster ride that shot people up in the air on a tall tower. A month later, Anna will still say, out of the blue, "It was fun to see the star blaster!!!!"


Once on the ride, Anna loved it, though Sam said his stomach was in knots as Anna wanted to sit on the very edge of the bench and would push away Sam's hands whenever he tried to hold on to her. (A note about the pictures: of course Anna fell and scraped her face on the way home from the pool the morning of this little trip when I had intended to take a lot of pictures)




After all of us rode on the antique cars, we discovered the little kid rides. Anna seemed a little wary at first, but once she saw she could ride in a boat, she was convinced. It took her a while to warm up. All the other kids were turning the steering wheels and ringing the bells on the boats, but Anna mostly just sat there with her thumb in her mouth and only gave half-hearted waves after hearing us say, "Wave hi, Anna!!!" as enthusiastically as possible. Still, she loved it, and rode every single ride in that section of the park. We loved it at first, too and flashed tons of pictures, but Sam and I soon got bored and I think even Anna got a little jaded after a while once she realized that every single ride was the same (sit in a boat/jeep/bus/plane/horse and ride in a circle). Here are some of the better pictures and some video.

If you open this picture larger, you'll see that if you push and pull the bar you go up and down. I wouldn't say Anna got the hang of it, but she did manage to move herself around more than some older kids whose helicopters just sat on the ground the whole ride.

Once she got tired of it, she and I rode the train around the park and then Sam got in line behind a guy from work to get on a mini-rollercoaster. I was so excited for Anna to ride it, but the line was taking forever, so I had her ride the mini-swings. She begged to go on them again, but I thought Sam was getting close to the front of the line. We went to check, but there was still time, so I took her on the kids version of the star blaster called the Froggy Jumper. Anna laughed and laughed the whole time as it bounced up and down.






Finally, Sam was close to the front, so I sent Anna up to stand with him. Right before it was their turn to get on, she hit her head on one of the rails and went nuts. Sam tried to console her, but there was no way she was getting on that little dragon ride, so we brought her down and headed for the exit. She was hot and tired and hungry, so we gave her water and crackers and she watched the boat ride go back and forth while I fed Levi. Every time the people on the ride would scream, Anna would go, "Woooaaah!" too. It was very cute.

On the way out, when she was feeling better, we passed a little log ride that I thought she should ride. It turned out to be the most boring ride on earth as the logs followed a path of barely moving water at about 1/2 a mile an hour. All the dads in line kept sarcastically telling their kids not to be frightened and mocking the ride in any way they could, and Anna was certainly confused on the point of her sitting on the log, but it appeased my desire for her to go on one more ride, so I'm glad we did it.

This is what Levi looked like when he wasn't sleeping.

It's certainly no Cedar Point, and definitely not worth the $30 per person regular admission fee, but it was the perfect outing for our little family. I also have to admit that Sam and I were pretty proud of Anna for being a little daredevil for trying and loving every ride. We're looking forward to next year's trip.