Thursday, August 15, 2013

Family Trip to PA, Part 5

On Wednesday morning, we enjoyed a delicious buffet at the hotel.  The hot chocolate was wonderful!  As we walked out from breakfast, there was man holding and talking about falcons which was pretty cool to see.  As we started to walk away, who should walk into the restaurant lobby but Reece!  It was fun to meet a character; what a great way to get us in the mood for Hershey Park!
 We arrived at the park right as it opened.
 We decided to head to the back of the park and make our way forward.  Well, there was just too much fun to stuff to do on the way to the back!  We all loved the Boardwalk / Amusement Park feel here.  There were tons of great rides for the girls.  The loved this little ladybug roller coaster.
 Not too surprising, they both loved the swings too.  Look at the face of pure joy on Mia!
 Fun on the ferris wheel!
 A lovely view from the top.
 A scenic shot and then the girls walked a few steps over where they were very excited to see the big log flume splash.
 Ready to ride the carousel!
We made lots of new friends on this trip!



 The girls enjoyed driving their own rides.
 Loving the hot air balloon ride.
Ready to motorcycle around.
 They LOVED this fishing game.  Inside each fish was a little chip, and you got a different size stuffed fish depending on what color chip you found.
 Very excited about their prizes.
 The kids' adventure rides.  It cracked us up to see them hold their hands up on the mini pirate ship; they were so brave!  They made a new friend as they spun themselves dizzy on the little teacup-like ride.
 Mia said the Frog Hopper was one of her favorite rides.  It was just like Blast Off at Sesame Place.  She loved how it bounced everyone up and down.
 Flying around.
 Mia and I raced Lily down the Fun Slide.  It's not exactly the fast potato sack slide I remembered from the fair growing up, but we gave it our best...Lily won!
 Mia and I rode the Flying Eagles.  She loved controlling us and making us go side to side and up and down.
 Mia got a kick out of this Spiderman hat.
 The girls enjoyed flying us around in the starships.
This is a Google image of the girls' very favorite ride: Music Express.  It's an old amusement park / fair ride, and they couldn't get enough of it.  We rode it multiple times in a row as there was little line.  By the end, they were getting very brave and holding their hands up as we spun in a big circle and rode up and down on the track.  It was awesome to see the sheer happiness and excitement on their faces!
 We all had a great time watching the seal and sea lion show.  They were so cute and did lots of fun tricks for us!

These are really just the highlights of the fun we had at the park.  It was overcast but there was no humidity, so it was great to be out and walking around.  We rode lots of other rides too like the monorail, ski lift, chocolate versus peanut butter laser ride and many additional kids' rides.  I just narrowed down the pictures a lot!  By this point, it was coming up on 6PM, and everyone was getting tired and hungry, so we decided to head out of the park for the evening.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Family Trip to PA, Part 4



We headed over to Hershey on Tuesday morning.  It took a little over two hours to get there, but we drove through some beautiful countryside on the way.  We were happy to arrive at the lovely Hotel Hershey right at lunchtime.
We checked in and decided to explore the hotel just a little and head over to one of the restaurants for lunch.  It was pretty yummy!


 The girls enjoyed the rocking chairs outside the restaurant.
 We had some playground time too so the girls could get a little energy out after sitting in the car and then at lunch.  They had a great time playing together.
 Enjoying the beautiful fountains.
 After resting in our room for a little while, we decided to walk over to Hershey Gardens.  They were beautiful!  Here's a view of the hotel from the gardens.
 I loved this sweet little statue.
 The girls enjoyed the musical part of the children's garden.  They loved this in-ground xylophone to jump all over.
Exploring the gardens.
 So many beautiful flowers.



Running through the rose archways.
 Enjoying the butterfly bench.
 Kiss fountains.  One of them misted on Mia's hand, and she jumped; we all cracked up!
 The butterfly garden area was fascinating!

 Love my sweet girls.
 We ended the day at the hotel's pool.  We were told it would be a nice 80 degrees in the water...not so much.  We still had fun though!  They had a fun twisty slide that I enjoyed.  Lily didn't want to try it, and Mia was a little too small for it, so they just hung out in the shallow end having fun in the mushroom fountain.  Ryan visited the adults only area and loved the infinity hot tub.
We decided on room service for dinner so we could relax.  I ordered this Reece's peanut butter pie for dessert.  Yum!
 This was a fun start to our time in Hershey!