Hershey what?!

Our next to last day in the Finger Lakes, my mom called to tell me that their hot water heater had sprung a leak and flooded the basement.  This was going to mean all kinds of work in the area where Jeff and I are supposed to sleep.  Our first thought was to see if we could stay in the Finger Lakes longer, but our rental house had already been booked for the following week.  Then we thought, is there a place in Pennsylvania where we can stop that's about halfway home?  The obvious answer was Hershey Park.  It would mean doing laundry, so that we didn't run out of clothes, but it sounded like fun.

I checked online and found a pretty good deal, but we decided not to tell the kids and make it a surprise instead.  I don't generally like surprises, but this one just felt too easy to pass up.  Vivian was suitibly surprised and asked to be pinched, since it all felt surreal to her.

Last summer's plan of action had worked well, so we went for a repeat this summer.  We stayed at Hershey Lodge and spent the afternoon at their indoor water park.

Followed by a nice dinner in one of the hotel restaurants.

Jeff and Elena said they were tired, so Viv and I left them at the hotel and went just the two of us for the evening preview.  Turns out Elena was a big faker, and ended up having a dance party instead of going to sleep.

It didn't really matter though, because Viv and I had a fabulous time together.

I convinced her to try her first upside down roller coaster, the Super Dooper Looper.  It only has one loop, and it's really fun.  She was scared at first, but it turned out that she LOVED it.  We went on it three times in a row.  The last time, we just stayed on, since there was no one in line for our seats.

Like I said, evening hours are the best.  Eventually though, we were exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel.  We had gotten a package where kids eat for free, so the next morning we checked out our breakfast options.  We found a buffet that had everything we wanted and settled in.  Elena went full chocolate, with both her milk and her muffin.  I had to force her to eat some fruit, yogurt and eggs.

Viv had a slightly more civilized breakfast of bacon, pancakes and regular milk.

Jeff and I both got eggs sunny side up, and Elena asked me to use my bacon to make a happy face.  With the placement of the eggs though, it ended up looking a bit alien.

Jeff did me one better and made an alien Mickey Mouse with his sausages.

Then there was the horrific hot sauce incident.

Needless to say, we had a fun breakfast.  We may have over sugared Elena though, since she had a complete meltdown later in the day.  After breakfast, we headed out to the shuttle.  We had established the day before that Elena JUST qualifies for Reese's and Vivian is at the very top of Twizzler, not that it really impacts their ride choices.

We got to the park, and the girls and I started with the Scrambler.

Elena really wanted to do the little ski lift type ride, and she wanted to be in the Reese's one to celebrate her new status.

Jeff and Viv ended up in Hershey's.

Viv really wanted to go on her upside down roller coaster again, but Jeff was roller coastered out from our last trip to Hershey, so I went with her again, while he did some of the tamer rides with Elena.

Daddy the softy also bought her cotton candy, adding to her sugar intake for the morning.

We all met up again at the merry go round.

While they were happily spinning around, an epic rainstorm started.  By the time they got off it was pouring, and we only had one umbrella which Elena demanded for herself.  We made a run for the nearest shop, because I told Jeff Elena was losing it.  He bought Hershey ponchos for the girls which I thought were quite cute and effective.  Elena didn't think so.

They're doing construction to enlarge the park, so it's quite a long walk to the shuttle pick up area which is not covered, so I figured our best bet was to go to the chocolate factory tour ride which is inside.  Even that was a walk of a few minutes, and Elena SCREAMED the whole time.  Jeff and Vivian eventually walked ahead and pretended not to know her as she shrieked about how much she HATED the poncho.  It was an over the top, sugar fueled fit.  Luckily, it was outdoors in the rain, so no one had to suffer, and her shrieking didn't impede her walking, so she kept moving.  She calmed down when we got inside and took the poncho off, but she was still breathing heavily for several minutes afterwards.

Of course, in typical, easily distracted Elena fashion, she decided she loved the factory tour and it was her favorite part of the whole day.

It helped that they gave her a little chocolate bar at the end.  I know.  More sugar.  To keep things equitable, I let Vivi buy a one pound pack of two Reese's peanut butter cups.  I didn't get a picture before she cut into them, but they are delicious.

When we were done, the rain had stopped, so we took the shuttle back to the hotel, collected our bags, grabbed a quick Taco Bell lunch and got on the road back to Virginia.  It took very little time for Elena to completely crash out.

Despite a couple bumps, Jeff and I decided that the Hershey surprise had been a success.