Weekend Photos in Review

This weekend, our final Summer hurrah, brought about Surprise #2 from our Summer 2011 Bucket List. A trip to Hershey Park. But that’s not all. Mystic’s family joined us, and we met Jamie (the kids’ old babysitter) there for dinner the night before and the next day. So a 3-in-1 surprise, which was the perfect way to finish the season off with a bang.

Traveling with seven, and being responsible for five kids, I can totally get how Kate Gosselin feels. There was a lot of “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ok, we’re good” going on, and with the older kids sometimes going in different directions, it can definitely be a challenge, but it worked out rather seamlessly. Speaking of five kids, Sunday morning found us at the pharmacy, and while the pharmacist was answering a few questions for me and Mystic (one of the kids was under the weather), the kids starting coming to stand near us. The pharmacist stopped for a second. “Are these ALL yours?” We nodded. “Wow, it’s like they just keep coming.” Really, folks? Five kids is a lot? I could see if it was maybe five kids under four or they were all climbing the counters or rambunctious, it might seem a little overwhelming. Or like the Duggar family. But five?  People amaze me sometimes.

This is Madeline’s favorite part of Hershey Park, Chocolate World. And it’s really not even in the park. It’s outside of the front entrance. It has a ride where you can learn all about how they make Hershey chocolate. She calls it the cow ride because singing cows are featured prominently throughout, and asked for it from the moment we got to Hershey yesterday morning, until we finally did it at 9:45 pm Sunday night.

I don’t know how he managed to squish himself into this fire truck, nor uncoil himself to get out, but if Madeline asks, it’s as good as done.

Mystic took all the pictures of the kids in the water park. He came back and said, “Well, I got about 85 pictures of Madeline and some 16 of the other four combined.” The older they get, the less they want to be in pictures. Or you get one chance to get a perfect picture and they’re done. So even though you might see Madeline more, the attempts are definitely made to capture the others.

Nick and Madeline were stoked to see Jamie again. It has been way too long. She is busy planning a wedding for the Fall of 2012, coaching soccer and loving life in PA.

Somewhere along the way this weekend, she came up with the phrase “Baby Power” and shouted it with glee any chance she could. She is obviously the littlest of the collective five, but sometimes the mightiest.

I really, really hate carnival games. There are far better ways to lose money. Madeline spied the skee ball booth which, of course, was stocked with purple, pink and blue monkeys, and the kids all banded together to put forth their best efforts to win her a monkey. Since this was the first weekend away we’ve all done together, and the most amount of time the combined families have spent together since Mystic and I started dating, it was really heartwarming to see. She stood back and watched, and cheered them on. Ok, Mystic and I might have tried a few rounds too.

Nick ended up getting the highest score out of all 7 of us, and was excited, but somehow, he didn’t get the memo on us pooling our tickets together for a monkey for Madeline. He was upset, of course, but the way the game scores, there was no way more than one monkey was going to be won without spending a large fortune. When Mystic’s younger son realized why Nick was upset, he went back and tried to win a monkey for Nick. Great spirit these kids have, all five of them. And Nick, of course, rebounded minutes later.