Family Trip to PA, Part 3

Sesame Place!

 

Another beautiful day as we headed over to Sesame Place.  I think I was most excited!  After walking in, we picked up our fast pass bracelets which was probably our best investment we could have made.  It took us to the front of every ride.  Honestly, we only saw two other families with these bracelets, so we moved right to the front every time...awesome!  We headed over to see the topiary trees which were super cute.

 We talked the girls into trying the roller coaster first, but they both hated it.  Oh well...on to something else.  We headed over to the hot air balloon ride which they loved.  Mia was my co-pilot.

 Next up was the first of two tea cup rides.  I gladly watched from the side!  The girls always love this type of ride though as Ryan spins them incredibly fast.

  Next up was Elmo's World Live.  Since we had the fast pass, we were the first ones in so we had front row seats.  The girls were pretty excited!

 We were so close to Elmo and Mr. Noodle's nephew!

 Having fun!

 Mia loved the King of the Cookie Hill.  Lily was actually too tall for this activity, but Mia didn't mind.  She quickly made friends with the little girl in line by her, and then scampered right to the top.

The girls enjoyed a few carousel rides.

It was fun to sit on Sesame Street and watch a parade!

The girls loved the swings.  Here they are pretending to be Flying Superheros!

 The girls and I loved the Blast Off ride.  The girls screamed as we hopped up and down; I couldn't stop laughing at them!

The girls always love to get their faces painted.  Mia chose a pink t-rex while Lily went with a sunset design.

 We also had the opportunity to meet some characters.  The girls hugged on Elmo.

 We were all happy to meet Big Bird!

We didn't even hit any of the water rides while we were here.  By the end of the day, we were all worn out!  We had done lots of walking, laughing and screaming.  It was a fantastic day!

Family Trip to PA, Part 2

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day to explore Philadelphia.  We headed in first thing in the morning, and thanks to Jenn's advice, we were able to walk right in to see the Liberty Bell.

 After viewing the Liberty Bell, we walked across the street for our guided tour of Independence Hall.  It was really fascinating to see and learn more about where our country began.

 Listening to our tour guide as he told us about this room where the Second Continental Congress met to write our Declaration of Independence.

 When the tour was over, we decided to take a 30 minute carriage ride around historic Philadelphia and Society Hill.  It was a wonderful, interesting and fact-filled ride.  So glad we did this!

 The girls were on a mission during our time in Philly.  We stopped by an information desk on our way in, and the park ranger gave each girl a book with tasks in it.  Mia's tasks included things like connect the dots and matching pictures.  Lily's tasks were word search and drawings.  They were also required to go on a guided tour which we did with Independence Hall.  They were so excited to go back to the ranger to receive badges and be sworn in as Junior Park Rangers!

 After our morning exploring Philly, we met up with Michael and Jenn at the Reading Terminal Market to enjoy lunch together.  After lunch, the four of us went to Adventure Aquarium.  It sits right on the Delaware River.

 A couple of the cool exhibits.

We loved this huge tank.  We watched a show with a couple of divers which was neat.

 It was fun to watch the penguins on Penguin Island!

 Fun in the kids' exhibits.

 I was amazed at the gigantic hippos!

We loved our day in Philadelphia!

Family Trip to PA, Part 1

I have been so excited that we planned one last family summer trip!  I don't know why, but I get ideas in my head and they just stick with me.  Several years ago, I saw something on tv about Sesame Place, and I just thought it was so cool to have a whole amusement park just for younger kids.  Mia loves Sesame Street right now, and Lily will still watch it with her.  I believe in another year, Lily probably won't like it as much and would consider something related to it to be "for babies."  So, Ryan and I talked about it and decided we would take a family trip to Pennsylvania to visit Sesame Place.  Of course, we wanted to do more than that, so we started investigating.  We quickly realized that Hershey was only about 2 hours away.  A city built around chocolate...yes, please!  On top of that, we discovered that two of our friends, Michael and Jenn Douglas live in NJ which is just 20 minutes away from Philadelphia and 40 minutes from Sesame Place.  They were so gracious to let us stay with them for a few days to explore Philadelphia and Sesame Place; we decided to stay in Hershey for that part of the trip.

We were finally ready to leave last Saturday morning.

 Once we arrived in Philadelphia, we picked up our rental car and met Michael and Jenn for lunch.  Of course, we had to get authentic Philly Cheesesteaks.  I don't remember the name of the place where we ate, but it was jam packed and for good reason; those were delicious cheesesteaks!  From there we headed back to their house.  I have to be honest, their home and neighborhood completely changed my opinion of New Jersey.  I really had it in my head that it would be filled with factories, smog and just kind of gross.  Quite the opposite.  We fell in love with Audobon and it's surrounding areas!  Their house is just charming, and they have a great area for the kids to play on in their front and back yards.  They have a perfect front porch which we loved too.  To top it off, an ice cream truck comes by every day!  Now, I don't trust the ice cream truck that occasionally comes by our home, but this one was awesome.  The girls and I couldn't resist a little treat.  Seriously, I felt like we had been transported back in time a little bit, and it was wonderful!

 Michael and Jenn showed us several great restaurants while we were with them.  Our favorite was definitely The Pop Shop.  This diner is built on breakfast foods, grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes.  Are you kidding me?  How can you get better than that???  The girls loved getting the hats to color on and a balloon.  Mia enjoyed the yogurt parfait with yogurt, berries and Cheerios.  Lily loved their little pancakes, bacon and hash browns.  I thought it was great that they have a kids menu for those 12 and under, a younger kids menu for those 5 and under (same items, just smaller portions) and a baby menu (applesauce, Cheerios, etc).  I have been saying for years restaurants should have tiered kids' menus; my girls do not eat like 12 year old boys!  Anyway, Ryan thought their grilled cheese on pretzel bread was wonderful and ordered it both times we went (that's right, we went twice because it was that awesome).  The first time we went, I enjoyed a grilled chicken sandwich with mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, avocados and balsamic mayo on it.  The second time though I ordered the sandwich that Bobby Flay put up against them on his show "Throwdown."  It was ah-mazing.  Brie, goat cheese, applewood smoked bacon and tomato on country white.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Of course, we tried some milkshakes too.  I fell in love with the salted caramel while the girls tried some different ones: oreo, cherry, banana and a banana/pineapple mix.  I wish there was a Pop Shop near us!

After dinner one evening, the girls couldn't wait to help Jenn make real chocolate chip cookies (as opposed to the Nestle Tollhouse that they usually see at our house).  In all seriousness, these were the best chocolate chip cookies I have had.  Delicious!

This was a great way to start the trip!

End of July / Early August

We have had some wonderfully busy few weeks, so I'm a little behind on the blog.  Here are some miscellaneous pictures from recent days:

Mia thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of her funny faces with my phone!

Lily had a sleepover with my parents and Molly one evening, so Ryan and I decided to have a fun evening with just Mia.  We bought the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because both girls loved the original version of this movie.  Mia loved that she got to watch the movie before Lily did!  After the movie, we surprised her with sparklers.  She had never seen these before, and she thought they were awesome!

  One afternoon, the girls and I went bowling with the Murrays.  Mia and Gunnar were in PMO together last year, and they developed such a sweet little friendship.  Lily and Bree are the same age too, so this is perfect for a get-together!  Kelly (their mom) and I enjoy one another's company too, so we try to get together for a playdate every few weeks.  Lily has been bowling once before, but this was Mia's first time.  They loved it!

  Mia was so proud of herself for helping Ryan make pancakes one morning.

  Date with Daddy to Chuck E Cheese, and Mia saying "cheese" at lunch one day.

 We all loved having Grandpops come in for a visit recently.  He, Ryan and I enjoyed a delicious dinner at Rathbun's Steaks one evening.  The next day, the five of us went to LEGOLAND which the girls loved.  I think Grandpops enjoyed watching them play.  He surprised them with new Lego sets which thrilled them.  Lily was beyond excited to get the vet set she has been wanting for a couple of months now, and Mia was elated to get a circus set.  They couldn't wait to start playing with them!  After lunch at Johnny Rocket's, we headed home to rest.  After that, we met back up to go see the movie Turbo which was really cute.  After the movie, we had dinner at Jim and Nick's, and then we hung out at our house for awhile.  Grandpops got to see exactly what kind of Lego whiz kids we have!  This was a great visit, and we look forward to seeing him again soon!

 Today we headed up to North Point Mall.  Lily has been saving up her money, and she was so excited to finally have enough to buy the American Girl of the year, Saige.  Mia had also been saving her money, and she was quite happy to buy an awesome Jake Lego set.

 Lily was proud of her snack time sculpture with cheese and crackers.

 We had a sudden downpour this afternoon, but the sun was still shining.  Liz looked out of our window and saw this rainbow shining across our front yard!  We could see both ends of the rainbow (no pots of gold though...) which was really cool.  This was awesome to see!