It was already a beautiful morning, but seeing this article on the front page of the Indianapolis Star made it all the more lovely.

A wonderful national organization called FAAN (the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network) announced this morning that Holiday World is the recipient of the 13th Annual Mariel C. Furlong Award for Making a Difference.

Here's more information.

This is a huge honor. The best award, though, is the sweet little faces of the children who were able to safely eat at the park with the rest of their family last summer. Here's an example of some of the wonderful stories we heard. And here's another.

Do you know someone with food allergies? Please let them know they can head over to our Restaurant & Food page to download this year's Allergen-Friendly Information Guide.

Many thanks to the Tri-State Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Support Group in Evansville, who nominated us for this award.

Not exactly an ideal day for testing a new water ride.

At 36 degrees out, we were grateful that at least it was water, not ice.

It was snowing like crazy for part of the morning.

In the afternoon, though, testing began.

A boat was hoisted up the 131-foot drop hill (elevator testing hasn't started yet) and then released.

Testing will continue Tuesday, as we test varied water depths.

After that, the pool will be drained so that adjustments may be made to the track. It's all part of the process...

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/wkWuhCJbriw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x...

Please remember, this is a work in progress. We'll post more test videos in the coming days.

For now, please put your #2 pencils down. We'll continue tomorrow.

Come in to the station at Pilgrims Plunge for a peek:

It's time to announce our "Feeding Families Food Drive."

We tease Will by calling him "One-Take Will." When filming commercials for marketing or videos for PR, he tends to nail his part in a single take.

Today we discovered Will's Kryptonite.

All it takes is a steaming slice of pizza to cut dramatically into his concentration. Happily we'd already agreed he was okay with me heckling if he left out any major details.

...not an aerobics class in this news report.

The good folks at Screamscape now offer a daily contest question. Answer it correctly and you'll be entered in this week's contest to win two one-day tickets to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.

The question changes every day, so if you're stumped on Monday, you'll get another chance on Tuesday (and so on).

Mid afternoon on a Saturday five weeks before opening, there are lots of people here.

Working, training, building, rehearsing.

A news crew from Evansville TV station WEHT was en route to shoot a story about unemployment rates and what we've experienced during our seasonal hiring process.

With TV, you need something called "B roll." It's the footage that's used to fill in the blanks, cover edits, and to illustrate the story while the reporter talks. "A roll" is the interview; B roll is everything else.

When I called on the 2-way asking "all units" to let me know who was out and about so we'd know where to go to shoot some B-roll, of course I expected to hear back from a load of departments.

Instead . . . crickets.

A second transmission, this time asking for inside activity, since there was no response to the call for outsiders.

A long pause, and then a phone call from John in marketing, laughing that in desperation we'd need to come into his office to shoot footage.

Happily, the entertainers are in rehearsal.

Jamie, the reporter, interviewed GM Matt about our hiring process. He told her that although we're currently fully staffed 2,000-strong, we'll continue accepting applications all summer.

The cameraman, David, told us he worked at Holiday World for five summers back during his college years, mostly in Foods. When I asked if it felt weird to be back, he just smiled.

After Matt's interview and some B-roll shots, Jamie asked one of the entertainers some questions.

Craig's from Evansville. He said ... well, if you want to know, best tune in to the 10 o'clock news on Channel 25 this evening. We'll post a link if the story ends up on their website.

Sorry it's taken me more than a week to get these up, but I wanted to share the webcam caps (I think that's short for "captures") that our friend Robert grabbed during the Pilgrims Plunge topping back on the 13th.

He was kind enough to give each "cap" a name and quite a few of them were downright entertaining (they're in italics).

Let us begin...

Anyone have any anti-gravity lifters?

We have lift-off.

Somebody up here order a horseshoe?

Santa, the horseshoe has landed.

Screamscape has launched another Holiday World & Splashin' Safari ticket giveaway this week.

Just answer three questions (may take a bit of research) by the deadline and you could win two tickets to the park.