50th Surprise

Brian's first cousin Brandon turned the big 5-0 last week, and we went up to North Carolina to attend his surprise party.  He was definitely surprised.  Brandon's wife Sandy really went all out.  She had lots of people come from out of town to surprise him, and she had tons of food brought in.  It was really well-planned.  We enjoyed our visit immensely.  We got to catch up with all of the family and meet some other really great people.  Melanie rode up with us, and she also had a really good time.

Since we were only an hour and a half away from Carowinds, we decided to check out the park.  Carowinds is home to Fury 325 (which is the current #1 steel coaster in the world) and Intimidator (current #8 steel coaster). This was the kids first giga-coaster (over 300 feet).  We were impressed with the park overall.  There was a solid line-up of coasters and a good balance of other rides as well.  They also had an attached water park that we visited during the middle of the day because it was sweltering.  The good news is that the heat kept a lot of people in the water park all day, so the lines for the rides in the amusement park were relatively short.

We had such a great weekend, and we can't wait to see everyone again.