PEZ with Grandma and Grandpa

My creative skills are diminishing.  Remember how this blog used to have snazzy titles and awesome words. Now I'm just happy to get something down. :)

We pulled the kids out of school and took an afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa before the rest of the company came.  Stopped at Stew Leonard's--the fun grocery store experience and then headed down to Orange, CT to visit the Pez Visitor's Center.  What a fun place.  Pretty small but really interesting.  Who knew there was so much to learn about Pez.  Did you know Pez originally began as something to help people stop smoking?  Original Pez dispensers looked like lighters.  Cool.

Do you know what Pez are made out of?
Sugar, a little flavoring, and mist.  That's it.  They go through like 100,000 pounds of sugar a week.  Gross.

There was a small admission price but then everyone got a $2 credit toward anything in the Pez store.  Dispensers were $2, so we had some happy kids with a lot of selection to choose from.  We also discovered chocolate pez, which taste just like tootsie rolls, only less chewy.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fun day.  Glad we went and glad we got great time with Grandma and Grandpa.  Waiting for them to schedule their next trip! :)

Rita and Clem visit--Avery's ,Danbury and Sleepy Hollow

My parents left town on a Tuesday morning and Rita and Clem arrived the same night.  They got to experience tons of real life with us--soccer, activity days, preschool, gymnastics, doctor's appointments, Halloween costume making, etc, etc.  On Saturday we filled the day up with a lot of fun.

After Andrew's soccer game we headed out.  First stop, Avery's Beverages in New Britain--one of the oldest soda bottling companies in New England.  It was fun touring the barn and choosing our soda flavors.

Crates of soda everywhere and tons of flavors to choose from.

Whit always makes the best faces!!

From there, we headed on west and stopped in Danbury.  Clem went to college for 1 1/2 years at what is now Western Connecticut State University (before he moved on to Brooklyn College and BYU).  He hadn't been back in 46ish years.

 A lot of campus had changed but "Old Main" was still the same.  It was a lot of fun watching him reminisce.

  

He even found the house where he rented out a room from an old Irish couple.  His room was the one right behind him on the right.  So cool!

From Danbury, we continued west toward the Hudson River Valley.  Our main destination was the big pumpkin Blaze but we got there a few hours early and headed first to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Scary!

The cemetery was huge and beautiful and had probaby 8 or 9 letterboxes hidden throughout.  It was only open for 1 more hour when we arrived, so we only managed to find 3.  Plus we learned how many famous people are buried there--who knew?  I only think of the headless horseman when I think of Sleepy Hollow.

  

Here's the bridge that goes with the tale of the headless horseman and Ichabod Crane. (not original to the cemetary of course but still fun).

After dinner, we headed to the Great Jack 'O Lantern BLAZE.  So cool.  Thousands of pumpins carved with many many different displays.  We walked through and it took over an hour.  Unfortunately something with our dinner must have been cooked in peanut oil or something and Mary felt sick to her stomach from the end of dinner til about 20 minutes into our tour.  Lucky for her, she got it out of her system--unlucky for me, I got to walk through our tour carrying a bag of puke--good times. 

All pumpkins--some real, some fake, all awesome.

Again, all pumpkins

I love these 2 shots below.  The flash went off on the first and it just looks stupid.  The 2nd is the same shot with no flash.  Suddenly it looks amazing.

Happy!

A tiger in the zoo section.  Check out the cute little monkey pumpkins--there were probably 50-100 of them.

There was a dinosaur section, a spider web, an under the sea section, and many more

What a great and full day!  We got home around 10:30 pm and were wiped out.

I failed miserably in taking any pictures the rest of Rita and Clem's trip but rest assured, we had a great time.

Summer Lovin'--Vacation Part 2

On to the next highlight of our vacation--Nauvoo, IL.  

Rita and Clem spent 6 weeks in Nauvoo again helping with the pageant so we headed there a few days after Megan's wedding and stole 3 days from them.  What a treat!  I love that, for my kids, Nauvoo will always be associated with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here are some highlights of our days there, along with lots of pictures.

Pioneer Pastimes--I wonder how long this place will remain one of our Nauvoo highlights--the kids love dressing up and playing all the games and playing house.

Annie was obsessed with the pulley bears.  She just went from one to another to another--we ended up buying her one as her souvenier.  She does it everyday.

This picture of Andrew doesn't capture the fact that the ring he tossed ended up in the tree about 1.2 seconds after I snapped this picture.

At the Family Living Center--hooray for air conditioning. :)

Had dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo--we did last year as well and the kids talked about it for days.  They were so excited to go back.  I guess we don't take them to eat at buffets very often. 

Clem is THE prop man behind stage but he hired on 2 co-workers for one night we were there.  Mary and Andrew were in heaven helping him set up everything right before the show.  They took their jobs quite seriously.

The Old Country Fair pre-show--another one of our Nauvoo favorites.  Seriously, I don't know why anyone who had kids wouldn't go to Nauvoo if they were close.  Everything is free, all the activities are so fun.  Even the concession stand is super cheap.

I love this one of Whitney--thanks to our Rita and Clem connections, we got great, up close seats for the show.  The show never gets old.

We had lots of time with Rita and Clem during the day for site seeing:

Outside the blacksmith shop

And gunsmith...

Made it to the quarry for the first time...

The ox-cart ride--another 'must do'  every year.

Posing at the Monuments to Women Garden

Our hotel didn't have a pool, so we headed to the public pool in Hamilton--super nice and super cheap.  A fun treat for a hot afternoon.

Probably Grandmas first relaxing moment in her whole time in Nauvoo!

We ran into several friends from North Carolina while we were there.  We saw the Nicolas's and the Cutlers but it was bad timing where we didn't get to hardly talk to them.  The next day we ran into the Brinkerhoffs and had a really great chat and then ended up eating dinner at the same place and got to chat again.  Amy's one of those awesome friends that things feel just normal and like old times no matter how long it has been, and it's been 5 years.  A wonderful surprise!!!

What a great time!  The worst part was that it was only 3 days.  We wish would could have had longer with Grandma and Grandpa--it just wasn't enough time.

Nauvoo

Part of our trip plans included heading to Nauvoo for 4 days. Rita and Clem were helping out with the pageant again this summer and Dan and Wendy decided to come out too. We haven't seen them since they got married 2 1/2 years ago and it was SO great to see them again.

As usual, our kids want to head straight to Pioneer Pasttimes.

They loved getting all dressed up in the 100 degree heat. CRAZY!

An attempted family shot outside the blacksmith shop.

We even made it to the Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds--I like it there. Apparently Whitney does too
We stayed with Rita and Clem at a house they are renting. It had a zipline and we had fun!

And of course we pulled the kids in a handcart at the pre-show activities. Next time, I think we'll make them pull us.

But the best part of it all was being with Uncle Dan, Aunt Wendy, Grandma and Grandpa. (as a bonus we got to see Uncle Glenn and Aunt Annette too)
We LOVE Dan and Wendy. I think Mary and Andrew will always hold a special place in their hearts for Uncle Dan. He lived with us for 6 weeks when Whit was a little baby. In kid terms, I think that means they are bonded for life.

Took the horse and carriage ride with Grandma and Grandpa

Hung out with (or better said, climbed on) Aunt Wendy

Got to see more of Grandpa than we thought we would--what a treat!

Checking out the lockers at grandma's school/sewing center

Matt and I even got to sneak in a temple session with Dan and Wendy. Thanks for babysitting Grandma! Dang that temple is beautiful!

What a great trip! The only way it could have been better would have been to have the other Singer families there too. Hopefully we'll get the full family reunion soon!