It's been quite a few years since Dave and I had been out to Stone Mountain, but we had heard how much it had changed and become very family friendly, and since it's kind of a haul for us from Canton, we wanted to make a day of it - well little did we know we could have made a weekend out of it!! That place is CHOCK FULL of fun stuff for kids to do!!
Activity Pass
So I was online trying to find a Groupon or other daily deal for admission to Stone Mountain, but as luck would have it there just were none available for when we wanted to go. But we knew we wanted to go specifically on the 24th of September, because the Skye Ride lift was going to be re-opened that day after being temporarily shut down for the previous month for improvements. So while Dave finished up his morning tennis match the boys and I headed to Kroger to stock up on picnic type food & drinks to keep in the car for the day & I checked out their ticket options, and although they ARE in fact cheaper then buying them at the gate, a fact I didn't realize until we were standing IN the ticket line at Stone Mountain, I did not end up purchasing them at Kroger ~ which turned out to be a GREAT thing, but up until the second I learned that I was kicking myself for not saving $5/ticket! Anyway as luck would have it at the park that same day was the annual Chili Cookoff - I called the park ahead of time to confirm that this would NOT be a repeat of the Yellow Daisy Craziness & Shirley at Stone Mountain reassured me that although the Chili cookoff crowd does get quite large, they are VERY interested in the Chili & not as much in the park - PERFECT!! Well since these festivities were going on the activity day pass tickets were 50% off - SEE good thing I hadn't purchased the Kroger tickets~!! The cool thing about these passes is that they give you 'all inclusive' access to EVERYTHING in the park (except for the DUCK truck ride - but as luck had it we ran out of time before we even made it to the lake portion of the day).
Again our reason for going on that day was the reopening of the Skye Ride, and you can imagine what we did first. . .YUP, Kaiden LOVED it!! He stood right at the window & pointed out everything he could see, talked about the train tracks, and the carving - he was captivated!! WE got to the top, for half of one minute we contemplated walking down - then remembered that would be fun for 5 minutes then it would be awful the rest of the hour & after a brief stay on the top of the mountain we rode the next Skye Ride back down to the ground. Round trip is the way for a pregnant Momma & toddlers to do the top of the mountain!!
My fearless explorers!
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| Can you tell that he LOVED it?!?! |
The ONLY way to top an agility course is with a ride on the zip line, of course!
What's That Coming Down The Tracks!?
So besides the Skye Ride, I knew the next 'must do' on our agenda was going to be the round trip train ride. I'm sure it's all boys, but mine LOVE trains & train rides - Pierce makes this adorable 'oooo face' when he hears the whistle, it's just the cutest thing I've ever seen. After we finished at the play area we were pretty close to the train depot so we decided to go see if we could get on board. Well as luck would have it the train was just pulling out of the station & the next departure time was for 30 minutes later, we thought about going and doing something else in the mean time however the 'conductor' or whoever was standing there, suggested that we wait since we were one of the first we would have good seats and that the train almost always fills up. So wait it out was what we did. Luckily I had a few snacks in the bag & they had some music playing which of course meant an impromptu Kirk Boy Dance Party. Unfortunately I only taped when Pierce was just getting started and then I was done with the camera for the rest of the afternoon - guess I was having a pregnancy mood swing - cause now looking back I WISH I would have taped just a few seconds of the boys on the open air train - they loved the ride!
Here's some stills of Pierce getting the party started!
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| P get's Funky! |
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| 'Dance Momma' |
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| Feeling the beat in his arms |
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| Starting to feel it in his feet |
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| Here comes the party train! |
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| YAAAAYYY!! |
A Reason To Go Back
We wanted to have a full day's worth of entertainment and we did and more!! Of course our 'pace' wasn't jet setter by any means, a pregnant me, Pierce - need I say more, and a fairly crowded park but of the 20 something activities included in the pass we may have gotten to half! After the train ride we let Kaiden play an abbreviated game of put-put golf - he LOVES put-put, but to 'do' the whole course would have taken an hour or more! There were SO MANY people on that little course that when we got there there was a 15 minute wait for adult clubs, luckily Kaiden was the ONLY one in our party playing so we got to bypass that wait & basically we just kept our eyes open for the next 'open' hole & we would play thru, Kaiden got to put-put his way across 5 or 6 holes, so he had fun & we still had time left to get to a few more attractions. Next we hit the Yogi Bear 4-D movie - that was a wet & some what terrifying experience for the boys, no tears were shed, but Kaiden was like 'Mom why did they have to make us SO wet?' - my thoughts EXACTLY!! Then as the sun was setting we headed for the last activity which was another huge To-Do, the Great Barn!! That place is AWESOME!! Although I did have a slight panic attack before I realized that there was only ONE entrance and exit - cause at one point I could not see Pierce but could hear him somewhere among the four levels of play areas yelling "Momma, where are you?" - yeah. BUT Dave was on it - we found there were stairs - which made me feel better & then they discovered the four story slide & I knew if I didn't immediately see Pierce he would be coming down that slide shortly. Kaiden on the other hand LOVED anything he could do with those foam balls - the shooter guns, the pipes, the gears, the games - he had a bag and he'd run down & I'd help him fill it up then he would scamper off to his area of choice, and some time later a slightly more red faced Kaiden would reappear and ask me to help him fill his bag. It was a blast!
After the barn we headed to the car to put up the day bag & get out our blankets and some drinks & snacks and head towards the mountain to try and grab up any precious space left on the grass - they had more than half of the grassy area roped off - nice! I have to say I am glad that the boys got to see the laser show - it is just one of those rights of passage when you grow up in Georgia, but honestly there was so little that had changed in the 10+ years since we had seen it last that Dave and I agreed we could wait that long to stay for it again. I loved that they pay tribute to our service men & women, but really - making us stand the last 4 minutes of the show was slightly annoying - I guess cause I had a very heavy sleeping toddler I was holding against a very tired pregnant belly - the upside was that Dave had time to pack up all our things so as soon as the last note was played we high tailed it for the lot!!
It was a fun filled EXHAUSTING day but we left there with smiles on our faces & tons of fun memories. I thought the boys would also have liked the River Boat ride, and maybe the petting zoo, but I know they would care less about the history museum or the antebellum plantation houses. All in all I would say in another five or so years we'll take another pilgrimage out that way and they will ALL still have a blast! This may be one of Kaiden's favorite birthday's to date!
