Elmo please past the bacon

So on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. Well fantastic for the son of God, myself however is ready to throw in the towel.

In fact that day was so crazy I do not have the regular time entries so most is coming straight from memory. You’ll see why:

6:35am: Worse night ever! Seriously want to kill the Alien and Big Papi. Before we left on the trip the Alien was showing signs of having a cold, and that almost always leads to an ear infection. Why do I know these things? Call it mommy instincts or part of the super power package of mommies. I mean come on, how is it that your mom knew when you were about to get into trouble without needing to be a witness to said trouble? The Alien in Pennsylvania was also different because my Alien is my favorite at night time because she sleeps through the night. She may wake up at 5:00am but by golly the Alien in this house hold sleeps through the night.

Not in hotel rooms apparently. I, myself, need an absolutely dark room, complete with white noise from the fan, and plenty of blankets. The hotel would not allow this many people to have a king size bed, know they insisted we get to full size beds. This was great for the Caveman, who in previous blogs has been known to not sleep the night away. The Alien every hour on the hour screaming at the top of her lungs is not the kind of white noise this mommy needs.

I claim it is because of the ear ache; Big Papi thinks that it is because she is out of her environment. When I get no sleep I am truly evil; add an amusement park with hundreds of preschoolers and well let’s just say momma isn’t happy. Now also throw in a husband who isn’t listening to my mommy instincts, I know sleep is a bottle of anti-biotic away!

He finally commits to taking the Alien to an urgent care facility nearby. This was around 4:30 and I just got off of the phone with him. Yep, the start of an ear infection, I don’t want to be right about this one because that means the Alien is in pain but I told you so Big Papi.

9:15ish: We are currently outside the park waiting for the gates to come up. Today is our breakfast with Elmo. That’s right folks for $16.00 a person, including the Caveman, you have a chance to actually meet Elmo and a few of his friends. You have to arrive at the gates early. Thank goodness we booked this in March because when the gates open we get one of the good seats right next to the breakfast buffet. The breakfast not so great, but they do have Apple Jacks which is the Caveman’s favorite. Also featured on the bar is scrambled eggs, very limp bacon, sausage links, tater tots, and French toast sticks. There is also whole fruit, a selection of cereals, and juice and coffee.

As we walk immediately I notice that in the middle of the room Big Bird is perched on a chair and is huge! Seriously my normally tall Big Papi (who is 6’7) is dwarfed by the sitting Big Bird. This does not matter to the Caveman who immediately runs towards the familiar bright yellow bird as if he were a friend. Right to Big Bird is one half of the dynamic duo, Ernie, who is a favorite in the Alien/Caveman household. Ernie gets high fives, and of course it happens to fast for my camera to capture, drat! We finally find our seats and I notice a mom filling whole plates with tater tots, eggs, and bacon. She takes it to her table so that her family can eat family style. Not a bad idea. I get the Caveman some cereal and then fill a plate with a little bit of this or that for him. The Alien is happily chomping on some Cheerios. Suddenly I notice a large golden monster arrive at our table. Zoe is gracing us with her presence. She is a delightful eating companion and the Caveman is so happy.

Then we walk across the room to meet the monster himself: ELMO! The Caveman loves Elmo, needing to watch the Elmo potty DVD every evening. He should be potty trained right as we speak because of the amount of time that has been spent with Elmo and the potty. Elmo is sitting in a corner with a photographer, which means that I can be in the picture too. The Caveman could not be happier, truly worth the money.

10:30ish: We leave the character breakfast and grab our stroller. The plan is to avoid the water rides because we left our suits in the car. A difference in the park as the weather is cool. There are not as many people in the park and arriving in Elmo’s world play area there is just a scattering of families. One feature of this area is something called Big Bird’s Nest which is a large area for children five and under. The Alien loves crawling and trying to walk. The Caveman runs circles. The kids could have stayed there all day long at that one attraction. While one parent watched the Alien on the Bird’s nest the other would take the Caveman on rides. It was just a fun time.

12:30ish: We decide that it is getting too hot for the Alien and decide to end our time at the park. Of course we stop at one of the many shops and walk out with an Ernie for the Caveman, an Abby Cadaby for the Alien and a Cookie Monster Cookie Jar for me!

While walking out we decide instead of heading back to the hotel lets drive the two hours and hit the Crayola Crayon Factory in Eaton. Well, we do a quick stop at the hotel to get directions, we are one of the few families in America without a GPS.

Big Papi runs into the hotel and its business center to print out directions to Crayola. He decides to take a back way.

2:00ish: Stop at a Wawa to get a little bit of lunch. I love Wawa and think it is a smart concept. I also get some of those baked cheesy snack things that I would never allow but it is a vacation. The Alien, it turns out, loves puffy cheesy snacks. So loved are these snacks that as the Alien eats them she first rolls the snack and the bright orange cheesy powder all over her face and feet. By the time we get to Crayola it takes half a box of wipes to get her to the point where she can go out into public.

Crayola was not what I expected. Right in the middle of downtown Easton, the factory is not a factory at all but basically organized chaos. I cannot believe they allow hundreds of children at a time access to paint, clay dough, and markers. There are stations set up where kids can do art projects. There is also this really cool body heat camera where while you dance to Disney music your body is shown in really cool colors like a lava lamp on a big screen. The Caveman runs from one end of the place to another, while the Alien is with Big Papi doing stuff. I think we would have enjoyed the place more if the kids were older, not certain it is good for two year olds.

We leave Crayola and head to the Crayola store. An entire store for crayons! The store features the world largest crayon. We purchase stuff for the kids and then load them into the car. Mommy takes a nap and we arrive back at the hotel around 5:30.

7:00ish: Starving and tired of the food we brought, Big Papi suggest Chinese food. Yum! We get a recommendation from the desk clerk who says she orders from this one restaurant at least twice a week. We notice the great prices and decide to have it delivered.

When the food arrives I open a pint of chicken fried rice for the Caveman and notice how pale the rice is, like they forgot the soy sauce or only used the bare minimum amount of claim it is fried rice. The only vegetables I see in the rice are the largest pieces of onion I have ever seen. I pour some on a plate for the Caveman and take a taste. Gross the worse rice ever! The chicken is rubbery, the rice dry and hard. I am fearful for my dinner of chicken and broccoli. Again the chicken rubbery the sauce gross, I didn’t finish it. Big Papi’s shrimp lo mien is worse. The noodles are so soft they are like mush and the shrimp has the bounce of a super ball. We didn’t even try the egg rolls. Everything went into the trash and after brushing twice I still have the after taste of the dinner.

Get the kids into bed and thankfully the Alien sleeps.