Idlewild Park // 2018 Norwin Community Picnic

This year was the 86th annual Norwin Community Picnic at Idlewild Park & Soakzone. And this year, the organizers of this tremendous event were almost handed a situation that they’ve never had to deal with before.

The Picnic is always held (and advertised): rain or shine. Having gone to almost every single Norwin Community Picnic possible in my lifetime (I missed a few when Derrick & I were first married & living in NEPA), I can defintely remember both really fabulous gorgeous days and some not-so-great cloudy rainy days. Everyone always just rolls with it, either way.

However, with a forecast of rain all day long, and a history of closing the park down early due to the torental rain we’ve been having this week, the Norwin Community Picnic organizers were suddenly faced with a problem: What if Idlewild actually closes down for the day due to bad weather? They closed around lunchtime on Monday, closed at 5:30pm on Tuesday, and here we were on Wednesday, with another day forecasted to be full of rain. They had already set up all of their tables & tents, set up BINGO in the big pavillion, put up their banners & sponsers’ signs, and set up all of the prizes!

With all the work already done, there was only one direction to move: forward. And to wait & see what would happen. The prize drawing – the star event of the evening – has always been held rain or shine, with the caveat that “You must be present to win!” So, what would happen if Idlewild shut down & no one could be present to win? As a hastily decided “Plan B”, everyone was asked to put their phone numbers on their tickets into the drawing (just in case) and then we hoped for the best.

True to the forecast, the day definitely started out rainy. It poured all morning long and even delayed the opening of the park until 12pm. But as that “noon mark” approached, the cloudy sky began to break up and, believe-it-or-not, the sun poked through! Except for a few moments (literally less than 10 minutes) of a light shower that passed through around 4pm, the rest of the day was completely dry. And we even had a solid period of sunshine in the early afternoon.

Due to the crazy weather forecast, what is usually a packed day at Idlewild (think long food lines, long attraction lines, people absolutely everywhere) it was actually a pretty dead day. In fact, Idlewild’s management told the Picnic’s organizers (my Dad is one of them) that if it wasn’t for us, they likely wouldn’t have even opened for operations yesterday. But they knew that the Norwin Community Picnic pulls in such a large crowd, that even if our numbers were cut in half, that it would be worth it to at least open for a little bit.

I’ve blogged about the Norwin Community Picnic for the last 3 years (this is Braelynn’s 4th time attending) and if you look back at those posts (Year One, Year Two, Year Three) & compare the photos with this year’s photos, you’ll see the difference. That didn’t stop us from having an amazing day though – in fact, we had more fun simply because we felt like we had the entire park to ourselves!

Because we’ve been going to Idlewild on Norwin Community Picnic Day for so long, we have our routine on how we go about conquering the park. Idlewild truly is a huge place & if you want to get as much as possible in (it’s impossible to do it all), we’ve found the best way to go about the day is a certain “order”. However, with the rain, and the threat of the park closing early, we had one priority: get to Raccoon Lagoon & ride the Daniel Tiger ride (and if at all possible, see the very first Daniel Tiger show). Braelynn has talked non-stop about seeing Daniel Tiger & riding the trolley, so in order to make her dreams come true, we threw our “die-hard-schedule” to the wind and made a bee-line (as soon as it opened) for Daniel Tiger.

Thankfully, because there were so few people in the park, we were still able to do just about everything we wanted! We still made it over to the Soakzone for some time in the pool, still made it through Storybook Forest, Braelynn rode just about every ride in Raccoon Lagoon as well as many of the “big kid” rides too! We packed out our day & it was wonderful!

Braelynn loves her cousin Nate! He is so so sweet with her & she simply adores him.

We made it onto the very first trolley of the day! And Braelynn was mesmorized!

What a huge improvement over last year!! Last summer, Braelynn wouldn’t even go near the princess, and this year, she walked right up to her, talked with her, held her hand while I took their picture, and gave her a hug goodbye!

Do you see how empty the pool area is?! Normally, and especially by this time of day (after lunch), the pool is packed. But yesterday, we (almost) had the whole place to ourselves!

After the pool, it was back to Raccoon Lagoon for the Daniel Tiger show!

Look at my brave little girl! She’s the one in the pink skirt & black shirt right in the middle of all the kids! Such a big difference from last year when she wouldn’t even go near Daniel Tiger on her own!

Speaking of meeting Daniel Tiger, she was excited to see Katerina Kittycat, but it was just a quick “hello” before she was running over to see Daniel!!

This might be one of my very favorite pictures ever. Braelynn calls my brother Stephen “Uncle Cheese” and she absolutely adores him. He & our cousin Malachi forgot their swim trunks, so while everyone else was still over in the pool, they came & hung out with us in Raccoon Lagoon for a little while – which means “Uncle Cheese” got to ride a few rides with Braelynn.

After this, there are pictures of Braelynn with my sister Amy (and y’all know Braelynn & her Auntie Ruby are BFFs) – there is just something so special about seeing my own siblings interact with & adore my daughter (their niece). It fills my heart to overflowing faster than almost anything & is so wonderful!

I’ve taken this same picture 3 years in a row (go back to my old Idlewild posts to find them – linked above).

Empty – the park was absolutely empty.

Our traditional dinner is cheese fries & wow do these make me hungry all over again just looking at them!

Derrick had to work yesterday, but he was able to get off a little bit early to come up to the park for dinner! He took Braelynn on a bunch of the “big kid rides” since she is now tall enough to ride most of them with an adult! She was so excited to ride the ferris wheel, because it is so big, she thought she’d be able to see our house from the top!

And just like that, it was 6:30pm and time for the prize drawing! My Dad has been the emcee of the event for the last few years & he’s just the best (I’m not just saying that because he’s my Dad either – he’s truly the best).

This year, there were less than half the regular number of attendees, so we felt like our odds of someone from our group winning one of the 86 prizes felt pretty good – and lo & behold – Grandpa called “Braelynn Abbey” as the winner of a 10×10 pavilion! She told us later on, she was sad because she didn’t get the prize she wanted – we asked her what prize she wanted (thinking it was probably the gigantic stuffed animal that Idlewild always donates) and she told us, “I just wanted a balloon.”