Hershey Park

Aunt Laurel and Uncle Jim invited us out to PA for Laurel's employee day at Hershey Park. Gabriel had never been to an amusement park before, so we were a little worried it would be a disaster, but thought it would be well worth the trip to spend time with Laurel and Jim in any case. Boy were we wrong (about the park being a disaster, not about the QT with my sister, ha!). Gabriel absolutely loved all of the rides for the kiddos. It took him a few turns on rides with Andy or me, but once he got the hang of it, we just sat back and let him go from ride to ride. The park conveniently has the majority of the kid's rides in close proximity to one another, so we were able to to just let him enjoy running around and getting on and off the rides. His favorite, to no one's surprise, was the one with cars :). He literally spent nearly 2 hours riding this same ride over and over and over. We all sat back on the nearby bench and witnessed Gabriel have the best day of his life. He took one short break to hit the wave pool, then back to the cars ride. 

We thought he would have tired out by dinner time, but at 8pm, an hour past his BED time, we finally had to call it quits even though he was going strong. Andy and I rode one roller coaster (something we had never done together, which is kind of remarkable since we've done just about everything together) and let Gabriel ride the carousel one more time, then it was time to hunt down some dinner after a long day. Gabriel fell asleep in his food, so Andy scooped him up and took him to the car to sleep while Laurel, Jim and I finished dinner. 

It was a long day but SO much fun ... we spent the night and before leaving the next morning, Laurel and Jim took us to Chocolate World. For those of you who don't know, Jim works for Hershey (packaging engineer), but we tell Gabriel Uncle Jim works at a chocolate factory and he thinks that is SO cool, particularly because one of his favorite book is Curious George Visits the Chocolate Factory. Chocolate World has an 'it's-a-small-world-esque' ride that takes you through the history of chocolate and how Hershey makes its chocolate, and the ride drops you off into a gigantic room full of more chocolate than you've ever seen in your life. Kind of a nightmare for Andy and me to have to keep saying no to constant requests for chocolate, but still a fun thing to do! 

Thanks Laurel and Jim for a great time!!