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A Vacation from our Vacation

We were so exhausted from touring London and Paris that we desperately needed a vacation.  So, the weekend before last, we headed to Coronado Island for the weekend for some R&R. 

Our July was really rough.

Coronado was blessedly cool (compared to 106 when we left Phoenix) which allowed us to spend a lot of time outside. We walked on the beach:

Some of us did gymnastics: 

Some were content to just jump over waves:

Some of us did gymnastics but then sort of regretted doing them:

On another note, some of us went paddleboarding for the first time:

Some of us went paddleboarding for the first time and then sort of regretted it:

We had a blast in Coronado and definitely did not regret our vacation from our vacation.  But, we kept so busy that we might just need another vacation . . .

Birthday season

We are just about done with the "birthday season" that spans May-August here at the Chez Marchant.  We recently celebrated the last human birthday -- Daniel's in July (leaving only the Murph in August).

Our family is all about the birthday traditions (or maybe we just hate thinking up new things to do).  I always pick Benihana for dinner.  Gary always picks fondu.  Julie probably has the most variety of activities, but her birthday almost always involves a sleep-over with her best friend.  And for the last several years running, Daniel has celebrated his birthday with dinner out and then a movie at the iPic Theater here in Scottsdale.

This year we had dinner at one of our favorite local places, the Blue Adobe Grill.  They reserved the back room for us which was good because of the 10 of us, 5 were 11-year-old boys. Dinner at a nice restaurant with 5 tween boys requires a sangfroid that I don't normally possess, but fortunately we had a new guest this year, a girl friend, who possesses sangfroid plentiful enough to keep a group of 5 11-year-old boys relatively well-behaved.  I would just like to pause for a moment to make perfectly clear that we are talking about a friend who is a girl, and not a girlfriend.  If you have any tweens in your life, you will understand that this distinction is very, very important.  Very.  Important.  Anyhow, here was our gang:

After dinner, we viewed that modern animated masterpiece, Despicable Me 2.  We laughed; we cried; we longed for Minions of our own. At least one of us fell asleep for 3/4 of the movie (not the movie's fault).  The iPic theater is a posh movie theater with giant cushy recliners to sit in, blankets and pillows, free all-you-can-eat popcorn and (not free) food service.  After dinner, popcorn & dessert, settled back comfortably in your big cushy recliner, it's amazing anybody actually stays awake for a movie at all.

Of course, there were also presents:

And Wii is obligatory for this age group:

And so, with another successful party, the birthday season draws near to a close.  For our last birthday of the season, Murphy is already hoping to start a "everyone gets a humungous steak" tradition.  Stay tuned.

 

London Favorites

Since I'm already bored with blogging about London, I can only imagine how you all must feel at this point.  So, let's cut to the chase and summarize our London favorites.  We will start with me since this is my blog, and there has to be some perk to this whole blogging enterprise (other than the obvious fame and glory).

Dawn's Favorite Thing in London:  Westminster Abbey.  Great Googly-Moogly, it's old. Like 1000 years old.   It's the place where all the kings and queens are coronated (and many married and buried as well).  In short, it's super cool.  I walked on top of Charles Darwin and said hello to Handel.

Here are few shots. This was not my best photographic moment -- you weren't supposed to photograph inside and the outside was tricky to photograph because it's SO BIG.

I can neither confirm nor deny that I might have snuck one shot "from the hip" while inside.  I can confirm that shooting from the hip does not yield optimal results, unless youare really, really interested in the cut of Handel's pants.

Here we are contemplating the meaning of our fleeting mortal existence in the vast sweep of history -- oh, and waiting for everyone to finish up in the restroom.

Gary's Favorite Thing In London:  DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS

Did I mention that while we were in London, Gary was invited to DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS?  Oh, I did?  Now you know how we feel.  Well, it turns out that this dinner, which he attended without any of the rest of his adoring family, was his favorite London activity.  Go figure.  Since I was inexplicably not invited to DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS, we have no pictures of the historic event.

Instead, I will share Gary's second favorite thing about London -- the Pubs!  We've already talked about the Churchill Arms, the glorious pub right down the street from our flat.  We returned a few night later for another round. 

In addition the Churchill Arms, we visited just about every pub we ran across while touring the city.  There was this one near St. Paul's:

 

Where we ate this:

and this

and this:

Unfortunately, this was one of those instances where a favorite thing for the adults was not a favorite for the kids. After about 2 pub meals, the small people started to cringe when we walked past a pub.  Particularly the smallest person who does not eat anything at home, let alone "international" food with names like Bangers & Mash or Bubble & Squeak.  I believe this person ate no more than 3 molecules of food during the 5 days we were in London.

Nevertheless, we persevered and had another pub lunch at St Stephen's near the House of Lords, WHERE GARY HAD DINNER THE NIGHT BEFORE, BY THE WAY.  The host, not one to turn away hungry customers, packed seven of us into an upstairs booth that had, charitably, room for 3 people. I did not get a picture of the group because I couldn't move my legs, but here is the downstairs.

Nevertheless, once the Badgers started flowing, and Austin (who was not interested in lunch) went on what we dubbed the "Anger Walk", we had a grand time.

I made the tactical error of ordering a pork pie, which sounded suitably British, but which I did not realize was served cold.  Live and learn.  The rest of the food was quite good, although, I understand from a reliable source, not as good as DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

 

 

Touring the Tower (or the moment I sympathize with Richard III)

When I had visited London in the past by myself, I was positively gobsmacked by the Tower of London.  The grandeur.  The Crown Jewels.  The regal history spiced up by the gruesome events that took place right where you are standing (just one example: King Henry VIII had not just one, but 2 of his poor wives heads chopped off on the lawn of the Tower).

So, when we visited on this trip, I was looking forward to sharing this historical gem with the kids and basking in their inevitable delight.  "Thank you so much, Mom, for bringing us to this amazing piece of history and real-life castle!!! they would exclaim. "We love that you always know exactly what will appeal to us!!"  Um, yeah.  As any parent who has taken their tween or teenager to a historic site could already predict, it did not go as planned. 

First, there were the usual inconveniences associated with visiting Europe in the summer -- too many people; too much waiting in line, etc.  [Incidentally, do you ever wonder how may of other people's vacation photos you feature in?]

Then we picked up the audio tour which was, frankly, too lengthy and detailed for us and didn't have a good way to skip ahead or jump to specific spots. It would be great for history buffs or travelers with a lot of time to spend at the Tower (i.e., me 15 years ago), but we are not those people right now [despite how much some of us would dearly love to be].   

We tried the audio tour but, alas, after a while our little group started to fray and splinter.  The nephews opted to check things out on their own, sans tour.  Gary decided to just do a quick "self-guided" tour since (oh, did I mention this already?) he was going for DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS and needed to head back to the flat to get dressed (I might digress at this point to note that I was the one who insisted that he bring a jacket and tie to London because "you never know" where we might want to go for dinner.  Was my insightfulness rewarded by a +1 invitation to DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS, you might well ask?  No, as a matter of fact, it was not.  Not that I care. All that grandeur and history is stupid anyway.  Sniff.)

Now our little group was down to me and Aunt Dianne and my two "delighted" children. 

We still hadn't made it past the water gate (right near the entrance) on the audio tour, and it was time for one of the guided Beefeater tours to begin, so I recommended that we join that tour. Here is our Beefeater now:

The Beefeater tour was faster, funnier, led by a real live Beefeater -- what's not to like about that?  I'm still not sure, but one of the children was not interested in that option and, let's just say, was not beaming with delight and thanking mom for the magical living-history experience. The other was, from all outer appearances, indifferent. 

It was at this point that I realized we had, once again, become the Griswolds with me playing the part of up-beat, overly enthusiastic part of Clark Griswold and the kids playing the parts of, well, the kids.  Sigh, it happens to us every vacation. I suspect we are not alone in this phenomenon.  At least this time it was the European version and not the one where they tie the dead aunt to the top of the car (thank goodness for Aunt Dianne!).   We did carry on with the tour though we skipped the crown jewels (too crowded) and we didn't make it into the White Tower either (also too crowded).  The one thing we waited in line for ended up being one smallish room with a some shackles, a reproduction torture rack and a few informational signs.  Here is the rack in case you wanted to see one.

As we were leaving with my dreams of the perfect family Tower tour eviscerated, I couldn't help reflecting that those former monarchs and other luminaries who locked up their troublesome relatives in a nice sound-proof room in the Tower may very well have had reasonable justification.  I will have to go back sometime (by myself) and see if that is covered in the audio tour.

From the looks of things, I think Aunt Di might agree:

The Obligatory Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus Tour

After getting a good night’s sleep, we did finally make it out to see more than half a block of London.  In fact, the next day we saw what seemed like ALL of London by taking one of the hop-on-hop-off bus tours.  We chose the Big Bus Tour since that one had a stop right near our flat.    

Since we boarded at the first stop (after Gary valiantly chased the bus for about 4 blocks to try to figure out where the stop was with the driver egging him on by pointing ahead but not picking him up), we got great seats.  And the tour began.

 For the most part, the tour was great. Here were some pros and cons:

Pros: 

1. They provided earphones that plugged in at each seat and  so you could listen to recorded commentary along the way.  The commentary was quite good, pointing out buildings, describing famous people who lived nearby and providing some history.  Conveniently, they had commentary in 7 different languages.  Daniel took great glee in changing the channel while you weren’t looking so that the next time the commentary picked up, it would be speaking in Japanese.  Or Portuguese.  Or German.  This prank never got old . . . for some of us.
2. In between commentary, they played what I have to assume is stately British music.  Processionals and classical stuff.  This was a nice touch . . . at least the first few times through. 
3. They gave you a free rain poncho.  It did rain on us a bit in the afternoon, so this was a nice perk and allowed us to keep sitting on the upper deck with some pretension at the British stiff upper lip.
4. We covered an enormous amount of ground and really enjoyed seeing so much of London from the upper deck.

 Cons:

1. At times the bus was painfully, teeth-grindingly slow.  This was partly because of London traffic, especially around busy areas like the shopping area of Oxford Circus (where we could easily have covered more ground on foot); but occasionally was worsened by the mysterious “rules” that the buses operated under.  Our bus would sometimes inch along in one congested lane for blocks and blocks (we sat through one light cycle at least 3 times) while other buses where whizzing by us in the other lane.  Other times, we would sit for 15 minutes at one stop while 3 or 4 other buses from the same company came and went.  I’m hoping there was some reasoning behind all of this, but I did occasionally want to scream “Great Googly-Moogly, why are we still sitting here??!!”  [Yes, I sometimes use the expression great googly-moogly.  So sue me.]
2. The buses tended to fill up by mid-morning and then it was standing room only.  Since you had to plug in at each seat to hear the commentary, standing passengers were out of luck.
3. Late in the afternoon, buses could be scarce.  Part of our group had to wait about an hour one afternoon for a bus to pick them up at a designated stop while several (again mysteriously) passed them by.

 Anyhow, here are some of the sights we saw.  Famous ones:

House of Parliament, or is it Houses of Parliament?   I'm not sure, but Gary, who was invited there one night to have dinner with one of the Lords at the House of Lords (true story) could tell you ALL ABOUT IT.  In fact, he might just have mentioned that he had DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS a few other times on the trip.

Big Ben. This is crooked-er than I remember it being.

The London Eye (and Austin's Eye):

Marble Arch (aka march made out of marble):

 The Tower of London:

Then, I seem to have a bunch of other photos on my camera that I'm not sure what they are or exactly why I took them.  I'm sure there was some interesting commentary that now escapes me or that I only heard in Japanese. Or Portuguese.  Or German.  Or perhaps I was taking the photo as Gary was telling me about his DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Here's an example.  This is a theater (I can tell that by my superior sleuthing skills -- zooming in on the sign) but I'm not sure it's significance.  I DO know that this building is more beautiful than any building in the entire state of Arizona. Or perhaps all the buildings in Arizona put together (including that big Burger King in Yuma).   So that's a good enough reason to take a photo right there.

I have no earthly recollection why I took this photo.  Nor can I explain why I'm blogging about it. Sorry, it won't happen again.

Overall, we really enjoyed the bus tour.  Definitely not an efficient form of transportation if you goal is to get directly from one point to another, but a fun way to see a lot of the city.

Have you ever taken a hop-on-hop-off bus tour in London or anywhere?  Thumbs up or down?

London Vacation 2 (the part where we were awake)

With the kind cooperation of nephew Austin, who agreed to stay at the flat and keep an eye on the sleepers, we adults managed to get out for our first luggage-free walk around Notting Hill and Kensington.

Within a block, we spotted this, which we Marchants considered a good sign that providence was leading us in the right direction.

As further proof that the Fates were with us, we then turned around to see this:

The Churchill Arms, a perfect London pub.  THE perfect London pub.  We were too busy touristing to stop in, so . . . HAH! who am I kidding?  We did of course go inside immediately and sit down for a pint.

The Churchill Arms was built in 1750(!) and was frequented by Winston Churchill's grandparents. It has an impressive and artfully displayed collection of Churchill memerobilia. 

If you want to see more, they have an excellent 360 tour on their website: http://churchillarmskensington.co.uk/360-tour.  It's a really cool place.

So, the atmosphere was fantastic but what really sealed the deal was our first taste of Engish ale.  Drink up, Dianne, Sir Winston is watching!

I had a Honey Dew and even though I am a wimp, I appreciated that it was nice and cold.  I was never able to "get" the warmish beer thing.  Oh, and don't tell Gary, but it is organic.

One happy Canadian, proud to still be a member of the empire:

It turns out that through dumb luck, we had come at a great uncrowded time (late afternoon)  to sit and relax at the pub.  The place is standing-room only at night as we were to learn later that week. Interestingly, they also serve Thai food that is supposed to be good, although we were still too full from lunch to partake.

So, despite the fact that we hadn't made it more than half a block from our flat on our tour of London, we were already having a cracking good time.  

In honor of this charming pub, I'll leave you with a favorite (although probably apocryphal) quote attributed Sir Winston Churchill himself:

Bessie Braddock: Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunk.

Winston Churchill: Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.

 

Cheers!

Back From Vacation

We just returned from a long vacation to London and Paris, so it seemed like an apt time to end my long blogging vacation.  I apologize in advance for what will be more than you probably ever wanted to know about our European vacation.  Feel free to pretend that I'm still on blogging hiatus.

We flew to Heathrow from Phoenix, via Charlotte.  If you've ever flown overnight to Europe (or all day and then overnight if you are coming from Phoenix), you know the drill.  You arrive in that state of extreme exhaustion, confusion and discomfort that is unique to international travel (and labor & delivery, but that's a discussion for another time). You then get to navigate and unknown subway system, dragging an enormous mass of luggage up and down uncountable flights of stairs while cheerful Monday-morning London commuters stream past you.  That is the point where you seriously question your decision to bring 12 travel books, 7 plug converters, various electronics, and everything else that you brought, including your children.  Especially your children.

Which is why arrival at the lovely London flat that we rented was like arriving at a beautiful oasis.  It was  a light-filled, 3 bedroom flat in Notting Hill, just a short block from the Notting Hill Gate station.  It could not have been more perfect. Let me take you for a tour.

 

I really need to learn to take photos right when we arrive rather than after we've messed the place up.

I

Despite those comfy beds, we were trying to stay awake as long as possible during the first day, so we headed for lunch. We went to a local place with tasty burgers, called Black & Blue.

It was a good chance to catch up with the cousins.

We discovered that when you order "lemonade", you get Sprite. 

Yes, we were tired and some of us a bit cranky.  So, we returned to the flat after lunch and continued the vigil to remain awake.  We did well for a while, just hangin' out chatting and trying to figure out British TV (we never did).

But, our biological clocks weren't going to be fooled for long.  We started to drop one by one.

 

And that's where we'll leave it for today with us arriving on the first day of our long-anticipated European vacation and promply falling asleep.

Be careful what you wish for

Gary and I have great kids.  In fact, we probably would be insufferably proud of our parenting skills except for one major short-coming -- somewhere along the way, it came to our attention that we had failed to instill in our kids an appropriately ardent love of professional sports.  I know I've blogged about this before, notably when we took the kids to the most exciting game ever played in professional football and they spent the whole game either playing video games or cowering in fear of the slavering crowd. 

Sadly, they shared a similar distaste for hockey, baseball (which I grant is understandable) and even basketball.

So imagine our delight when last fall, as the regular football season was winding down, Daniel suddenly took an interest in NFL football.  He should be a natural sports fan because of his inclination toward statistics and categorization.  In the past, this inclination was being squandered on micro-analyzing every single Pokemon ever created and, perhaps slightly more usefully, in researching and cataloging facts about every major tornado and hurricane to devastate the US in the past 100 years or so.  There were side forays into coins, Star Wars characters, Angry Birds and US presidents.  And more recently, he has taken to learning the national anthems of small, foreign nations (true fact: you can find the national anthem of Kiribati online).  (Oh, and another true fact:  there is a nation called Kiribati).

Finally, though, FINALLY, we managed to harness this power for good.  At first he had no interest in actually watching football.  He would spend the week researching the teams and predicting who was likely to win the upcoming games.  When the game would roll around, however, he'd watch for about 5 minutes and then we'd find him in his room having Pokemon battles or using up $40 worth of p-touch organizer labels to make printed lists of team rankings.  Sigh.  Later, though, as he learned more about the rules and gameplay, he started to watch, to cheer, even to yell "NO!" at the top of his lungs when his teams would lose -- all those important sports fan skills.

Fast forward to today, where the love of football has now expanded to hockey, basketball and yes, even baseball. I would NOW be insufferably proud of my parenting skills except for a few unforeseen developments:  

1.  The sports balance of power has shifted.  Gary and Dan are now a powerfully united sports-voting bloc when it comes to TV time in our house.  This has resulted in a disturbing amount of professional hockey air-time, especially now that there are innumerable hockey play-off games on any given night.  [Note to non-Canadian relatives:  please arrange an Intervention].

Not to mention the amount of TV time devoted to Wii Madden football:

2.  In a predictable sibling move, Julie is perhaps even MORE adamantly anti-sports now that her little brother has adopted it so zealously.  I am still holding out hope that we may be able to lure her in with a social or fashion angle. She seemed to enjoy the ASU vs. U of A game after donning her black "Fear the Fork" t-shirt and sun-devil temporary tattoo.  Here is Julie with our friend Rachel who is my best friend because she took me to the NY Giants game this year.

 3.  We have now invested approximately $37,000 in sports gear as Daniel has adopted new sports and teams at a meteoric rate.  His favorite football team morphed from the Dolphins to the 49ers to the Saints in the weeks leading up to Christmas, resulting in numerous Christmas gifts being obsolete long before Christmas day.  Plus, whatever city Gary travels to on any given week for work seems coincidentally to be one of Daniel's favorite teams, requiring another souvenier hat purchase.  In case you think I am exaggerating:

Niners Jersey

Saints jersey:

Hats:

Hats:

And more hats:

4.  Perhaps most alarmingly, my little baby boy (who I can quite distinctly remember being about 4 years old the last time I looked) now has a serious interest in playing tackle football himself in the fall.

Whose idea was this whole stupid sports thing, anyway?

A Tale of Two Puppies

Once upon a time, there was a puppy. 

  

He was little and cute and very, very furry.  Once cool, fall day, the little puppy went to live with a family.  They thought the puppy was the cutest little furball ever.  

After spending a week assessing his new situation from a safe location under an armchair, the puppy decided that he liked his new family too.  He came out from under the chair and began to frolic and play with the family.  He loved to spend time outside.

The little puppy grew.  As the little puppy grew, so did his fur.

  He grew, it grew. 

He grew some more -- it grew some more.  

 

This went on for some time until the puppy was nearly full-grown and he was very, very, very furry.  
 

Unfortunately, for the puppy, as he was growing the seasons were passing by and summertime had come around.  The furry puppy did not like summer. He thought summer was too hot.  So, he spent most of his time panting while spread eagle on the tile floor (unable to fit under armchair anymore).  When he’d go outside, the puppy would scurry for the shade and then get back inside as quickly as he could.

The family was sad that the little puppy was so hot and uncomfortable.  Sometimes, they would let him play in the hose to cool off, but then he’d have to wait outside until he stopped dripping.  The puppy did not like that either.  And the water made his fur very tangly. 

Oh dear, they thought, whatever will we do?

Fortunately, the puppy was lucky enough to have a Fairy Godgroomer.  She heard about the puppy’s plight and just when things seemed most hopeless, she swooped in to help. 

The puppy was skeptical at first.  He thought the Fairy Godgroomer’s magic clippers were a little scary. 

And he wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea to wield those scissors so near his face. 

But the Fairy Godgroomer knew what she was doing and when she was done, the puppy was transformed!  When he went out, no one even recognized him anymore and everyone wanted to pat him!

 

 

 
With his new “’do”, the puppy was happy again. He could run and frolic and spend more time outside.  He could get wet and even go in the pool sometimes!  The puppy decided that he never wanted to be all furry again.  Or at least until winter.

And they all lived happily ever after.  

Caution, Slow Vacationers Ahead

One of the reasons we picked Breckenridge for a summer getaway instead of, say, Vail or other Colorado mountain town is that it has a "summer fun park."  That way we’d have something to do if the kids got bored with hiking to just another gobsmackingly stunning location.  Plus, it kept one of us adults from spending way too much time watching the debt ceiling negotiations on TV.  I probably need not mention here which adult was so inclined but I will say that I attribute it to the patriotic zeal of newly-minted citizenship.  Because otherwise it’s just weird.

So, off we went one morning to the summer fun park.  One cool thing about it is the Gondola ride up the mountain to the park.  The Gondola is “free” (if you don’t count the $70 per person for the all-day park pass) and it’s pretty impressive – crossing over the main road and making stops and turns at various resorts on the way up.   

After getting our tickets, we headed for the newest attraction at the park, a roller coaster that you ride down the mountain.  You hop into individual cars that carry you to the top.  You then have brakes to control the speed of your vehicle as you plunge back down the mountain.   We could see the people ahead of us hurtle past with shrieks of exhilarated glee on their way down.

Here is one of the cars containing a person who would have dearly loved to hurtle down the mountain shrieking with exhilarated glee. 

Alas, the blurriness of the photo wasn’t caused by the blazing speed of the ride.  To the contrary, it was because crammed into my car with me was another nearly full-sized person who refused to ride by himself or to man the brakes.  In a moving roller coater, unable to take a breath, holding a camera in one hand and a brake lever in the other while someone is screaming at you “DON’T GO TOO FAST, MOM!” does not yield the best photographic results.

Needless to say, we did not hurtle.  We were the people who aggravate everyone else by going really, really slow so that the people behind us (including some vociferously complaining family members of our own) had to go really, really slow too.  Yes, we were those people.  But, we did go faster on our second ride and were all primed to become speed demons on our next adventure:  the Alpine Slide.  There it is in the distance.

 

Once again, I found myself in a too-small car containing two too-big persons and holding the brake, but I was determined that we would hurtle this time, darn it.  We were on a simple sled in a low-tech chute built right on the ground – what could go wrong? [Please stop here and try to imagine 2 people in this sled.]

Well, we were flying down the track when Julie – who was in front of us -- came to a complete stop.  There was an injured chipmunk on the track in front of her and, bless her gentle animal-loving soul, she absolutely would not squash it further with her sled.  This resulted in traffic jam beside us akin to I95 in the wake of a jack-knifed tractor trailer.   We were becoming those people again.

The guy directly behind us started urging Julie to just keep going.  After he realized she was too principled to cave into that kind of bad influence, he next urged her to move it off the track.  Now, dear readers, would you allow your 11 year old child pick up an injured chipmunk?  Or, more to the point, would you suggest to someone else’s child that they pick up an injured chipmunk?  I wouldn’t.  I’m still traumatized – and I am not making this up -- by a childhood chipmunk biting incident (it bit Dianne, not me).  Moreover, I couldn’t help with the chipmunk since I was wedged so tightly into the sled by the almost full-sized person sitting in front/on top of me that it would have taken the jaws of life to get me out of that thing.  Finally, to break the stalemate, the guy climbed out of his car and flipped the poor maimed chipmunk off the track.  But our reputation as those people was sealed.

Undaunted, we struck out for new activities like the giant maze -- which was a lot harder than it looked. Daniel was determined, though, and hurtled through it in no time. Then he had to go back in and help me escape.

And panning for gems -- which was a lot easier than it looked since they gave you a large bag-full of sand and gems.  It was really more like sifting than panning.

All in all, we enjoyed the summer fun park although I suspect when we left, some of the other patrons were glad to see the back of those people.