Along with Aunt Bridget & Uncle Kevin, we treated Nannie & Grandpa to a special vacation in the Amish Country for their 60th birthday! We spent 2 nights in a hotel, went to Dutch Wonderland amusement park, Hershey’s Chocolate World, took a stroll through some Amish shops & had breakfast at a pretty Amish farmhouse! We even saved money on them because now they are SENIORS!!! Mommy took over 800 pictures, so the fact that she got it down to 300 is a miracle! Luckily she didn’t put them ALL on the blog, but it’s pretty close! Get ready to see a whole lot of fun!
-Abigail, Emily & Ben
Ever since Emily went on the roller coaster at Sesame Place, she’s gotten so brave and goes on everything now! She loved the Kite Flyer ride!
Grandpa and Daddy LOVED riding on the antique cars with us! Abby was a pretty good driver, and Emily will be someday when she’s 6 too! Good thing there was a track to keep her from ending up on the grass!
The remote control cars were pretty fun to drive too…
These boys will be best friends someday! Enjoy Liam’s happy face here, because it was hard to come by for a lot of the trip 
That’s the Liam and Emily we know and love…
… but when Emily gets what she wants (in this case the horses’ reins), she’s a happy camper again!
Liam was a little nervous on the riverboat ride, but there weren’t any tears!
There was even a little smirk!
Ben LOVED running after the ducks, yelling, “Kak Kak”!
The bumper cars were DEFINITELY a favorite!
Grandpa is a pretty crazy diver… Nannie got knocked all over the place!
Emily and Uncle Kevin were both brave enough to go on the roller coaster there! We were so proud of them!
Emily got her one wish and rode the pony too!
There were awesome carnival games there, and Grandpa and Uncle Kevin are the best at them!
I think Liam was “all done” playing his games…
Ben just liked to eat his prize…
Ben loved going on the rides like a big boy, and the girls loved taking care of him…
Liam, on the other hand, did NOT like the rides… Abby tried so hard to take care of him, but he was only interested in getting OFF!
We’re not sure who took it harder… Liam or his daddy!
Nannie & Grandpa loved going down the fun slide with us!
Mommy even went down with us!
Nannie & Grandpa were like kids again (which was a LONG, LONG time ago) going down the slide by themselves!
We went in a crazy house that looked like it was going around in circles… we all came out of that one a bit dizzy!
It was a pretty hot day, so the water park was the best part! Ben had the most fun of all!
You can even see in the background that Liam wasn’t QUITE as happy as Ben, but he came around!
Waterslides ROCK!
What a fun day! It wiped all of us out, but we couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to start swimming!
Emily has gotten so good in her swimming lessons, and was able to swim across the short end of the pool underwater all by herself!
Evidently, Liam has a thing for pole dancing, and dancing in general…
On Sunday morning, we headed to Hershey, PA to go to Chocolate World! It was a SWEET trip!!!
We loved going to the 4D Chocolate mystery show!
Everyone got free chocolate bars after the show, and Ben couldn’t wait to eat his…
We took the free chocolate factory tour ride and got to see all the steps to making the chocolate we love… even the chocolate syrup that Grandpa and Emily love to drink!
This is what the garbage cans in the factory look like…
We think Emily was in HEAVEN!!!
The best part of the day was when we all put on our aprons and hair nets and headed into the factory to make our very own chocolate bars!
Here’s that Liam again… Happy as always!
There was a list on the wall of all the options we could choose to put in our candy bars…
First, we had to take our personalized tickets…
… and scan them into the computer…
… then we got to pick what kind of chocolate bar we wanted, and what fillings and toppings we wanted in them…
Here are the combos that Abby & Emily chose!
Then we waited in line for a while until it was our turn to watch our candy bars being made… Meanwhile, we tried to keep the boys from ripping off their hair nets, and they did pretty good!
When it was our turn, we got to see our bar from start to finish go through the conveyor belt! It was awesome!
Abby’s white chocolate bar was getting ready to be filled with goodies!
Emily loved watching the sprinkles pour into her bar!
… Don’t forget the chocolate chips!
Now that’s a loaded chocolate bar!
Unfortunately, Uncle Kevin and Grandpa weren’t as creative as we were… they just got plain old chocolate bars!
After getting all their fillings, the bars headed off to be covered in milk chocolate…
… they were then topped off with sprinkles!
After they were done cooling, they had a cool machine that boxed the bars for us…
They even put our name on the boxes with a cool laser!
After we were done in the factory, we had to go and design a cover for our bar. Grandpa tried to help Emily, but Mommy had to help him out a bit… he is a SENIOR after all…
They packaged up our bars in a nice tin and put our personalized label on it before handing it over… they turned out great!
We headed off to the hotel after a fun chocolaty day!
After pizza in the hotel, we got to dig into our delicious bars, and they were the best bars any of us had ever tasted!
After leaving the hotel on Monday morning, we went to a cool little Amish village with shops, a barnyard, a jam and bake shop, and a cute restaurant in an old Amish farmhouse.
We stopped in the restaurant for a delicious brunch before we all headed home.
Liam liked the lemons…
… while Ben liked the sugar!
The kids each got an etch a sketch to play with while we waited for our meal, but Nannie wanted to try it out too…
She drew a pretty funky looking person!
At the jam and bake shop, the Amish women were all busy canning the newly made jams…
… and we got to decorate our very own gingerbread cookie!
Before leaving, we headed to the barn to feed the sheep and the llamas… we LOVE animals!
What a beautiful countryside to spend the weekend at! Thanks to everyone for an awesome trip, and we can’t wait until we plan the next one!
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