Way back in 1973, the Brady Bunch traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to Kings Island Amusement park for the episode entitled “Cincinnati Kids”.  Forty-one years later (how old did that just make some of you feel?) the Bernadskys did the same thing and had a last family fun day together before Zach and Jacob head to college soon.  This is probably not something that we would spend the money on as a family, but a wonderful lady who helped us financially with getting Riley, Jessie, & Leah home from China also provided the funds for our family to have this time together.   What a blessing she and others have been to our family.  We continue to be humbled, sometimes on a daily basis, by the way God impresses people to come along side of us and support us.  He never fails.

For many of the kids, this was their first time at an amusement park, so I was certain it was going to be difficult to get a few of them out of their comfort zone and onto a ride.  The day began with our taking two cars (we don’t fit into one any longer) and rolling into Kings Island when it opened for the day.

Some were a little more excited that others!

The very FIRST stop was to make sure that the younger kids got wristbands that indicated their height.  A key item to have as it determined what rides you were allowed on for the rest of the day.  Luke flew through with flying colors, with almost the entire park at his disposal

We probably should have “coached” Caleb a little as he came up ever so short of hitting the “52 inches” benchmark.

Mia?  Well … she is a little peanut, so there wasn’t a lot of hope for her!

The best way to start off an adventure like this is to hit the bumper cars, so Caleb and Luke jumped right in.

After that brief introduction, it was time to head to the reason why anyone would ever want to come to a park like this:  the roller-coasters!  We started off slow, with “Woodstock Express.”  We could have started even slower with the “Great Pumpkin” coaster but lets be real!  That thing is for babies!

The lines were not too bad, although it seems that they are a requirement to have a little fun.  The park tried to help pass the time with TV monitors that had Kings Island trivia, hence the information at the beginning of this blog.  I, however, occupied myself by taking pictures.

We were able to get a pass for Leah that allowed her to come up the exit and get on the rides there.  However, you had to get your document marked by the ride operator who then gave you a time to come back and ride that was roughly equivalent to the wait time of the general line.  And, you could not go and get in the queue for others rides in the meantime.  In all, it was a pretty fair system.  I am sure that people have taken advantage of having a wheelchair in the past and this is how they addressed it.  The system worked fairly well and Kelly was allowed to bring two other people with her and Leah when they were getting on a ride.  We were able, for the most part, to time things out that we all road together.  This is Leah getting on her first ride ever, and it is a roller coaster!

And this is Leah crying at the end of her first ride ever!

With a shot of how we dominated complete cars on most of the rides!

Leah bounced back quickly and spent much of the day riding other rides, including going with me on the Racer later in the day, which was no small feat for someone who has never been on a fast roller coaster before!  We spent much of the day riding various roller coasters throughout the park!

We did allowed some of the little guys to ride a few things that were more “tame.”

We had lunch out in front of Kings Island.  The weather was beautiful.  It was in the 70’s with about a 40% change of rain, but the day stayed fairly dry.

The day started with the small bumper cars, but everyone wanted to try the full sized bumper cars, so after lunch we sought them out!  Leah and Luke became seat-mates for several rides throughout the day!

Riley and Caleb shared a car, with Caleb seeming pretty excited to be manning the wheel!

He got even more joy at hitting people.  I am not sure my insurance rates can afford this kid as an adult driver!

I road with Jessie, and expected to loose several years off of my life in the process, especially with Ali close on our heels!

Later in the day she DID scare me a little with her crazy driving!

She was, overall, a very good driver and not near as out of control as others out there!

And then there were more lines, even to go up into the Eiffel Tower observation deck!

Time to take some more pictures of pretty girls.

A swift ride up the elevator brought us to a great view of the park.

Cute kids …

Cute couple…

Kelly challenged the kids to $5.00 if anyone could find Zach, Jake, Nick, Britt, and Max, who had gone off to ride some other rides.

Everyone kept a close eye out to find the needle in the haystack.

In the end, Riley (of course) found them and laid claim to her winnings, although for some reason in this picture she doesn’t seem very happy about it!

Part of growing up in a big family is having crazy brothers who push you around in your wheelchair at high speeds to torment you.

Or sisters who like to attack you.

But the benefits are older brothers who will ride a ride with you, even when they are several feet too large!

I took some of the girls over to the Racer, which is an older roller coaster and is a lot of fun.  Nothing crazy, but it is fast and it has two sets of cars, a red set and a blue set, that race against each other to see which will get back to the station first.  Here is Riley, Jessie, & Ali on their first time!

The following may have been the best thing out of the day, as I filmed Riley on part of the ride.  The best part, to me, is at the very end where she realizes for the first time I am recording her!  She does think the video is funny and has watched it several times.

http://youtu.be/Ndz0ebIuvss

We left the park for dinner because, well, it was crazy expensive to eat inside the park!  $12.50 for a Chick-Fil-A sandwich?  That is obscene.  So, we went up the street and then came back in to enjoy the evening together.

I wasn’t sure if we would make it until closing, but dinner seemed to perk everyone up for a final run at the park.

This was a lady who was in line ahead of us.  I really wanted to get a better picture of her because there was so much character in her face and hat, but this was the best I could do!

As you can see, Leah did start to really enjoy the roller-coasters and spent much of the day riding them (disclaimer:  do not break the rules and take pictures on the coasters.  Nothing happened, but certainly not safety first!)

Mia was my seatmate on this roller-coaster ride!

Mia decided to brave the smaller bumper cars with her brothers as the sun started to dip in the sky.

She was the first one to get a little tired and benefited from Zach helping her out a little.

These two pictures were just too cute not to include.

And, just so you know that Jacob WAS with us today.

We started to wind down the day, getting the last few rides in before the park closed.

And, yes … several of us DID ride The Beast in the dark before the park closed.  It doesn’t make any sense to go to Kinds Island if you are not going to do that!

The day went by way too quickly, but it was such a restful and enjoyable day.  It was something that I think the entire family needed and will remember for a long time moving forward.  Now we have to deal with the older boys leaving for college and the younger children feeling the loss.  The next few weeks should be interesting!

Cameron