Mark's Blog

Yesterday, Sherrylee and I had the perfect day at a theme park with our two California granddaughters Anna (7) and Olivia (5). Such days are rare, so I thought I’d share with you some tips about what happened that contributed to this perfect outing. You can extrapolate from the park to life or faith if you want.

1. Allow plenty of time.  We left the house at 10:45 and the park didn’t close until 10pm. We didn’t have to rush the girls out of the house, and we decided not to start home until we could do it without any disappointment.  At 8:30pm, we said, “Are there any other rides, and both the girls said, no, they were done!”  Perfect.
2. Set reasonable financial boundaries at the start. I have to admit that I am often the one who spoils days like this because I reach my mystical spending limit before anybody else. After that critical point, either I’m unhappy or they are unhappy. This time, on the way to the park, I said to Sherrylee, “You’ve got to help me keep the spending down because these tickets were not cheap!” She agreed, so we did not go into souvenir shops, we ate our main meals outside of the park, and we did not play arcade games. Rather, we stopped twice for snacks and only once did I pay $2 for a little game so Olivia would have something to do while Anna was riding a roller coaster too big for Olivia. Perfect.
3. Make your first answer “YES”—so that the few times you have to say no are accepted easily.  We rode the splash ride four times—even after dark when it was pretty cool, retraced our steps several times (as opposed to an orderly approach to the park!), and drove through both McDonalds AND Taco Bell for lunch—just a few examples of saying “yes” instead of imposing my own sense of what should be done!
4. Do the most important things first! Olivia had always been too small to ride a roller coaster, so her single goal for the whole day was to be big enough to ride one. Fortunately, of the several roller coasters at the park, the SideWinder, the first one we encountered would allow her to ride with an adult. And fortunately for Olivia, Sherrylee loves roller coasters, so off the three of them went.  Instead of spending all day anxiously searching for the mountaintop experience, we accomplished the main goal in the first 15 minutes in the park.  The ecstasy of the goal fulfilled carried through the whole day.
5. Know when to rest! About 3pm, we were getting hot and hungry, so we planned a strategic stop to snack on popcorn and peanuts and watch one of the park musical shows in an air-conditioned venue. The 30-minute break revived us and kept spirits high for about another three hours, when we stopped for ice cream sandwiches–which kept us going until the end of the day.
6. Finish strong! About 7pm, I signaled to Sherrylee that I was about ready to go. She, wisely, said, “Let’s make sure we have the most fun here at the end!”  So we asked the girls what their favorite ride was—and then rode it two more times!! Fortunately, the lines were very short by then, so we could make them doubly happy very easily!

I’m sure that other days would not have turned out perfectly, no matter what we did—we don’t have that much control in this world—but that is all the more reason to give thanks for those times when we are allowed to taste perfection!