A Winter Wonderland

On Friday, December 18, we decided that I was well enough to walk around Dutch Wonderland. I desperately had wanted to do something Christmas-y with the boys since I had been down and out, and we needed to use our free ticket. Our friends from Life Group, Chris & Lisa, had invited us to ride along to Hershey with them that night. We asked them if they'd like to go to Dutch Wonderland instead, and they agreed. As we were freezing that night, we wondered if we made the right choice! In preparation for the evening's events, I put three pairs of pants on each boy. I don't have long underwear for them, so I started out with a form-fitting pair of PJ pants, followed by jeans for Caleb and warm-up pants for Joshua, followed by lined jeans for the Bean and thick corduroy pants for Caleb. Caleb had a onesie, then a turtleneck that snapped at the bottom, followed by a heavy snowman sweater while Joshua had a t-shirt, followed by a long-sleeved cotton shirt, followed by the thickest sweater I could find for him. Next I put two pairs of socks each on the boys followed by their comfortable walking shoes. (Meanwhile I was breaking a sweat and so were they!) I then donned my long underwear, including a shirt variety I had found in my drawer, jeans and a thick sweater with only one pair of warm socks and my shoes. My Dad had come into town and was borrowing our pop-up trundle bed for his apartment, and the kids I & were frantically trying to be ready by the time Daddy got home.

A sweet gal from MOPS, actually our discussion group leader Melanie, called me that afternoon and dropped off a meal. She is so sweet - and she announced that they are expecting again! The kids & I ate her casserole and I ended up fixing Shawn a sandwich that he could eat on the way since he got home later than planned from work. I had dug him out a pair of fleece pants to go under his jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt to go over his gray t-shirt followed by the best sweater I could find. I also dug out warm socks for him and his sneakers. Soon he was home, and I helped put coats on the kids, followed by hats, then their hoods pulled up and finally gloves (which wouldn't stay on!).

We got there just as the Grube's were pulling in. Great timing! They did not have as many layers as us, though, and I think they froze most of the night. They are pictured above with Joshua peaking out one of the holes. I then photoshopped their dog Bailey into the last spot. :)

The first thing we did was ride the carousel, where Joshua was scared (and he loved it during the summer?!?!?) and Isabella was scared and only Caleb & Chris really had fun. Haaa!!! Next we rode on the train, which I think everyone enjoyed. Joshua was so excited when it would whistle and "choo-choo" and "chugga-chugga" on the tracks. We also got to see the whole park lit up with all the Christmas lights, and they had tons of displays to look at. It was fun. Here are Daddy & Caleb on the train, and Lisa is behind them.

After the train ride, we walked around and drove the "big cars" as Joshua calls them.This time Caleb went with Daddy and I went with Joshua. The Bean LOVED it! Chris took Isabella, and Lisa took pictures. I didn't get our camera out most of the night since Daddy & I each had a child and one of us was pushing the stroller, too, at all times, so hopefully I can see/steal some of their pictures at some point.

After the car ride, Joshua saw his favorite "big slide" and begged to go over. We headed that way, and the Grube's all went down together, and the four of us went down together. There wasn't much of a line, so we went down three times in a row before telling Joshua we should find other fun rides to do. He was okay with that, but Caleb & Isabella both cried to leave that area. :) Kids LOVE it! We also enjoyed it, but I had a difficult time getting up at the bottom of the slide with my abdomen and the angle with kids, etc. I didn't want to over-do it. I tried to get pictures, but the lights at the fun slide made my picture turn out dark.

Next, if I remember correctly, we went to little construction ride. Last time Joshua went on by himself, but this time Caleb was a little bigger so we allowed him to go with the Bean. This is the slowest moving ride of all time; in fact, at one point I looked away to the busy bee ride and looked back and thought it was slowing down (nope, that was the speed!). Our kids liked it okay, but Isabella didn't seem to. I think she was frozen by this point. She seemed very cold and wanted to snuggle with her mommy & daddy. I don't blame her. Even with my gloves, my fingers were cold and my feet were a little chilly.

Next, we went to the big trucks. I have no idea why, but the girl who was working there wouldn't let Chris & Lisa go on together. When we were there over the summer, all four of us piled into one truck. Oh, well. At my suggestion, Chris jumped into another truck by himself so he could wave at Isabella while Lisa road with her. I road with Joshua who wanted me to climb into the seat next to him, but I decided it was easier to get in behind him where there was more leg room this time. Daddy went with Caleb once again and  took these lovely picture of me in my red coat, Bean in front of me, and Chris waving to Isabella. He also got a shot of Caleb next to him, having a blast.

There were no lines at any of the places, so the workers told us at each station the kids could keep riding as much as they'd like. We continued to press on, though, knowing that eventually the kids would be too cold and we wanted to make sure we saw as much as possible. We went to the frog hopper ride next, but Joshua said "no fank you, I don't like this one" and he has a pretty good memory. I'm not sure that he liked it this summer and recognized it. At his hesitation, Lisa & Chris said that Isabella would rather snuggle and try to get warm, so we continued to keep moving. We tried stopping at the half-enclosed play area to see if it was warmer, but there were lots of bigger kids there. We saw the place where folks were roasting marshmallows and making smores, and eventually we sat down at a puppet show. Joshua was enthralled and Isabella watched for a little while. They said that Santa keeps from getting sick this time of year by using hand Santa-tizer and it's cold out which is why they call it Decem-BRRRR and lots of other cheesy jokes that made us adults smile. But, poor Isabella was still cold so we said "let's keep going."

Then, we found it. There was one thing that thrilled her (other than the fun slide). First, we saw this little ride and asked Joshua if he wanted to go on. He said "yes please" so we put him on. We didn't think Caleb was big enough for how quick this thing whipped around, so we just put the Bean on by himself while we all watched. I feared he would scream and cry, but I knew the ride only lasted a few minutes. He shocked me, though, and laughed and laughed and laughed the entire way through it. He had a ton of fun and begged to go on again. There was no line, so we said sure! This time we offered to let Isabella go on with Joshua. She decided to go. Her parents weren't too sure like us at first, but then she started to smile at the first bend...then the laughter broke out and both kids were having a blast. They rode it about three or four more times before other kids came up and we continued onward (Caleb was starting to get fussy at this point, probably partly from boredom and partly because the cold was starting to get to him). Here are some shots from that ride that we took. Lisa got a good video of them riding and laughing away. Their expressions were priceless!

The lights show was going on at that point, but we missed most of it. There was music and the entire park "danced" with the lights that were put to the timing of the music. Isabella was crying and Caleb was crying and we figured that it was bed time and time to go. But, Joshua, who had been literally an angel all night asked if we could please ride the train one last time. Shawn said we should reward him for his behavior, and I agreed. We told Lisa & Chris they were welcome to go, but they said one last time was fine. Shawn ended up not taking Caleb who had thrown off a mitten and was upset, so the Bean & I road again with the Grube's in front of us. We saw all the sights of the park one last time before we left.

In the gift shop, there was Santa Clause, which I already posted about in an earlier post. We let Joshua go say hi since no one was in line (and it was warm in there!) and then we were off. Lisa gave us a present that we opened, which was a very thoughtful book of pictures of all of the Life Group kiddos together from the party they had over the summer. And, she had made us homemade potato soup with bacon and apologized for not bringing it earlier since I had had surgery. (What a gal!) We went home and ate soup and drank hot chocolate and got into our jammies. Caleb had a bit of an explosion (if you know what I'm saying) once we got home, and once he got that out, he felt much better. Shawn said he had "tooters" at the park, so I'm thinking maybe he cried as much for that reason at the end as he did about the cold since he had been having fun the whole way through up until the very end. I tucked the kids in bed as Daddy ran an errand that night, and we passed out (almost literally) the second he got home. We were both in a ton of pain from the day's activities and the snow that was to start late that night/early the next morning... it was a really fun time. Ho ho ho... AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!