A "Sweet" Day

On Saturday the 26th, Jesse's company treated everyone to a company outing to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania. How fantastic! The company parties in recent years have been wine tastings or other similar events, which automatically excluded us because of our religious beliefs. Needless to say, this year's event was perfect for us - we had a slight bit of schmoozing with co-workers during the catered lunch, but otherwise, it was just our family doing our own thing at an amusement park, courtesy of Jesse's work!

We intended to get there as close to 10am as possible, but we were slow to get going, and only left the house shortly before 10. We thought it was just over a 1-hour drive, but as soon as we got off the interstate to head towards Hershey, we hit a wall of traffic. It took 2 hours in all to get there, bringing us to the park right at about noon. Between parking, using the restrooms, riding the tram, getting through the admission lines, and walking to the other end of the park for the lunch, it was almost 2pm before we had a chance to tackle the rides. There is a water park within Hershey Park, but since the kids and I had gotten sunburns only just Thursday, we had decided ahead of time to skip that portion of it to save ourselves additional pain. It was a good decision - the water area was MUCH too crowded, anyway. We decided instead to focus on kiddie rides. Neither one of us liked the idea of trying to entertain all 3 kids while one adult at a time waited in long lines for the bigger roller coaster type of rides. An added bonus to our plan was that there are generally NO lines for the kiddie rides!

Our first stop was one of the giant slides where you ride down on a potato sack. Jesse took Melinda, then I took Jacob. Jacob had a hard time waiting our turn, but thought the slide was great. I couldn't quite see Melinda's reaction during the slide down, but she said she enjoyed it, too.

We then went over to the next set of kiddie rides, which included this circular ladybug ride, a horse-and-carriage circular ride, and a little tiny train that went around in a large loop. They really liked them, and ran eagerly from one to the next. Right after we took this picture, our camera batteries ran out. D'oh!! I forgot to bring extra. So we spent the next 10-15 minutes walking from one shop to the next looking for someone who sold batteries. Just as we were about to give up and buy a disposable camera, we found some. Hooray!
New batteries in place, we backtracked to this ride, the Musical Express. Melinda was big enough to go on, so I took her. Jesse declined to go on most rides, it's just not his thing, so anytime there was a situation where I couldn't take Melinda and Jacob both, he stayed back with Alex and Jacob. And if I could take them both, he stayed with just Alex. So almost all of the pictures in this post are Jesse's handiwork. Anyway, the Musical Express ride was a lot of fun - my personal favorite of the day! It spins around really fast and the track has elevation changes, so that you feel like you're flying over a bump sometimes. The gravity of the spin made myself and Melinda get squished to the outside of the car, and we both giggled our heads off over those bumps!! I may not have giggled, had I been all on my own, but Melinda was sooo infectious. :) Really, we were both laughing our heads off the whole time!
We went and found more kiddie-exclusive types of rides after that, so Jacob wouldn't feel so bored waiting for us. Every time we past a restroom, we asked the kids if they needed to go. Jacob said "YES!" every time. Melinda said "no" every time. And they were both drinking just as much. Strange kids! Anyway, we found a spot with a couple kiddie rides - a mini carousel and a mini "scrambler", and Jesse took them to each while I sat down on a bench to nurse Alex. I had to grin when a couple other moms also sat down next to me to nurse their children. I don't often run into other moms who are nursing in public, and I don't think I've ever had a stranger sit next to me and join me, before! Alex and another adorable little baby boy had fun grinning at each other after they were finished eating, too!


We also all went on a family-friendly train ride after these kiddie rides. We didn't get any pictures of that. In MY opinion, it was incredibly boring - most of the time the train was actually going slower than a leisurly walk. But later, Melinda said it was her favorite. I have absolutely no idea why, since her reaction was so much better on the bigger rides.


Jacob, Melinda and I stood in line for "The Rodeo", which ended up being a longer wait than I anticipated. Melinda sat in a seat all by herself, and I took Jacob with me, since we could only do 2 people per seat (even though we would have all fit onto one...). It started out just going in a fast circle, but then added a tilt to it, making you go up and down while you were spinning in a circle. Melinda loved it, and Jacob loved it at first.
After the tilting started, Jacob's wide grin quickly changed to a very somber, concerned face, and he huddled against me. I spent the rest of the ride telling him it would be over soon. After the ride was over, he said that this ride was "too hard for me. Yah." So, I didn't take him on any other potentially scary rides the rest of the day.

Melinda and I went on your classic "boat" ride, that just swings you really high, back and forth. Great fun! Melinda, as you can see, was grinning hugely while we were on the ride. As we were going, she said to me, "Mom! This really tickles your belly, huh!" I really loved her description of the feeling in kid-speak, I thought it was so cute, and pretty much right on target!
After this ride, we grabbed some orange Icees (which I *loved*, but Jesse said was too heavy on the syrup) and headed to more kiddie rides. Melinda and Jacob rode on a mini "boat". It was so tame! Nothing more than what you would get from mom or dad pushing you in a swing. Pretty soon the kids were putting their hands in the air to try and liven it up a bit!
Alex was so easy-going, it was surprising! I brought my carrier in case he got fussy, but he was perfectly content to sit in the stroller the whole afternoon, dozing off when he got tired, and otherwise just people-watching.
Jesse was starting to get a headache by this point, and it was after 5pm, so we started walking back towards the front of the park. On our way, we rode the Starship ride. The original plan was for me to take Melinda and then Jesse take Jacob (who was waiting eagerly on the sidelines), but after riding it, I decided that Jacob would not like it. It spun so fast that *I* got too dizzy and didn't feel good. Melinda had a lot of fun pulling the lever to make the starship go up and down, though!
Melinda and Jacob both rode on the neighboring kiddie Hot Air Balloon ride, which, like most of the kiddie rides, basically just went in a circle, but this one had up's and down's as well. It seemed like they enjoyed it!
And our last stop was the BIG carousel. Jesse stayed with Alex once again, but Melinda, Jacob and I all sat on our own horses that moved up and down. I was pretty nervous that Melinda would lean over and fall off, but she did really well! Jesse didn't take any pictures of that one.

On our way out of the park, Jesse's head hurt badly enough that we stopped at a nearby store to grab some Gatorade (his go-to drink when his head hurts after being hot and sweaty, like we all were at Hershey Park!), and he asked me to drive the rest of the way home. Everybody snoozed while I drove. We arrived home at about 7pm and ate some dinner. We did bathtime in preparation for church and then tried to get the kids into bed just before 9pm. I was really hoping they'd go right to sleep. But nope, the car nap did them in - they were still up, running out into the front room, by 10:30pm. Finally Jacob fell asleep, but Melinda took apart her sippy cup and let it leak all over her bed, so she joined us in our room at 11pm. Which, again, is the reason I didn't realize she had a fever when she first woke up. And, by the way, her fever broke late last night, and she woke up feeling perefctly normal. But we're still staying home today, adhering to my mom's old rule of waiting 24 hours to make sure the germs are gone.

Anyway, we had a really fun day, despite the big crowds and Jesse's headache. We avoided getting any additional burns, and the kids loved the rides. Melinda has been asking almost non-stop when we'll go again, and she's not too keen on accepting the fact that the only reason we went was because it was completely free! Well, not completely - it did take an entire half-tank of gas to get there and back, and these days, that's not cheap!