Sunday, August 26, 2012

Vacation - One of Life's Luxuries

We just returned from a short vacation in Pennsylvania. D's sister lives in a small town about an hour outside of Harrisburg. Since it was our second trip there, I had some idea of what to expect, but what I was most looking forward to was spending some quality time with my guys. (In fact, I love that K is sitting next to me right now just chilling with his DS as I type away.)

Traveling to our destination was, for the most part, uneventful. K talked a lot, O fell asleep on the first lag of our flight. (I think I snuck in a nap on the second lag.) And then we arrived. I adore PA. There's all these great old brick houses, and the geography is so much more interesting than the great plains of the Midwest. It's fun just to sit and look outside the windows as we drive to our destination.

The thing I think we were most looking forward to was hanging out with D's sister and her family and just relaxing and being away from the regular routine of our lives. It's hard to believe K starts school again in two weeks. We want to savor every minute.

The first day of the trip, we hung out by their pool and just relaxed. It was perfect. K practiced his swimming skills, I did a few laps. O was quite tentative about the water, which was a bit surprising ... and makes me a little nervous when we enroll them in swimming lessons this winter. I'm hoping that he'll get over it. He did great last year during lessons, so I was so surprised.

The next day, we explored an underground cave at a placed called Indian Echo Caverns, and then we went to Hershey Gardens and walked around before going to Chocolate World. K loves chocolate world ... and I have to admit, it's one of my favorite stops. We did a chocolate tasting, watched a 4D movie and, of course, made our personalized chocolate bars. After a very busy day, we ate at a placed called the Bonefish Grill ... for a chain restaurant, it was quite tasty fare!

The next day we made our way down to Baltimore, Maryland to check out the National Aquarium. K has, unfortunately, inherited my irrational fear of escalators ... and the aquarium has a lot of them. But if you can get past that, it's a pretty cool haunt to check out. It was crazy busy, but then I realized for a lot of folks in the area, this was their weekend before school, so people were squeezing in end of the summer activities. O was not on his best behavior, so we ended up cutting the day a little shorter than I think we would have normally, but it was still a great time.

I haven't downloaded photos yet, (will wait until after this week's trip to the State Fair!!!) and then I'll post a few photos of our wild and crazy adventure. It was great, the kids already miss their cousins ... and keep asking when is the next time they'll see them ... so I think this PA trip will become a regular affair.

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