Glimpses of Parenthood...Part 2


Well, the second half of our Thanksgiving weekend included a trip to Hershey Park with Nate's family (the three nephews...ages 3, 6, 9, his sister and her husband, and his mom), part of my family (my sister, my two nieces...ages 6 months and 5 years old), and my "adopted sister," who lived with us for a couple of years growing up, and her two daughters (ages 6 and 10). Let me just say one thing. When it is 65 degrees on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, HERSHEY IS GOING TO BE CRAZY!

We decided to do Hershey the cheap way, which was go into Chocolate World for FREE, go through the FREE tour (which is actually pretty fun), and get a FREE shoppers pass into the park which allowed for you to walk through Hershey for 1 hour without riding rides but being able to see the reindeer.

Here is what I learned from that experience...Chocolate world + kids= a potential hazardous financial situation! My sister, Heather, who I think is one of the smartest people I know, decided to give each of the girls $5. Lucky for them, they had about 5 items to choose from out of 5 million:) The girls each chose a very small plush toy, as well as a reusable bag (what they are going to use that for, I have no idea, but it was in the budget!). Heather bought a bag of the cheapest chocolate that contained the most pieces and gave each girl some...again she is really smart!

Well, we made it out of chocolate world and "rushed" to see the "FREE" reindeer (notice all of my quoting and parentheses in this blog...that is for "special effect"!). When I say "rushed," I mean "rushed." To get a shoppers pass, Nate had to give the lady our credit card and she told us in a strict manner, that if we were not back on time, we would be charged for everyone. That would be 12.95 times 14...enough said. So, with Heather's leading, we booked it. We booked it so fast, my sister-in-law and her husband never made it, and the kids that did make it looked like they had just ran a marathon by the time we arrived. Nevertheless, at 6:15pm, we were all in tack, a little sweaty, and most of us had seen the reindeer!

We needed a place to eat, again a CHEAP place to eat. After trying to decide on a place that everyone liked (which I realized with two families and 8 kids, that is near impossible), we decided on Wendy's. Well, let's just say that all the parents in Hershey are as smart as Heather. EVERYONE was at Wendy's. We wound up getting several tables but on opposite sides of the room, with my family on one side and Nate's on the other. My sister got in line, and I began to be a mom for a few minutes. I was feeding Quinn (age 6 mon) with one hand and had a porcelain Barbie I had just given my niece Emma for her birthday (porcelain??? What was I thinking...), talking in my best British accent, trying to entertain 3 girls. It was quite amusing.

But it wasn't quite as amusing as the topping to this story. Nate, who is on the other side of the room with his family happened to have my honey mustard. Let me pause and remind you, Wendy's has about 100 little kids running around, eating kids meals, hyped up on sugar from chocolate world. I holler, yes, I yelled across the room, and asked Nate for my honey mustard. That's when chaos peaks. He decides to THROW the honey mustard across the room at us to catch. Before I can say no, the packet goes flying across, bounces out of our hands, and hits a little girl, about 3 years of age, and she goes running to her mom who is in line. Let's just say that the rest of that story was, mamma wasn't too happy.

Ahh...the joys of parenthood! I have to admit, while the Hershey Park day was filled with chaos, it still made my heart feel full. At one point during the day, as I was holding my little niece Quinn, sitting with Nate and my little nephew Isaac, in an extremely crowded food court at Chocolate World, I couldn't help but think...the day is coming when one day this will be us all the time, and that makes my heart smile.

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