Sesame Place take 3

We first visited  Sesame Place in 2013 and returned the following year. All three times we have had a great time at the park, which is located a little less than 3 hours from our house. Paul's parents live about two hours from the park. If we lived closer, we would definitely get a season pass as the park is wonderful for young children - dry rides, water slides, and Sesame Street characters for 75% less than a day at Disney. On a normal day Ian is the first child up (usually around 6:30), but Nadia was the first child up yesterday at 5:55. Oliver was the only one I had to wake up. He usually gets up a little after 7:00, and we were trying to leave by 7:15. We packed our lunches so we didn't buy any food in the park. The other two times we had purchased meal vouchers. This time we stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Eating at Wendy's was 60% cheaper. Paul's meal cost the same as a voucher, but the other four meals (the kids and I ordered off the dollar menu) put together cost the same as a meal voucher. I think this is the way to go in the future. Now if Sesame and Hershey would follow suit with Knoebels and DelGrosso's by offering free parking that would be awesome, but I am sure that will ever happen.

We arrived at Sesame Place a little after the park opened at 10:00. After a photo with Super Grover, the kids rode the kiddie roller coaster. It was the first time Nadia could ride everything in the park by herself. You have to be at least 7 to ride the roller coaster by yourself. Paul and I sat with the boys. Ian was tall enough to ride everything in the park, although he needed an adult with him on a few things. Oliver was tall enough to ride everything except for 3 water slides. Once you hit 42 inches you can ride everything in the park, and when you are at least 48 inches (and at least 7 years old in the case of the roller coaster) you can ride everything on your own. At Hershey Nadia was tall enough to be Oliver's "responsible companion," but at Sesame you have to be at least 14 years old to do that. The kids rode all the dry rides before noon, and then for most of the rest of the day we stayed on the water rides. Oliver did not go into the splash pad area because he was downright terrified of the big bucket. The kids three favorite rides were the water slides that were the highest up (you used a single or double inner tube), the rubber ducky water ride which we could all ride together, and the rambling river.

We watched one of the three shows yesterday. It was about an art show, and the kids enjoyed it, plus it was nice to sit down for 30 minutes. We also watched the parade. Oliver didn't use the stroller much yesterday (our days with a stroller are definitely numbered), but he did get in it near the end of the parade and promptly fell asleep (around 4:20). The weather was gorgeous (not as hot as last week but warm enough to enjoy getting wet), and the water was warmer than it had been on our other trips (thanks to a couple of weeks straight of 90 degree weather). We have been told that the lines are typically very long at the park during the summer, but thankfully by going in early June each year we have escaped long lines, and yesterday we had the best experience yet in terms of the lines. Most of the time we just walked right on to the ride or water slide, and the longest we waited for anything was 10 minutes. This meant we got quite a workout on the kids favorite water slide because we had to climb several flights of stairs to go down that slide and since there wasn't any line we were walking up, sliding down, and immediately walking right back up again carrying a large double inner tube. I have only been able to run one time in the past month due to Paul's work schedule, but I got some aerobic exercise yesterday climbing those stairs!

We also got pictures with all the characters we wanted to except for Cookie Monster. Three times we went up to Cookie Monster and were told that he was taking a break. Maybe he needed to go eat some cookies, ha ha! Earlier this week we were invited to join some homeschoolers today at Knoebels (using a group rate for school groups that is much cheaper), but I knew I wasn't up for two days in a row of amusement parks, and I am very glad we are just staying home today. Tomorrow morning I am planning to take the kids to Home Depot and the Children's Museum. Our next trip to an amusement park will be to Six Flags. Hopefully that will go as well as our recent trips to Hershey and Sesame (and won't be crowded like we experienced at Knoebels in April). We had planned to go to Idlewild last year but ended up going to Dutch Wonderland for the first time instead. We planned to go to Idlewild again this year, but those plans were scrapped since this is the busy season for the family business. Hopefully we'll make it out there next year because that park is also geared toward younger kids like Sesame Place and Dutch Wonderland are. If we go to Massachusetts this fall, then we will go to one new amusement park this year because if we make it up there we will visit the new Thomas the Train amusement park. We love amusement parks!

Since I am feeling a bit tired today (6 hours in the van plus 8 hours in an amusement park will do that to me), I am not planning to start any big projects around the house. I painted the half bathroom a lovely shade of blue on Wednesday, but I see I need to do some touch up on that room. Hopefully I have enough paint to get it looking nice. I also want to work some more on organizing the basement. Next week I would like to paint the hallway (the same color it is now - the kitchen and family room were much easier to paint since I didn't change the color) and the kids' bathroom. Nadia picked a pretty green for that bathroom. Then I think I will take a break from painting. Eventually I want to paint the dining room and living room, but I think I will take a painting break. I keep thinking of the books "if you give a mouse a cookie" when it has come to these projects. If I paint a room, then I will do a variety of other things like buy a new hand towel buy a new outlet cover, buy a new bath rug, clean the baseboards, dust areas that haven't been dusted in a very long time (ex. around the jacuzzi tub that we never use), etc.

Little details can really make a difference in my opinion, although in most cases probably I am the only one who notices or appreciates the improvements. I think the house is looking a lot cleaner and fresher with the painting, spring cleaning, and other little changes I have been making! It seems kind of crazy that we might live for decades in Watsontown given the sole reason we picked this town eight years ago was to make a reasonable commute for me to Bloomsburg University and for Paul to have a reasonable commute to Penn State for his Ph.D. Getting his doctorate was a complete waste, this house is not ideal for his commute to the family business, and I am unemployed. But even though we would be much better off financially if we had never left our home in Catawissa, I am grateful for this home and am so happy to begin thinking we can stay put and not continue the trend of moving every few years. From 1994-2008 I moved five times, but as of September we will have lived here eight years, and I don't anticipate us moving any time soon provided I can find a way to make some money to compensate for the drop in Paul's income. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our adventure yesterday! I will post more pictures tomorrow.