What an AMAZING Vacation we just got home from!!! We flew to Cleveland with Gaga & Papa and went to Cedar Point for 2 days! This was such a fun thing for me to get to take my boys to a spot where I have so many childhood memories, including my first big coaster rides! Brian and Matt have actually been there as infants but obviously have no recall so this was a dream come true! All 3 boys have heard their entire lives about Cedar Point from all their family members and had such high expectations...it did NOT disappoint! Brian and Matt literally rode everything...the taller, faster and scarier it was, the better! Little man stretched that body and by the hair gracing his head just barely made the 48inch mark! He has been trying to grow since December and was over the moon to make it!
After Cedar Point, we all drove to New York for an afternoon at Niagara Falls. Craig had never been and my parents & I had not been since I was a kid so this also was an anticipated adventure for all of us. We rode the Maid of the Mist under the Falls, watched a movie about the falls, Matt & I made a 4 mile sprint to and from the Aquarium as it was closing and he really wanted to go...sadly a BIG waste of time (and my energy!) but a really fun memory with my guy, took a trolley ride around the entire park, almost peed ourselves with laughter at the free shoes we were given that Papa and the boys felt the need to wear and climbed Cave of the Winds directly into pummeling waterfalls! We left Niagara Falls utterly soaked but truly had the BEST time!
After Niagara Falls it was time to say goodbye to Gaga & Papa. They were heading their own ways to visit relatives but we still had more roadtrip to go! Next stop for us...Williamsport, PA, home of Little League. We had the neatest time exploring the hands-on, interactive museum representing one of our favorite past times in this house!
From Williamsport we headed to my most anticipated stop...Hershey, Pa. This is a place I have wanted to go since I was a little kid. I had read about and heard about this little town, dedicated to chocolate that smells delicious and is so fun to poke around. Weeeellllll....this is not quite how I would describe Hershey after actually seeing it for myself. Sadly what my childhood brain conjured into this image I had was no longer accurate. Hershey has become a very commercialized town, where the actual chocolate is almost the afterthought, there is no actual factory tour (Bluebell puts Hershey to shame!), I think I counted maybe 8 lightposts with the iconic kiss on top and literally left Hershey in a foul mood feeling like my bubble had popped.
Fortunately after leaving Hershey we headed to one of my very favorite cities in America...Washington DC. This was the stop Luke was MOST excited for! Our crazy little man is obsessed with the President's, knows them backwards and forwards and was planning this leg of the trip in elaborate detail for us! Mt. Vernon (home of George Washington) was not a place I really cared about ever seeing, Luke had other ideas! Mt. Vernon was our 1st stop and actually a pleasant surprise for all of us. We sat and chatted with "Martha", talked with local blacksmith, watched the cobblers make the shoes, saw the slave quarters and then even toured the house they lived in. George and Martha are buried on property so we made a point to go honor them as well. We ended our fun night with a ride on the Metro into the city. We got a good headstart onto the sights of DC before beginning our next 2 days.
The rest of DC was spent literally cramming as much US History into our kids as we possibly could! We had 2 days passes on the double decker bus and used it to our advantage to take the kids everywhere! Matt's favorite place was the McDonalds in the bottom of the Air & Space Museum where he found a Sweet & Sour dispenser! This was truly a dream for my sweet & sour crazy loving kid! The whole family had the neatest time taking the elevator to the top of Washington Monument...what an incredible view of the city from up there! Our last day in DC we had lunch at what is now Brian's favorite Restaurant...Willie T's Lobster Shack...where he ate a lobster, crab, shrimp roll and I think fell in love! One of the kids favorite stops in DC was Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Luke got his picture with every single President and the kids all had a custom wax mold of their hands made! We planned on this being a quick run-through and ended up spending over 2 hours there!
After 3 days in DC, we made the last part of our roadtrip back to Warren, Ohio where I grew up. I showed the kids the houses I grew up in with their Aunts & Uncle and we made our way to our final top...a visit with Aunt Martha. Aunt Martha is my Great Aunt (my Grandma's sister), and is the neatest woman you could ever sit and chat with. Well into her 90's, she still drives, cooks and has lunch at the country club 2x/week! The boys have no recall of ever meeting her and truly think she is the funniest woman they have ever met. My (distant) cousin had her husband bring her kids over (Aunt Martha's great grandkids) and my boys had an absolute ball playing with the girls, running around chasing lightning bugs and rolling into the creek.
We are so lucky to be able to take the kids on these crazy adventures and show them America rather than just talk about it...we are even more lucky that our kids love to travel as much as we do and have no problem sitting in the car for almost 2 weeks and over 1200 miles!!!
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