More Kings Island!

I swear, we should live there. We're honestly thinking about getting season passes for next year, we've been so many times.

Mom and Lee came up for a few days, so we decided to go Saturday and do both Howl-o-Fest and Halloween Haunt.

This necessitated getting Eliza a Halloween costume early, so we officially scrapped the Super Martian Robot Girl costume in favor of a duck ballerina outfit that is so adorable, it just might break your computer.

Once we got to the park, Janie, Lee and I got in what will be our last ride on Scooby Doo before Cedar Fair rebrands the entire kid section to Planet Snoopy. As is to be expected, I smoked both of them at the shooting game, because I have killer Duck Hunt skills.

After that, Janie and Mom took Eliza off for some kid stuff while Lee and I got in line for Diamondback, which is the seventh-fastest coaster in North America.

That fact, incidentally, was one that I didn't share with Lee until about halfway up the lift hill.

After a nice ride on Diamondback, we somehow convinced Mom to actually get on a coaster, which meant that Janie stayed with Eliza while the rest of us piled onto the artist formerly known as The Italian Job. Mom did surprisingly well, especially for someone with severe motion sickness and a bad back.

After a little walking around and some bumper cars, Janie tended to a now-fussy Eliza while we climbed on the red side of Racer (the blue side was closed.) As I love to do on wooden coasters, I made us go for the very back, and I've now done a 100 percent hands-up ride on both sides of Racer.

Mom swore off any more coasters for the rest of the night, and we decided to grab dinner at what is normally one of the best deals in the park, the Coney Mall Subway.

This time, however, the Subway was apparently staffed by people with no clue, as they asked Janie if she wanted a footlong sub even though you can't actually order one (we had to pay for two 6-inch subs at $6 a piece, which kills the good deal.)

After we ate, Lee and I tried to grab a quick ride on Invertigo, but we ended up in line for close to an hour. Very foggy from a combination of the fog machines that looked like they were spraying for mosquitoes and actual fog.

Then came what was something of a mistake, even though it was something we wanted to do: BEAST.

Riding The Beast at night is an amazing experience. Riding it, as I got to on our last trip, with the brakes pretty much off, is even more amazing, but it was still good Saturday. There's just something about tearing off into the helix in the dark that's thrilling.

What wasn't amazing, though, was the wait. The line was actually backed up to the arcade before you go up the hill to Beast Canyon, and when we finally got to Beast Canyon, the ride clock said 45 minutes. Oh, how wrong it was.

Lee and I managed to wind up onto the ramp to the ride building when the announcement came that The Beast was closing for fireworks. Janie then called to let us know that a park employee told her it was down 30 minutes because of the fireworks.

It ended up being an almost 2.5 hour wait, and by that time Eliza and Janie were freezing to death, so Lee and I hiked back to the front gate to head home.

Despite the wait on Beast (literally the longest ride wait of my life), it was still the best KI trip we've made yet, and we're already thinking about 2010.

Straightening out the elbow...

Good news on the elbow front for Betty, it appears.

She's avoided surgery for the moment, although it may have to be done down the road. It was better this morning after resting overnight, and the surgeon is willing to let it heal some on its own before cutting.

So she will be here for next week's festivities.

In other news, my sister Lee moved in at Bellarmine this morning for her first year of college. I hope everything turns out to be a piece of cake for her.

Elbow Macaroni

Yesterday my mother managed to fall on her way out of a drug store and break her elbow. Well, break isn't so much the word. Shatter is a better term. She went to the surgeon today and elbow replacement surgery is scheduled for tomorrow.

I need positive vibes, prayers, chi, and what have you that she'll not only have a safe surgery, but that she'll recover in time to be here for Eliza's birth. She's having general anesthesia, which is dangerous for someone with the medical conditions my mother suffers with. Fingers crossed for her, please.