I don't really need an excuse to whip out our Kennywood season passes. (Your reminder: Season passes are half price on Black Friday every year. THAT is when to buy them.) That said, school Kennywood day is a good excuse. I think every school does that? Has a day that everybody gets tickets and goes?
We've gone every year since Alexis started school. It's quite the record.
A lot has changed over the years. For one thing, Kennywood is slowing falling apart. While I feel like most employees are slightly less miserable this year than they have been the past few years, they're still horribly under trained. Black Widow and Sky Rocket are in need of repair with no sign of opening any time soon, and they aren't nearly the only rides with closed signs out front. And don't get me started on the decline of the food and beverages. You don't have time for all the whining I can do about that. And the parking. OMG. THE PARKING IS A MESS.
The other thing that has changed is that we no longer drive out there to meet friends; I now drive the friends. I tend to take it as a PTO day, which makes me a great candidate to play chauffer. This year I had my kid plus three of her friends, which is EXACTLY The right size group.
I also had Mila.
Saying the word "Kennywood" out loud is a sure-fire way to get Mila to start begging to go on rides. She *loves* Kennywood, I'm sure because she doesn't remember the good ol' days when it didn't suck so hard. If I'm going, I pretty much have to take her or face her wrath.
I'm scared of my 30-pound 5-year old. It's true.
As we started our journey to pick up a bunch of kids and go to Kennywood for school day, Mila was quick to call dibs on the radio. She has a playlist saved on Amazon Music right now and she's constantly asking to listen to it. Which, whatever. It's mostly music I like fine, just so long as we get to ignore Baby Shark in all that. Baby Shark is followed by Spice Girls, so it seems fair.
Just as we picked up the last of Alexis' friends, Mila's playlist entered the Disney portion of the festivities. There are five or six songs in a row from Frozen, Tangled, Lion King, and other Disney movies that Mila loves more than she should.
So, I had a car full of 8th graders and one tiny little soon-to-be-kindergartener. The soon-to-be-kindergartener is the boss of everything, so she had command of the radio. It was 100% her fault that Let It Go started blasting over the car speakers. Therefore, it was also 100% Mila's fault that a car full of 8th graders began belting out Let It Go at the top of their lungs.
Legit. TOP OF THEIR LUNGS. And they were laughing and smiling and quick to point out that anyone who made fun of them for singing Frozen songs was a sad little human because they didn't understand how to blast joy at the top of your lungs.
I think that's how you know your kid has picked good people. When her friends don't just tolerate the pesky little sister, but lean into the things she likes and make them better, we know we're in good company.