Withgratefulhearts: Family Trip and Valentines

Warm sunshine, family time, and a good road trip...what could be better!
70 degrees in February in PA..come on!! It was WONDERFUL! What a gorgeous day. We (accidentally) picked the perfect day for a family trip.

We started off the day with a tour of the Martin's Potato Chip Factory in York.

Finishing up the hour and a half long tour with some hot chips fresh off the conveyor!!

And then Christian found some additional ways to get use out of his hair net and a stray beard net from the tour. He threatened to wear them into Sheetz. We didn't think he would.... apparently we underestimated him.

Then we went to Hershey's Chocolate World, rode the chocolate ride for the millionth time and of course... ate some chocolate. Hershey is our faithful/regular family stop-off. As Mitch always says, "Hershey is on the way to Everywhere!"

We really do stop off at Hershey every chance we get...but we rarely go in the park. Which leads me to the following story: Mitchell used to tease me and say that I could write a book called "How to spend the Day at Hershey Park without ever going in the park." We've had this tactic for many years now that we stop by there when we are on our way home from Lancaster or some other eastern destination at evening time. We stop by a half hour before closing and you can enter for FREE! Yes, that's right, free. My troops have learned that, if they RUN, in a half hour they can get in 2 big rollercoaster rides. Think I'm crazy? Seriously folks, it's like fifty dollars a person to get in!! Multiply that by seven and the results are staggering!

...which leads me to my next story:
A few weeks ago while standing in line for 3 hours in the frigid cold for Winter Jam, I met a lady who works for Hershey and gets park tickets in her paychecks. She offered to save them up for me until she has 7 so now we will go...You guessed it...IN the park! Cool!!!

The boys were uncontrollably drawn to a pile of snow by the arena that was so huge it will perhaps be melted by June :)
They felt the need to conquer it...

Faith enjoyed watching...

All in all we spent about 2 hours just walking around the beautiful grounds soaking in the unseasonably warm air and sunshine.

The girls...

And the boys...

And then, since it wasn't quite time for dinner yet, we stopped by the outlets. The girls and I went to the Disney Store while Daddy and the boys went off to do something more masculine!

OK, so there we were, walking through the Disney Store and Gracie said, "You know ever since I was a little girl I've always wanted a princess dress." Ok, I thought, I'll just let her try some on just for the fun of it. She pulled a beautiful white princess dress off the rack and held it up. I knew it was too small, so I rummaged through the dresses to find her size. When I reached the very back dress, I held it up and I knew it would just fit her. Here's what got me all choked up though: It was the very biggest size that any princess dress came in. Seriously, it almost made me cry. So, I waited until she almost didn't fit into a princess dress anymore to get her one?? Does that make sense??

We did try it on. And it was beautiful. And she did make her daddy come see it. And we did(n't) buy it. This momma has become one "cheap-skate" momma and the price tag (or should I say pricey-tag) was pretty steep.

But, now I regret it. Oh my, where is my little girl going? Wasn't it just last year that she fit in all the princess dresses?

I think tomorrow morning may find this momma on the phone to the Disney Store buying one white princess dress for my precious princess!

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And to finish up this post. I absolutely have to talk about what Gracie did on Valentines Day. This girl spent all week locked away in her room saying she was getting ready for Valentines Day. I really didn't know what all she was doing but I did know she was making things and she did get my mother to take her to the Dollar Store.

Well, on Valentines Day at 12:00 AM, here came Gracie, sneaking around to each bedroom, wearing a beautiful red dress and fairy wings that she made, and giving out gifts she had bought with her own money and valentines she had made herself.

Each thing was so special and I don't know if the other kids quite understood how much of herself she put into it. Each persons valentine was handmade and each gift was wrapped by her. She told me "I had money I was saving just for Valentines Day." She spent hours and days making things for everyone.