Tuesday, September 1, 2015

A wild, crazy, awesome summer!

We had no major plans for summer, just to kind of do whatever we do last year, pool play dates and a few outside adventures.  Throw in a few ice cream sundaes and sleep overs, you have the perfect combination for summer, or so I thought.  Before summer even started we welcomed some unexpected visitors.  Joe's brother visited from out of town and while they were here asked if their kids would want to stay here for the summer.  I was elated!!!  Granted they are 10 years older then my kids, I was destined to find fun things for all of us to enjoy.  My  kids loved it.  Their cousins were able to show them how to play Minecraft and other video games.  We got to spend alot of time in the pool with them as well.  Here is the best list of things that I can remember of what we did with them that would have otherwise not have done this summer.  Duck Pin Bowling, Laser Tag, Go Carts, Dave and Buster, Chuck E Cheese, Medieval Times, ClimbZone, the Maryland Science Center, the Nasa Goddard Visitor Center, A drive in with the following movies-- Inside Out, AntMan and Avengers Age of Ultron!  We even got to my sisters so we could take them jet skiing on the lake.  So we had a pretty exciting Summer.  Our niece and nephew and visited some other family, in the time that they were gone I had a visit from a sister and her 3 kids for 4th of July as well as a visit from my parents to celebrate a birthday.  Along with that, I had the awesome experience of going to Geneva on the Lake, Ohio to celebrate my baby sister at her bachelorette party!  We did run out of time to give our niece and nephew a proper Movi-cation.  The only movies we were able to share with them were Dodgeball, Armageddon and a Knight's tale.  I can't remember what else we wanted to show them, but the list is epic, I'm sure.  Summer moved on and we celebrated my sisters wedding, my kids are dancing champs at weddings, we all had such a great time!  Things have wind down, summer is over and we are back to school.  While we had an awesome summer and loved every moment of it, I am welcoming the normalcy of a regular schedule and alarms to get me out of bed!  Bring on Fall and everything 'pumpkin'...yes, I am one of those people!

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Spring Break!!!

Now that both kids are in school our vacations are (mostly) limited to spring break, winter break and summer vacation.  My justification for vacationing on spring break is that not every school is on spring break at the same time, so things aren't as crowded as in the summer and winter breaks.  This week proved to be true!  As a previous time share owner, we cashed in all our points and got 4 condos in Williamsburg to visit with my family.  At first it was going to be us and 1 sister and her family, but then it grew to be 2 of my 3 sisters and their families and my parents.  8 adults and 8 kids.  Most people think this combo would be a recipe for disaster, but I must say spending time with my family is awesome.  I now see what a blessing that is!  Anyway--on to our adventures!

The resort we were in, Wyndham Kingsgate was awesome.  It had an indoor pool, free arcade, movie theatre, free mini golf and many planned activities.  We took the time to experience what the resort had to offer and spent many hours in the arcade and mini golf course and saw 3 movies--Big Hero 6 is now our new favorite movie and every conversation has at least 2 quotes from this movie in it.  At that point the conversation ends and we just reenact a scene from the movie.  Unbelievable!

Our adventures outside of the resort led us to a Chuck E Cheese, a beach, Colonial Williamsburg, and  new beautiful park in the area!  Yes I know, Chuck E Cheese on vacation.  I am going to bring up the point I spoke of earlier that the whole world was not on spring break, like the Williamsburg area--so we got to enjoy the largest Chuck E Cheese I have ever seen to ourselves on a Monday!  Totally worth it.  We even went to a free lego build at a local Toys R Us.

I never even thought of going to the beach but my sisters kids wanted sea shells. I found a beach in Hampton Va called 'Outlook Beach' on Fort Monroe--which is a decommissioned army installation.  It is a beach on the Chesapeake Bay.  It was the best spot for sea shells I have ever seen!  It had a huge variety of different kinds of sea shells.  We think that it was like that because of the weather there haven't been to many beach combers around.  So the kids had a blast finding shells, and putting their feet in the freezing water!  It was a glorious spring day for the beach!

Colonial Williamsburg -- this is one of those places that you think, will be fun, but you never know.  My sister with older kids spent 3 days there.  We joined them on 1 of the days.  I learned something about my kids, they are able to do something more then playgrounds and Chuck E Cheese!  We toured the castle visited the shops, and put them in the stocks.  I think the kids really enjoyed themselves.  I am hoping to get back there some day and do some more of the childrens activities that they have to offer.

We went to a new park for a short bit on our next to last day to get some energy out.  Kidsburg is a newly rebuilt no boundries playground.  It was amazing.  We were here 5 years ago before it was re done and it was a great park then, now it is even better.  They have added a building that has bathrooms year round.  Great park for all ages!





















Happy Spring!  I hope it is here to stay! 

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Turkey Hill Experience--and Free Ice Cream!


The Turkey Hill Experience located just outside of Lancaster PA is a great, fun little adventure if you are ever up that way.  It is a described as a place to learn about how they make your favorite flavored Turkey Hill Ice Cream!  We visited for the first time 2 and a half years ago.  The kids would have been 5 and 3 at the time.  The then 5 year old remembered our trip there, the 3 year old, not so much, until now!!  We found a Certifikid deal for Avalance Express Snow Tubing and went tubing with the kids.  It was in York Pa, which is very close to Turkey Hill.  Turkey Hill was not on our agenda until I checked Certifkid the morning we were leaving and saw that there was a deal for Turkey Hill, so we ended up there, again.  






It really is a fun little museum for children.  It has information on how dairy was processed in the past, present and future.  The kids really enjoyed working on the milk truck pretending to deliver milk.  







Once you actually get into the museum itself there is a short movie on how ice cream is made.  It is a whole process, watch the movie, go through the museum, get some free ice cream, lather, rinse, repeat!  Each station has something to do with the Ice Cream making process.  There is a station that describes how important it is to clean the equipment to get rid of the bad germs, but also the importance of the good germs needed to pasteurize and process dairy products



This is a flavor maker station.  Each of the tall tubes were different flavored scents.  You got a piece of paper and make up you own scented combinations. 



They even have a ball pit to show how important it is to make sure everything gets mixed in together well!  The world needs more ball pits!





With your ticket, you get a special code which allows each ticket holder the chance to (digitally) make their own ice cream, pick the packaging and make a commercial.  There is a good mix of digital stations and non digital stations to keep everyone entertained


At last FREE ICE CREAM!!!  As a visitor you are able to experience -- as many times as you want-- free ice cream samples.  And they are a scoop of ice cream!  Not only ice cream, but they have their drinks for sampling as well.  This place is not huge by any standard and most families would be finished with a visit in about an hour and a half.  We last over 4 hours.  We do the movie, the activities, free ice cream and just start it all over again.  Now both kids remember it and ask for it often, especially when we buy Turkey Hill Ice Cream from the store!!








And that concludes our visit to Turkey Hill.  I probably can't say it is our last visit!