My Summer Vacation - 2021 - Part 1

My family and I just got back from a great week-long vacation. We had plans every day, so I'll break it into a couple posts so there's room for some pictures ;)

Vacation, of course, starts as soon as you leave work! While I originally planned on starting our road trip Saturday morning, I didn't realize when we took the time off work that we already had an afternoon wedding to attend on Sunday. Congratulations to James and Erika 💕

Sunday is also when I made my terrible error in judgment. See, it was a mid-day wedding, with a wonderful lunch. And then we headed to Two James Spirits to visit a bit longer. Even hubby will vouch for me - I really didn't drink that much! But I ate even less. Whoops! Monday morning was a little rough, and the kids gave me a hard time about it for the first half of the trip. The good news? Maggie has said she learned a valuable lesson about drinking to excess. Yay for teachable moments?

Monday morning we did hit the road, only about an hour later than originally planned. It was 10 hours to our destination (beautiful New Jersey!), so we try to make the trip efficiently in one day, then we're ready for vacation, right? Along the way, we listened to Swindle by Gordon Korman. I don't usually listen to audio books, but car trips are the perfect time for me to be a captive audience. This was an amusing book about 12-year-old Griffin, who always has a plan. This first book in the series involved Griffin getting scammed out of a fabulous baseball card he finds on another adventure. It will take a tricky plan and a bit of help to get back what's rightfully his, and help his family in the process. Hubby and I were amused by the story (the dog was really the star!). I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars. ☆☆☆

Here we are enjoying a couple rides.

We got to our hotel after a very long car trip and hadn't had dinner. Yay for the best of friends (okay, they are the real reason we visit New Jersey!) who delivered us some pizza and garlic knots. With food in our bellies, we were ready for a good nights' sleep and more adventures to come!

Tuesday morning we headed to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania (barely). While the kids may be getting a little too old/big for this theme park, we couldn't resist spending a day there for the nostalgia. We've visited a few other times during previous visits. It's a water park and regular amusement park. The day we went was overcast, so we started with the dry rides. We had funny stories about nearly every ride from visits in the past. It was our first chance to ride Oscar's Wacky Taxi though! It opened after our last visit, probably in 2019. It was a fun roller coaster, and we were first in line to ride it that day. 

Wednesday was originally supposed to have rain in the forecast, but that changed about a week before we left. It didn't matter, I'd already made a bit of a schedule and we were sticking to it! Hubby and Maggie brought their ski gear to check out Big Snow in the American Dream Mall. Jack and I never wanted to go skiing, but we knew there was plenty more fun to be had! We'd started out considering the Nickelodeon Theme Park and DreamWorks water park, but they charged way too much for just a two hour visit to either. We wandered the mall (sadly, probably half of the merchant spots are still vacant). I got an adorable Alice in Wonderland mini backpack at Hot Topic, and Jack was so excited to finally get Animal Crossing's Tom Nook at Build a Bear.

We still have good times and fun memories to recount from Thursday, Friday and Saturday before our long drive back home on Sunday - check out Part 2!