Hershey Park Happy!

Our big Christmas gift to the kids was a trip to Hershey Park for their Winter CandyLane Event. They had about 30 of the rides open, lights all over the rides and the park, free hot chocolate and arcade game with the admission ticket and a Christmas show (which we didn't see). We tried to take along Aunt Great and her family but that didn't work out so we got Ben's buddy Dan to tag along. The whole durn crowd went - including Noah and the twins who ended up more like luggage than participants. Surprisingly, it wasn't too cold, although the temperature did drop considerably once darkness settled in but that was the best time to be there as all the kiddie rides had cleared out and the littles could ride to their hearts' content. I was quite surprised at just how crowded it was up until that point, though.




I didn't get to go on many rides due to the presence of Pickles in my womb so I did a lot of babysitting of strollers. David managed to scare the willies out of me on the one ride I did manage - the Sky Ride - which is sort of like a ski lift which carried us over the sidewalk, the river and through a rollercoaster from about 6 stories off the ground. Ruth and I had him between us and he spent the whole ride leaning as far as he could get over the rail, throwing his arms out in front of him and singing "I believe I can fly!" Frightening.


We took the whole crew on a couple of the rides. Of course we all had to do the carousel (or the Mary Go Round as Miriam likes to call it) and the Kissing Tower. I tried to convince the boys that they had to kiss something on the kissing tower but it seems Daddy and Mommy were the only ones smooching. The bigs had some time with Adora to seek out and ride the big rides - the bumper cars were their first destination, followed by the big swings, the monorail and the Reese's Challenge which was a big hit (Daddy got to go on that one too).

You can tell where I hung out since those are the only photos we have to show for our day.

We punctuated the rides with a stop for free hot chocolate in Mine Town along with everybody getting a shot at the Ring Toss game. We had coupons for the hot chocolate and I brought along homemade hot chocolate for our Feingold targets. Dinner was hotdogs and Fritos packed in a back pack and eaten next to the bumper cars. We ended the day with a late night romp into the Chocolate Factory for the tour ride which everyone loved. It doesn't seem to matter how old I get, I always love the feeling of being a little roasted coca bean....


All in all, it was a wonderful day - very fun for the whole family.