I heard back in April\May from Steve Miller that they were
planning a month long trip back to US and will be back in Santa Rosa area. I
was hoping to get together with Steve and the rest of the gang (Greg, Phil, Rick) during that time. Unfortunately it turned out that June was a busy month for Greg, Phil and Rick and I was the only one able
to meet up with the Millers. After some discussions with Steve, the Miller clan
decided to head down to Great America on June 27th and I decide to meet them there with Aaron.
After dropping off Sabrina at my parents, I and Aaron headed
down to Great America. I called Steve and found out he was waiting in line for
the Vortex. We found Amy, Adam and Matthew outside of the Vortex. My first thought was how big and tall Adam had grown; he must be over 6 feet tall. Matthew was like a mini-Adam clone, the way I remember Adam when he was at his age. I haven’t seen them much since my wedding in 1999 and the last pictures I had the kids were when they much
younger. The next surprised was when Steve strolled up with Samuel, Steve reminded
me of Yul Brynner except for the nicely trimmed bear. We chatted for a little
bit and then we headed off toward the ride called The Demon.
It has been over 20 years since I had been on any real
amusement ride, so I was prepared for the worst. I was surprised that Aaron wants
to ride The Demon but then he was just following Matthew. The last ride we did
was couple summers back but Aaron was too short for anything but the tame rides in Kidzville.
The Demon started out with couple barrel-rolls, tunnel drops and then finally the twin vertical loops. You are fling about significantly but fortunately you are completely strapped in an over-the-shoulder harness. The ride went by very fast and you are done within 5 minutes. We went by The Grizzly but it was closed for maintenance, so we ended up taking the Eagle’s flight round
trip to view the park from above. Adam and Steve went to the Survivor the Ride
while the rest of us relaxed, I guess Adam never took any amusement rides while he was younger and grimaced through this ride. After that, we were trying to decide the next ride with Steve wanting to do the more
exotic one like Invertigo, Delirium, Star Tower,
and Drop Zone. We ended up at the Psycho Mouse ride, which had no rolls but mainly
sharp turns.
At this point, we decided to break for lunch since we had
just missed the magic show. We headed to the Food Festival and checked out the
selections. Aaron surprised me by choosing Sushi, something he normally never
ordered. When I came back from getting a hotdog meal to supplement the sushi,
Aaron was horsing around with Adam, Samuel and Matthew. Someone had come by and
gave them a blow up rubber hammer which was probably one of the lesser prizes you win at the carnival games booth. I have never seen these kids have more fun than chasing and smashing each other with the hammer. After lunch, we start wandering around looking for a ride to do but Steve got a phone call. Apparently the school system in Virgin Island was a big mess and Steve wanted to move back to Healdsburg. He got his good news that the manager at Santa Rosa
airport had put in a bid to get him back as a supervisor. Steve also missed gaming
as a whole and wanted to be back in the States. At least Steve will be in the
same time zone as the rest of us, especially for Warcraft since he was 4 hours ahead of us before.
We finally decided to head toward the Misfit of Magic show
featuring Ed Alonzo since none of us really want to lose our lunch from the rides. It
was a great show as we sat spellbound by the hilarious performance of Ed Alonzo. After
this we went into Nickelodeon Central where the kids relaxed and looked for sweets while me and Aaron took pictures with the
various Cartoon characters there. We went into the Action FX Theater where they
had a special 3-D Sponge Bob ride which required wearing these unusual glasses. We
were kind of exhausted by this time and started heading toward the park front. Along
the way, we stopped by the bumper cars where the kids once again had a real blast trying to smash into each other. Aaron can’t seem to figure out the steering mechanism and kept getting T-boned by everyone else. Since it was getting close to 5, we decided to head out and meet back up at the Golden Island restaurant in Milpitas Square for diner with my parents.
After dinner, the Millers joined us for an impromptu birthday
celebration for my mom at my place. The kids went wild when they saw the Nintendo
Wii and had a real blast playing the Wii Play. I had heard from Amy that Adam
had even gotten a summer job just so he can save up for the Wii. Apparently only
a handful of this hard to find game console had made their way to the island and the kids were really excited to have a chance
to play it before they leave. Sabrina for some reason was not shy around Steve
and even let him carried her around and also read her favorite book “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to her, may be she thought
he was just a big teddy bear.
Just before they leave, Aaron decided to give Matthew a
good-bye gift of the Pokemon plush toy called Eevee. I had found out earlier
that Matthew loves Pokemon just as much as Aaron and had been looking for that particular toy.
I had bought a few of the Pokemon plush back before Aaron was born and I asked Aaron if he minded giving the Eevee
to Matthew since he had several other ones already. I was very surprised that
Aaron wanted to do that since he and Matthew had became instant Best Friends at Great America.
Matthew was both surprised and overjoyed to bring Eevee home with him. Hopefully
those two will stay in touch as they grew up. In any case, we had a great time
with the Millers and I am looking forward to visit them when they moved back to the States.
For Picture of that day, please follow this link.
