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- Happy first week of fall!
At the beginning of this week, I really wasn’t “feeling” the fall vibes – sure I had decorated my house for fall, but that was about it. It still very much felt like summer.
But after a few cooler days (hoodie-weather – my favorite!), I made myself a few different pumpkin smoothies for breakfasts this week, AND I bought pumpkins for us – my feelings are beginning to change. (Anyone remember the absolute awful scenario we found ourselves in last year when we waited too long to buy pumpkins and they were ALL GONE?! And we felt so bad that we went scouring the earth for pumpkins – ending up paying an extremely high dollar-amount so that we would have pumpkins to carve per tradition? Yeah, I wasn’t making that mistake again!) - It also helps that over the last week, we have attended TWO Halloween themed days at amusement parks!
Last Sunday, we were invited out to Hersheypark for their opening weekend of Dark Nights, their Halloween event. We’e only ever been to Kennywood’s Phantom Fall Fest, so we were excited to see what other parks have to offer!
Halloween events at parks are still a “newer” invention – parks started opening for fright-nights about 20 years ago and more and more parks are catching on and adding it to their operating schedules. In fact, this is only Hersheypark’s second year hosting Halloween weekends!
For the longest time, Halloween events at parks were only open in the evenings and everything was 100% centered around the scare stuff – scare actors, dark mazes, haunted houses – all that stuff. But recently, parks have started opening up earlier in the day, inviting families to come in and enjoy some kid-friendly Halloween stuff, the rides, the atmosphere, before switching over to scary non-kid-friendly-stuff at dusk. It’s brilliant and extends OUR roller coaster riding season into October (when it used to abruptly end at Labor Day).
Parks make an insane amount of money during their Halloween events. Cedar Point regularly maxes out their attendance and has to shut their gates. The rumor is that parks make more money during one month of Halloween events than during any other season. It’s insane.
So, last weekend, we went to Hersheypark. Unfortunately, it was not the best day – it rained almost the entire day (we had about 60 minutes of no rain right in the middle of the afternoon. We still had a super fun time – we just bundled up and stayed under our umbrellas (which we had to buy because ALL of our umbrellas were in the Mitshubishi – more on that in a second). The kids loved trick or treating (trick or treating at a park next to a CHOCOLATE FACTORY? Talk about a dream come true!) – we rode a bunch of rides (in between the rain drops) and made the most of the day. - YESTERDAY though, we had a MUCH better day at Cedar Point! After spending a day at the Point earlier in the summer, we knew we wanted to go back – but because of how insane Derrick’s job has been over the last 6 weeks, we never made it back during their regular operating season. We saw that they had Friday hours during their Haloweekends, so he took the day off and we drove out for the day. Cedar Point’s Halloween event is lightyears ahead of Hersheypark’s (after all, Cedar Point has been doing this event for years and Hershey is just getting started). We were blown away by the attention to detail, the decorations, and the different offerings they had set up around the park! They have a TON of stuff specifically geared toward kids during the day! Trick or treat, an eye-spy scavenger hunt, a hay-maze, a corn-maze, an arts and crafts activity center, a mini “haunted house”, these tractors the kids could drive around – the list just goes on and on. Braelynn and Leander loved it! They had so much fun! And, since it was a Friday (and most people were working or in school during the day) we were able to ride a ton of rides thanks to short lines earlier in the day! We left as the masses were coming in – it was such a great, beautiful day.
- Okay, but circling back around to our car – after we got back from a trip a few weeks ago, we noticed that our car had been scratched. Not sure if someone specifically keyed it or if it was an accident – but we called our insurance and they said they would take care of it for us. We took it in to get repaired last Monday and did not get our car back until Thursday this week. Thankfully, we did get a rental for part of that time, so we weren’t completely stranded, but all of our umbrellas were in that car – which is why we didn’t have any when we went to Hershey.
Our car is back though and shinier than ever (and we are SO thankful to have it back!) - Somehow, a slug found it’s way into our house and we discovered him on the floor of the hallway of our second floor this morning. How?! (He wasn’t a little one either, he was a full 2-3″ long!)
- During our regular library trip this week, we snagged a book about Bob Ross. I knew that Braelynn would love it (since she’s a little artist), but what I didn’t realize was how much it would inspire her to paint.
And that’s great! I love when she’s creative and stretching her artistic muscles!
HOWEVER, she decided to set herself up to paint in the living room. I came down from taking a shower and found her all set up (drop-cloth, water, paints, brushes, etc.). I quickly explained that we don’t paint in the living room, and I moved her to the dining room. I moved into the kitchen to do my usual morning routine and I heard her invite Leander to paint with her. I trusted Braelynn to set herself and Leander up properly (bad decision) and didn’t specifically check in on them until I was making breakfast.
For whatever reason, instead of putting down her drop-cloth and usual art mat, she just decided she didn’t need it in the dining room. Which meant that both she and Leander spilled paint on my new tablecloth, the chairs, the floor, and themselves. And they weren’t painting with “kids” washable paint, they were painting with normal, “permanent” paint. Well, you can imagine how “happy” I was. Sadly, my tablecloth and Leander’s pajamas were ruined. I was able to get the paint off the floor and the chairs. It was a disaster.
So, moral of the story: don’t read books about Bob Ross unless you’re prepared for a paint-explosion.
