Hershey Park and then the 4th of July.

July 3

For work today we went on an all day field trip to Hershey Park which is an awesome amusement park in Hershey, PA. There are 11 roller coasters and tons of other rides. There's also a huge water park with water rides, a lazy river, wave pool, and 8 water slides.
Since I'm pregnant, I lucked out and got the "scardey-cat group" which was pretty much the kids who didn't want to ride rides and just wanted to hang out at the water park all day. And I was totally fine with that! The kids rode 2 rides on the way to the water park which I just sat at the exit and watched all their stuff for, and then we played at the water park the rest of the day. It rained for about 45 minutes right at lunch time so we just hid under a giant umbrella in our swimsuits and ate lunch. It was also overcast most of the day so even though it was in the 80's it wasn't terribly hot and again, I enjoyed that! I did participate in the wave pool and the lazy river...and the ice cream parlor.

this is just a small part of the water park and these slides are not included in the 8.

The last hour we left the park and went out front to the Hershey factory. We took a tour where we got free chocolate and then spent time buying and eating all the chocolate we could handle! And yes, it very much reminded me of Willy Wonka :)

The drive was just about 2 hours, which wasn't bad. We didn't get home till 7pm so it was a long day but it was definitely fun and not as expensive to enter as I would have expected. Most of the kids who had also been to Disney World said they preferred Hershey Park.

July 4

We both got to sleep in for a little change! Even though we were up by 8:30, it was nice to have a slow morning together for once where we could just eat breakfast and watch tv.

About 10am we rode our bikes to the high school a few miles down the road and watched the parade and walked around the "summer jubilee" as it was called. There were a few games, some food stands, and a bunch of retailers. It was HOT and although I wore sunscreen, I somehow missed my back and it is fried!!

waiting on the parade to start.

We enjoyed the parade and walking around, but this preggo was mostly excited about the lemonade, fries, pulled pork, and strawberry funnel cake that we ate :)

shriners.

It was also nice to see some familiar faces for a change! I think it felt a little more like home that we recognized some people from the crowd (although truthfully I think they all recognized us first).
We then rode our bikes UP the hill home, it was hard but I accomplished it... and then laid in front of the fan for the next half hour.

Nate of course had to work in the afternoon/evening which was lame as always. Hopefully he got to do something fun at work. We were invited to have dinner and watch fireworks with a family in the ward so I went there for dinner but was worn out and didn't make it to the fireworks. 

Hoping next year to be able to watch some fireworks together...for the FIRST time!