We headed straight to Pennsylvania after our visit with my family in NY to visit almost all of the Schuetzlers (Tyler and his family weren’t there). The first full day we were there we went to Chocolate World! It’s located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and was another one of our favorite things from our trip.
First we did a chocolate ‘tasting’ where we learned not to eat chocolate, but to taste it by not chewing so as to get the true flavor. Pretty interesting because I definitely liked dark chocolate better that way. We also saw a 3-D cartoon movie about Hershey’s little mascots, which made Hyrum so in love with “Reese” that we let him get a little stuffed animal of him at the gift shop later.
The coolest thing we did there was make our own chocolate bar! We each picked our own type of chocolate and the fillings, then watched it go through the line as it was made, then we got to design our own cover. Hyrum loved it so much he came out of the little factory saying, “I LOVE my candy bar!” over and over.
Hyrum also got to ‘help’ load up kisses (his favorite candy):
They have a free ride there that takes you through the making of Hershey chocolate, and Hyrum LOVED it. As soon as we got off, he wanted to go again. He called it “the Halloween ride.” The kid really loves Halloween, it’s kind of funny. They had music on the ride, so of course we danced:
That same day we also drove a little further to Amish country and went to some quilt shops and such. While we waited in Intercourse, PA (that was the name, I’m not making it up) we saw tons of buggies pulled by horses going right along next to the cars. Hyrum and Cora both got so excited every time they saw a buggy!
Here is the house Ryan’s parents rented and we all stayed at; it was so cute!
The boys went golfing a few times (Ryan only once) and it wore them out every time:
We also had lots of down time on this part of our trip as well, which again was really nice with kids. Meagan discovered another way to my children’s hearts, the iPad:
The whole reason we went to PA was to meet this little guy and go to his blessing (my newest nephew):
He was so sweet and cuddly! I love him!
Another day we were there we went to Penn’s Cave, which is a cave that has a little river running through it so you can boat through it.
It was really cool, and definitely the first time I’ve done something like that:
Hyrum liked it but said he was scared of the dark when asked about it later. Good thing he had Aunt Maren to help him feel safe!
They also have a little wildlife safari you can go through, so we saw some deer (and the most adorable baby fawns), elk, longhorn cattle, bears, mountain lions, and bobcats.
On Saturday we went around Penn State a little to see a bit of campus. They have so many super tall trees around!
We saw Old Main, which seems like it was built with Abraham Lincoln’s blessing, so that’s pretty cool:
It was pretty hot and humid while we were there, but still not as bad as Tucson!
Cora loved seeing her little cousin, and especially loved giving him high fives:
Hyrum loves his cousin too, and insists we call him T-Bone every time I say his real name:
Here he is! Adorable!
Blessing Day:
Our trip home was a little too eventful for my tastes, but we survived. After a 3.5 hour drive to the airport, we then had to wait at the Rochester airport for 4 hours only to discover our flight was so late we’d miss the connection, so we had to stay at a hotel for the night (paid for by us) and start all over the next morning. Let’s just say, we got to know this play are pretty well:
The Chicago airport had a pretty cool play area too, a lot like a children's museum, so we spent most of our layover there:
We made it home! It was so fun to spend time with Ryan’s family and see and do all the cool things in Pennsylvania. And we loved meeting T-Bone! We feel so grateful that we were able to make this trip and for all the family that helped us the whole way. Yay for summer vacations!
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