A Weekday Visit to Gilroy Gardens
I’m on vacation for a week to celebrate Vinny’s first birthday. Jeff has been off already for a week before this, and he had fun taking Vinny to the aquarium, and hiking in the redwoods. Last week his friend Pete visited from Colorado with his girlfriend Nanda. We had a good time hanging out, going to Farmer’s Market and playing with Vinny. They are expecting a baby boy in September.
We decided to make use of our weekday off and go to Gilroy Gardens – a theme park for the littler kids (about 8 and under, i’d say). We weren’t sure how many rides vinny could go on but heard from a friend that he would have a good time. When we got there a nice lady in front of us gave us a coupon to use so we only paid $55 for the two of us — though parking was $10.
Jeff and I have been here before but only during the Christmas nighttime openings with my workplace. The grounds are really pretty and well kept. It wasn’t busy so no waiting in lines except for one ride at the end.
We first visited the strawberry baskets. Jeff took vinny in that ride. He didn’t seem to know what was going on.
After that we took a train ride around the park. That was nice because you could kind of tour the whole park.
We continued through the park and found a good spot for lunch. I bought some nachos and we fed vinny some avocado and sausages. There was a stage right where we were sitting and the staff was pulling kids from the audience to sing songs. That was pretty cute to see little toddlers sing nursery rhymes and sort of get the words right.
We stopped by the waterfall area, and Jeff and Vinny got all wet!
We happened to pass a weird jiggling machine that Jeff wanted to try.
Got some silly pictures of my boys having fun.
Next was my turn for a ride! The artichoke dip ride was more adventurous than the strawberry ride and it had a wonderful view of the lake.
Vinny wanted to stand on his own for the ride.
Right next to that ride was a caterpillar ride going around an apple core. I swear these rides are super super cute!
We decided to try for one more ride then head home since vinny hadn’t mapped yet. We wanted to try the hot air ballon ride but we weren’t sure they would let him on or not.
We decided to go for it when a family in front of us with a younger infant went in line. The baby boy was hapa too. Cute photo alert!
This was the only rode we had to actually wait a couple rotations to get in. Vinny was getting fussy while we were waiting in line.
Finally, we get in a balloon and it was a little sketchy since he had to also sit “on his own” on the ride! But it all worked out. I don’t think Vincent knew what was going on!
We headed for the exit, bought some super sweet lemonade (disappointing), took some photos on the bridge (Jeff lost the camera lens over the side and has to trespass to get it back!), and lastly purchased a cool bubble gun!
What a fun day! Glad we decided to go because it was the perfect opportunity to go on a weekday and we all had a blast.