Hershey Park!

Yesterday we spent the day at Hershey Park with Rivendell and a few other friends.  It was such a great day!  To start off, we left our house at 7:30 AM, a feat never to be repeated I am sure.  We got to the park right around 10:00, when it opened, and we got good parking spaces.  I was a bit worried about going through the gate to get in.  The website says "No outside food" several times, but hey--I'm pregnant, Micah's 1--we need our snacks, LOL.  We had all eaten some jerky and cheese sticks on our way in from the parking lot, but I had some more jerky plus some graham crackers and fruity snacks for Micah in the diaper bag.  Well, I shouldn't have worried.  The guards just gave the opened diaper bag a perfunctory glance and didn't even root around in it at all.  So I guess they weren't really all that concerned about graham crackers.

Once inside, we split into groups, although we hadn't met up with everyone yet.  But eventually we all met up (there were 32 of us plus Micah), and we split into 3 groups. 

There was the older group who rode all the big roller coasters.  They got to ride all of them, and the lines weren't very bad at all.  The longest line was about 15 minutes.  We hardly even saw this group at all, although they did deign to meet us so we could all go back to the parking lot for our late picnic lunch, since they were all "starving" by that point.  We had parked by a line of trees, so we just had our picnic there, which worked out really well.  I never could figure out where the "picnic area" the Hershey Park website talks about even is!

The middle group didn't ride as many roller coasters but did most of the other rides.  I thought Hershey Park had a really good selection of "medium" rides  Bob was with this group the most, along with 2 of the other dads, so they had a lot of adult coverage.

And then there was the "little kids + moms" group, which included 6 kids who actually rode the kiddie rides, as well as Micah, who rode the carousel and the "pony cart" ride, but was not a fan of either.  Marie was a part of this group too, but she rode the stroller most of the day.  There are a ton of kiddie rides all throughout the park, and the little kids had a grand time on them, especially since there were no lines!  We moms had a really nice time visiting.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous--low 70s, not humid, with scattered clouds--so we were not uncomfortable, and a lot of the benches by the kiddie rides were in the shade.  I can't imagine a more pleasant day, weather-wise, which was such a blessing from the Lord!

So all the groups had a wonderful time, and we didn't end up actually leaving until around 7:30, meaning we got home after 10:00.  Everyone was exhausted, and it's taken most of today to recover, LOL.  This was the last official thing of the school year that I was in charge of, so I am now feeling a great sense of relief!  No more responsibilities!  Well . . . not entirely, LOL.

The only fly in the ointment was Jonathan, who was sporting an angry poison ivy rash on the right side of his face.

He apparently got it on Sunday.  He was picking up sticks in the backyard after dinner, while everyone else were all preparing for a campfire.  I didn't notice any sort of rash until Monday morning though, when he came down to breakfast.  By Wednesday it had spread and looked like this picture.  I've been giving him Benedryl and putting hydrocortizone cream on it, but it's still itchy and red.  He was worried his face would scare the ride attendants, but that didn't seem to be the case, LOL.  Hopefully it will go away soon!