Hershey Park Part II

Here's more pictures from Hershey.......as promised!!

My 4 year old woke up this morning and asked if we could go to Chocolate World!

Hershey Pictures

It's so much fun looking at all the pictures we took and remembering our vacation. Thanks for letting me share.

Here's the first night in our hotel room.....when everyone was happy to be in one room :) They're really happy here because they were watching Disney Channel.....which much to my girls' displeasure we don't get at home because we don't have cable-yes, mean parents we are :)

One of our favorite places at Hershey was Chocolate World. They had a tour that showed you how chocolate was made complete with a moving car (reminded me of Disney) and singing cows (my 6 year old's favorite). My 4 year old asked to go to Chocolate World about 10 times a day-didn't take her long to figure out you got a free piece of candy each time the ride ended!

Here's the baby enjoying his chocolate-didn't take him long to figure out how delicious chocolate really is-must take after his mother :)
Here's the 3 youngest girls in Hershey Park with the Recess Peanut Butter Cup guy?? candy?? not sure what to call it when it's walking around the park.
Here's our free chocolate at Chocolate World-yummy!!
I had trouble loading pictures on to my blog using Picasa so I'll leave you with these for now and add some more later. Hope I didn't make you hungry-I'm craving a piece of chocolate right now! Happy Chocolate Thoughts!!

We're Back!!

We're back from Hershey Park and I'm slowly coming out of my chocolate haze....... probably due to the fact that my laundry is almost piled to the ceiling.......wonder if I can make my laundry room smell like chocolate like at Hershey...... Might give me an incentive to get it done!

We had a fun time-the girls loved it. It was a little tough with 7 of us in one hotel suite......luckily we weren't in the hotel room too much.

I haven't taken my pictures off the camera yet but.....good news.....my computer is back with it's awesome picture loadability and speed so I'll share soon.

Nothing to do with Hershey but Katie at A Listmaker's Life had a cute meme today and I thought this was funny. You type "your name with a certain phrase" into the google search and see what it comes up with. I didn't have time to do all......well, I didn't have time to do one but I did.....I did "Dawn wants" and it came out with Dawn wants a piece of heaven. Too funny!

I wonder if it's quiet in heaven and if your laundry is done by someone else :)

Have a great week!!! I'm so glad to read on everyone's blogs that you are all having a great summer. I think the summer weather has finally arrived here-hot and humid!! Until now it's been cloudy, rainy and cool. Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessings said she could spare a couple of degrees of her hot weather and I think she sent them over :)

Imagination

This week's Picnic Table Talk is imagination......some days my girls just blow me away with their imaginations..... with their artwork and with the games they play and invent. They are always making up new games or pretending they are someone or something else. It's so neat to watch them.

Yesterday we went for a walk and my 4 and 6 year olds found sticks. My 4 year old's stick broke at the top and then suddenly they both had fishing poles. With no water around, the bottom of someone's driveway became the lake and leaves stuck on the end of the sticks became fish. Then the sticks became sticks to roast marshmellows and they were camping-they were pretending to be seasonals (what we call people who leave their camper in one campground all summer-my girls would love to stay at a campground all summer). Then we came to an area where there were larger rocks on the side of the road so they were mountain climbers. So funny to watch and listen to but also funny because I just read another blog this morning that mentioned their child also using sticks and leaves for fishing.

My girls are always pretending in the house too-the couch may be a boat and the rug the water-or making things with play doh and pretending to cook them up and serve them to everyone or coloring and cutting things out to play with.

They younger girls love to pull out all the pans and pretend they are drums. We also have some other instruments they love to make music with.
We were lucky to be able to make a playroom in our cellar a few years ago. We have a play kitchen down there and a whole baby area set up. We also have dress up clothes down there and my girls are always dressing up in one costume or another. They come up with some interesting combos :)

After they dress up, they often put on a music/dance show for us or play house or library or school............

It's wonderful to see their imaginations at work and see them often learn things while they are playing.

Great vacation with kids.....

Part 2 of my vacation post-a great place to vacation with kids-the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

We've gone there for the past 8-9 years and we love it! So much fun, so much to do and so beautiful.

Just driving along the road, you see things like this.....

We always go to Storyland in Glen, NH when we are there. I remember Storyland from when I was young and went there with my parents. Alot of it is the same, but they've added new rides so my older girls were just as happy as the younger ones.

This is Cinderella's coach that takes you up to her castle (or you can ride it down from the castle).

There's the cutest playground that is a huge tree with stairs to climb up and slide to go down. You can look in one part of the tree and there is a magic leprechaun-the kids love that part.


This is the entrance of the park with Humpty Dumpty.

Pictures with Mother Goose-they have a shoe you can walk through and she gives out stickers.


One of my kids favorite parts was always the ball pits. There are two-one for real small kids and then the regular one for older kids.

The inside of Cinderella's castle-my girls love sitting on the throne and having their pictures taken with Cinderella. They also have a case with a glass shoe in it.


My girls love this roller coaster-there's also a water flume and another water ride where you sit in a tube and get soaked!! We always save that ride for last. They've added more rides in the last few years and the park has gotten bigger.

We usually visit Santa's Village when we're in NH also. It's about an hour away from Storyland but also so much fun! They play Christmas music all the time and everything is decorated-very special.

They have shows in the park which are really good. This one was a musical and the actors came out afterwards to greet the kids. They have a 3D movie that is adorable.

Lots of picture taking opportunities throughout the park-I love this one!

One year we went to the top of Mount Washington on the cog railroad train-very cool but very cold!! The train was really neat. There was a museum about how the tracks were built.

This is just a tiny bit of all there is to do in NH. We're real excited to go to Hershey but we'll miss all this too. We've had some real fun times and have wonderful memories. The girls always talk about different things we've done.

Thanks for letting me walk down memory lane looking at all our old pictures. Good News-my computer should be back tomorrow so I'll be able to start sharing some current pictures.

I'll leave you with this picture-I had to include it-too funny!!

A tough day at the park

Yes that is a bag of Cheetos she was eating when she fell asleep :)

Have a great week!!

Vacations

This week's Picnic Table Talk is all about vacations-great places to vacation with kids, where you love to vacation and where you might be vacationing this summer.

Vacation-aaahhhhh, don't you just love that word!

We just got back from our first vacation of the summer-the reason I haven't been around the last week or so. We always camp with my sister's family and 2 other families for the 4th of July week. Great friends, great food, great fun, not so great weather, but we got to do everything we wanted to do. Lots of hiking, swimming, biking, playing and eating. There's a delicious ice cream shop nearby and I have to admit we visited 4 times this year-I think that's our record. My kids did not want to come home and and are still in friend withdrawal.

I still can't share any current pictures-blah, blah, blah, still on the old computer, but here's a few pictures from our past 4th of July camping trips.






Sometimes, our 4th of July week overlaps with Christmas in July so you aren't seeing things-that is Santa on the hayride!

We have two more vacations planned for this summer. We always camp at the beach in August with the same group from the 4th of July-just as much fun-and we're doing something new this year. In a couple of weeks, we're going to go to Hershey Park. We are very excited!! We've never been but it looks cool and everyone we know who's been there, loves it. Any place that gives you a sample of chocolate after a tour can't be bad!! I'm hoping we might be able to stop at the Crayola Crayon Museum on the way down but I'm not sure yet how close it is or if it's on our route.

Later, I'll share a great place to vacation with kids-this post is getting long and we have a dr appt this morning. I can't wait to see everyone else's vacation plans and learn about some places we might be able to visit in the future-have a great day and enjoy!!!