Our 2021 family beach pictures turned out great! Our kids have grown up visiting the beach regularly, and I love that we capture the memories each trip (even the stressful chaos of it all).
I found a sweet white sundress for the girls and decided to go with a white/navy color scheme this year.
These kiddos right here are my greatest treasures.
This silly pose is my absolute favorite. I can't get over how it captured everyone's hint of crazy in our personalities so perfectly.
This one is going on the wall for sure.
I had to save these outtakes. Matt and I could not stop laughing at Katherine's crazy pose in these pictures. I mean, I have zero idea what was going on in her head at the time. I giggle every time I look at them.
The kids keep getting taller and the beach memories keep getting sweeter. Until next beach trip...
We woke the kids up at 3:30am on Saturday morning to head out. They were just a little tired, ha!
They thought we were headed home, but Matt and I had talked before hand about taking a detour to Six Flags Over Georgia. We thought it would be fun to surprise them (and we weren't 100% sure we'd feel like going after a week at the beach), so we didn't tell them. They did happen to spot our souvenir cups and popcorn bucket in the back of the van, and heard Matt's phone say "starting route to Atlanta" when we were leaving that morning, but I still think they were happily surprised.
I was a little leery about visiting Six Flags Over Georgia because I had read a few reviews about the park and they were horrible. People said that it was dirty, the staff was rude, all the attractions were closed, the lines were three hours long and on and on discouraging people from going. But we had an absolutely wonderful day! Low crowds, great weather and some thrill loving little people in our family made for a perfect day at Six Flags.
There were some ride closures early on, but almost all the rides had opened by the afternoon/evening. We got to the park right at opening, and were happy to see an almost empty parking lot. We immediately started riding roller coasters. Our first ride was a stand up roller coaster called the Georgia Scorcher. It was our first standing coaster and was really fun. Then we walked over to the Gotham City area, and Nathan got to ride the Batman coaster for the first time. He's finally hit the 54 inch mark and can ride all the roller coasters now. Samuel and Elisabeth rode Cat Woman whip a few times while he was riding Batman. That's one of Elisabeth's favorite Six Flags rides.
We also rode Dare Devil Dive that has a beyond vertical drop. It was a very smooth coaster and super fun! One of everyone's favorites!
We spent some time in the kids area for our littlest thrill seeker. She loved the swings and the kiddie rides.
When we visited Six Flags over Texas last March, these little trucks were Katherine's favorite ride. She was happy to ride them again, but I think she's starting to graduate to the bigger rides, because she was content just riding them one time.
I had packed a lunch in the van, so we took a quick lunch break in the parking lot and then were back riding more rides for the rest of the day. We split up so Matt could take Nathan to ride the coasters with height requirements Samuel and Elisabeth didn't meet. And then we swapped places, so I could ride with Nathan. We rode Superman which was another first of ours- a laying down coaster. It was fun to ride once, but definitely wasn't a favorite of mine.
Of course, we had to ride the carousel. Katherine always takes her time choosing the perfect horse, names it, and kisses it goodbye when the ride it over. Precious!
She had to pose for a picture with it.
We rode ALLL the rides that day. It was a huge park with so many great coasters and other rides. Another first was a coaster with three loops. Lots of firsts for us that day! Nathan remembers them all and tells everyone about all the different roller coasters he rode.
Our favorite coaster of the day was Twisted Cyclone (fitting after our experience with Tropical Storm Fred, ha!). This one had the feel (although to a lesser degree) of Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point. It was super fun!
Back in March Nathan and Matt waited in line almost three hours to ride Riddler's Revenge. They had the same ride at Six Flags over Georgia called Pandemonium, and Samuel was tall enough to ride it. Nathan, Samuel and I were able to walk right on the ride, and it was really, really fun. There's no way it was worth a three hour wait, but I'm so glad we all got to ride it together. That was one of my favorite parts of the day.
We met back up with the girls and shut the park down back at the Gotham City area. Nathan and Matt rode Batman again. Everyone but me and Katherine rode Cat Woman Whip, and Katherine rode Poison Ivy three times in a row. I rode it with her, and then Matt, and then she begged to ride it again. Matt and my stomachs couldn't handle any more spinning, so we sent her with Nathan which was against the rules. Nathan explained how his parents couldn't handle riding with her again, and the worker was nice enough to let her stay on with Nathan since it was the last ride of the night. I'm so glad I didn't ride it with her, because the worker was also nice enough to let the kids ride it for a solid 15 minutes straight. He kept restarting it again and again and called it party time. The kids thought it was the best thing in the world. I don't know how their little tummies can handle so much, ha!
I couldn't believe we stayed at the park from open to close (11 Hours!). I mean I should believe it, because my kids have superhero stamina at theme parks. We were sweaty, tired, and hot but so happy for such a fun, bonus day of vacation.
Our hotel for the night was only about a five minute drive from the park, but Katherine crashed hard in that five minutes.
I'm thankful I ignored the negative reviews and went along with Matt's spontaneous detour because it was a great last day of vacation!
