Staycation 2011

Short and sweet synopses:

Girlies had an adorable song going for the weeks leading up to "Staycation 2011" and it went to the tune of the "vacation, all I ever wanted" song. They're still singing it!

It's always depressing when our time together comes to an end, and this has been no different. We thrive on being TOGETHER. We have so much fun together, the 5 of us. It's so nice to just. BE. -- to not have to stress over going in to work early, or staying late, or Dan going to work right after dropping us off from me being at work, etc etc.

I'm so thankful that we had this time together.

Tuesday night we went to a Reading Phillies game. Girlies had been waiting for months just to hear the "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" song at an actual "ball game," and we left with 3 happy girls after they got to belt out the tune at the top of the 7th inning. You could tell their little baseball dreams had come true that they had sung the song at the top of their lungs in an actual baseball stadium! They're too funny.

Wednesday we went to Hershey. The weather cooperated and it was a gorgeous day. Girlies just love Hershey, as do we. We did Chocolate World on the way in, AND on the way out since they just love that ride. We had a wonderful day there. I was blown away with Abrielle's fascination with characters (both here and at Sesame). She only got close to Thumper, Marie, Pinocchio, and the Fairy Godmother when we went to Disney, and everyone else she only waved from a distance. She was on the lookout for characters though this past week. She and her big sissies were reminding Dan and I of little groupies;) We had to tear Abrie away from the characters this week because she just wanted to hug them and not stop. It was too cute!

Funny story at Hershey: We did the little cars-- Maddie and I rode together, and I assumed that Dan was riding with both Abrie and Faith. When Maddie and I got off of the car, I noticed that only Abrie was with Dan behind us. I started freaking out and asked Dan where Faith was. Turns out they only allowed one child with a parent, so a very nice Hershey employee lady volunteered to ride with Faith so that Faith could still drive the car. It was so funny to see Faith drive up as proud as could be and tell the nice lady, "Thank you so much! Have a good day!"

Thursday we went to Harrisburg to a place we'd been wanting to try for years: the Whitaker Center. It's an IMAX theatre with a children's science museum, and we just stuck to the science part. It was awesome. Maddie actually told us that this was her favorite day trip. Girlies had so much fun in the kids section: there was a grocery store, a stage for plays, a water section, a construction site, ambulance, and Legos. Abrie and Faith loved playing ambulance drivers that had to help Dad! And, the grocery section was a hit. We loved the older kid exhibits as well-- especially the section on weather. The hurricane chamber was a hit with all of us-- standing in Category 1 Hurricane strength with 91 mph winds that took Faith's headband right out of her head was quite an experience!

We had "dates" every night and went out for dinner to places we had voted on the week beforehand. It was so nice to not have to cook dinner for several nights (now, if I could have also skipped on doing laundry it would have been even nicer;)). Our dates were some of my favorite moments. We went to Ugly Oyster on Thursday for dinner, which is the place Dan and I went last year for our anniversary. Although we missed the Celtic music that night, it was perfect because we had a table in the corner where the 3 of them could get down and dance. They had so much fun. Dan loved the fact that Abrie ate just as much of the "ugly pretzel" (a soft pretzel with crab and cheese on it) as he did; he was so psyched that she might be his seafood buddy!!

Friday we did Sesame. Girlies had so much fun! Abrie was in character chasing mode again! What's funny is that this was Faith's first time to ever actually meet the characters at Sesame (and Hershey) also. She's only ever liked the characters at Disney! Water slides were a hit this year with all 3 of them, and we did mainly water stuff all day.

Took girlies to see "Cars 2" on Friday night. Abrie just LOVES their collection of Cars, and they all really liked the movie. Abrie had to leave midway through the movie due to a leaky diaper (that filtered onto my pants!), but she was happy as a clam throughout the rest of it.

Girlies slept in the playroom during staycation. They LOVED it. They slept like 3 little logs, of course, they were up way past their usual bedtime, so they passed out every night without so much as a peep. They called this their "Cozy Cone Hotel:"

Went to Lancaster on Saturday to see Grammy and PaPa, and Nene and Grampa. Dan went fishing at Lake Grubb while us girls tossed rocks into the lake, and we ate "alfresco" on Nene's deck that evening with Tia Rosa and Uncle Schnoogo.

And, yesterday they requested to go to the local farm in the morning and the lake in the afternoon.