Today was the big day. A first for 4 of our family - rainbows end theme park! Soooo excited, we arrived for the 10am opening with our packed lunch and didn't leave until 5:30pm - making sure we got value for money, cause boy this was NOT a cheap trip! 
With the girls scrapping into the 120cm requirement for most of the rides (Kate was double measured by staff at 2 ride and just got through by standing nice and tall) and all the kids still young enough to ride all the rides in the "kids Kingdom" area, it was a good stage of family life to go - we were able to do everything, from the carousel and kiddy coaster, to the roller coaster and pirate ship. The kids all agreed that the log flume was their favourite, going twice and wanting more! 
Jaimee was dead keen to try the roller coaster for days before coming, but not so sure once she actually saw it in motion. I assured her that she would regret it if she didn't ride it just once as we wouldn't be coming back. Luckily she agreed.
At the last minute we decided to let Kate come and line up and see if she would scrape through the height requirement. I whispered to her to stand very tall (but ever the rule keeper jaimee made sure she didn't tiptoe "cause that's cheating mum"!) She did scrape in and I was impressed that both girls came out smiling , although not interested in revisiting as their wee heads got knocked around a bit on the turns! 
The boys did the carts while we did the motion master!
They didn't think the gold rush was that exciting but rode the motion master twice, and luke was so funny on the pirate ship, raising his hands above his head and cackling in glee like the daredevil he is!
I was keen to go on the fear fall and couldn't believe it when jaimee said "Yep, me too"...and then Kate nodded and joined the line with us! No way was Marty doing heights, so the boys watched us fall Aftee being lifted 58 stories into the air, we got a lovely view over auckland for a few seconds before almost launching up out of the safety harness by the sheer speed we dropped! The girls didn't scream but the boys heard me...not sure if I was screaming about my parenting decision to let my kids do this or from my own fear! But it was fun, we all came off laughing and shaking and proud.
Even though the stratosfear looked amazing in theory I knew that there was no way I was doing the high adrenaline spinning rides with my motion sickness tendencies although I did do the powersurge (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=keBwLuBg4LQ) with Marty while the kids waved us on. That was freaky but in a super fun scream and laugh way - being spun at speed in all directions like a tumbleweed strung on a spinning rod. It's so fast you have no chance to get motion sickness! The sky, the ground, that's pretty much all I saw for that ride over and over again at speed.
The kids all loved the kids Kingdom, doing all the mini rides on offer at least once, and spending a good hour climbing through the padded obstacle fortress of fun! 
The kids each took home a wee rainbows end teddy bear and cup to celebrate the end of an amazing day, with some very special memories made. Luke asked on the way home to go to back to "rainbows zealand" again please!
For icing on the cake we had dinner with one of my dearest and oldest friends Kylie, who was a bridesmaid at our wedding. It was like we had seen each other yesterday, the best kind of friendship- and the kids adored each other which was even better. We arrived home late and tired, but very content.
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