We just got back from a 2-day visit to
Sesame Place
in Pennsylvania. It's a theme park built entirely around, as you might
guess, Sesame Street. All the kids' favorite characters are out and
about - Big Bird, the Count, Bert & Ernie, Grover, Cookie Monster,
Elmo, etc., and there are lots of fun water rides and non-water rides.
We went with our friends Kyle & Becky, whose daughter Rachael is
Anna's best friend, and their parents. The girls had huge fun, but the
trip sure didn't start out well…
Sleepless night
We left Wednesday after I tried to wrap some things up at work to
take a couple days off. It was about a 3-hour drive from our house to
northeast Philadelphia, where the park and our hotel were. We got this
dual-screen in-car DVD player from Sam's, which works really well for
trips like this. The drive itself wasn't too bad, except towards the end
when Cara decided she wanted down: "Dow! DOW!!!" she would cry, and
when mommy told her no, she'd cry, "Daddy… Daaaaddyyy… Dow!!" And when I
would say we're almost there but you can't get down, she'd switch back
to begging mommy. Meanwhile Anna would be telling Cara to "Shhhh!!" so
she could hear her Curious George show. When we got to the hotel and to
our room, I think it was around 7:45pm, close to normal bedtime. But the
girls were all wound up from having just been set free from their
3-hour car seat captivity, so we let them run around the room and jump
on the king-size bed, which was big fun. Also, bumping their heads
purposefully on the headboard was also a fun game, as well as daddy
trying to grab their feet from the bottom of the bed. We set up the pack
& plays - thankfully, Anna was easy to put to bed, even in a
strange place. Not Cara. It took a long time to get her to go to sleep -
she would be fine if someone were holding her, but as soon as it seemed
she'd be asleep and you'd try to put her in the pack and play, she'd
start crying. We figured her teeth might be bothering her again, plus
she was hungry (but there was no refrigerator and no microwave in the
room, so having some warm or cold milk on hand was challenging), plus
she's in a strange place… I ended up going to a local gas station to
pick up some tylenol at 2am, and I think we all got maybe 1-2 hours of
sleep maximum that first night, courtesy of Cara. Anna even told us in
the morning that she "didn't sleep good" because Cara kept waking her
up.
Arriving at the park
Despite
a horrible night and no sleep, we actually managed to have lots of fun
at the park. Anna gasped when we approached the Sesame Place gate, and
Cara yelled, "Woooow!!!" By the way, Anna is now asking "Why?" about
everything, so I had to explain several times "why" I was driving - to
get to the park - why? - so we can see Big Bird - why? - because you
like Big Bird - why? etc. etc. At the front gate, they took our tickets,
searched our bags, and, something I've never seen before at a theme
park, they had a machine and captured the fingerprints of all the adults
entering the park.
We figured it must be a precaution/deterrent against
child predators. As
you enter the park, there are some ivy sculptures of Sesame characters,
and towards the end of the main street, there's a little section that's
built to look just like Sesame Street from TV, so we took some pictures
there. Cara was extremely excited to see the Elmo sculpture - I wonder
if Elmo is her favorite character because she can actually say his name.
We saw the Count as we were walking through.
The inevitable teacups
We
waited in line for a little thing where the kids take off their shoes
and climb up this big blue triangle and slide back down. Anna chickened
out at the last minute, though. So instead we went to the spinning
teacups ride, and I took both girls. It's hard for kids that little to
wait in lines, and I had to explain several times to Anna about how the
line worked and that we needed to wait our turn. But once we finally got
on the ride, Anna had a big smile on her face, and giggled and giggled
as we spun around. I was holding Cara, and she had fun for maybe half
the ride, then started making her nervous sound - she made it to the
end, though.
Meeting Elmo
After
the teacups, we went to see Elmo. That was a big hit not only with
Cara, but also with Anna, who asked a couple other times that day to go
back and see him. It's nice that even though the park is trying to make
money off the pictures, they let the kids get in line to see Elmo (also
Zoe and Big Bird) and
hug them for a couple minutes, whether or not you intend to buy the
pictu
res, plus they let you take your own pictures, too. So we got a few
pics with the girls and Elmo. We rode a "balloon race" ride (which is
just some cars going around in a circle high up, and you can spin those,
too), had some lunch. Rachael bounced in big bouncy area while I took
Anna to go see Big Bird. Then we went to get a spot to watch the parade.
The parade
The parade may have been the highlight of the day for the girls. Cara was kicking her feet, and Anna was just
so excited - when the music started and the parade was coming, I don't think she stopped dancing.
She danced and danced, even dancing in place while waiting for Ernie or
whoever to get to our spot from down the street. Beth and I were both
almost teary-eyed seeing how happy and incredibly excited she was. I
used our camera's video feature to get some video - it's not the
best
quality and the movies are too big to download if you're on dialup, but
the rest of you can get a glimpse of how much fun the girls had at the
parade:
Flying fish, slides, and more
After
the parade, Anna asked to see it again. I didn't think I could get them
to do the whole parade again just for Anna, so I took her over to the
flying fish ride. Another long line, and more explaining about how we
need to wait our turn - Anna seemed to be catching on. After the flying
fish, I took her to a tall tower with two big tube slides (Anna loves
slides). It turned out that these slides weren't much of a slide after
all - they were so
unslippery that the kids basically had to
walk themselves all the way down the tube. It didn't matter to Anna,
though - I took her to the top, and she walked her way to mommy at the
bottom. And she wanted to do it again, and again… and again… and again -
she would have done it all day if we would have
let her. By
this time, Cara had fallen asleep in the stroller and was taking her
afternoon nap - part of me wanted to say to her, "Oh, so now
YOU want to sleep, huh? Let's see how
YOU
like being kept awake!" But I refrained. We took Anna over to a little
play area where you just run around, fall down, jump, whatever you want
to do. There were lots of little shapes that you can pick up and throw
and carry and roll over. It was right underneath a really tall (maybe
3-story) series of nets that you climb on. I wanted to crawl on the nets
myself - it was pretty cool with little net-tunnels going every which
way, but Anna didn't want to. Oh well.
The show
Then
we went to see a show. Yep, it was about as corny as you might imagine
it being, but Cara was enthralled, and Anna loved it, too. She even got
out of her seat and danced in place as soon as the show started, well
before the main guy in the show told all the kids to stand up and dance.
I don't remember what the show was about, and I'm sure I don't care
what it was about. The show for me was watching Anna and Cara having so
much fun.
The Twiddlebug train
We
went over to Twiddlebug land, and underneath the biggest waterslide,
there was a little train track, with little one-person cars that you sit
in, and you hand pump your car along the track. Anna
loved this
little train - this was another one she would have done all day long if
we would have let her. I had to intercept her at the starting point and
make her get out to give the other kids a turn, which was always a bit
dramatic. I don't remember how we got her to leave the train when it was
time to leave for the day…
More pics to come
As of today, I've posted the digital photos we ourselves took at Sesame Place. They're in the photo gallery,
under "Vacations and Trips -> 2007 Sesame Place." We also have some
pics to develop from a disposable water-proof camera, and we'll be
getting more digital pictures from Kyle & Becky soon - I'll post
another entry letting you know when there are more pictures to see.
We figured it must be a precaution/deterrent against
child predators. As
you enter the park, there are some ivy sculptures of Sesame characters,
and towards the end of the main street, there's a little section that's
built to look just like Sesame Street from TV, so we took some pictures
there. Cara was extremely excited to see the Elmo sculpture - I wonder
if Elmo is her favorite character because she can actually say his name.
We saw the Count as we were walking through.
res, plus they let you take your own pictures, too. So we got a few
pics with the girls and Elmo. We rode a "balloon race" ride (which is
just some cars going around in a circle high up, and you can spin those,
too), had some lunch. Rachael bounced in big bouncy area while I took
Anna to go see Big Bird. Then we went to get a spot to watch the parade.
The parade may have been the highlight of the day for the girls. Cara was kicking her feet, and Anna was just so excited - when the music started and the parade was coming, I don't think she stopped dancing.
She danced and danced, even dancing in place while waiting for Ernie or
whoever to get to our spot from down the street. Beth and I were both
almost teary-eyed seeing how happy and incredibly excited she was. I
used our camera's video feature to get some video - it's not the 
best
quality and the movies are too big to download if you're on dialup, but
the rest of you can get a glimpse of how much fun the girls had at the
parade:
let her. By
this time, Cara had fallen asleep in the stroller and was taking her
afternoon nap - part of me wanted to say to her, "Oh, so now YOU want to sleep, huh? Let's see how YOU
like being kept awake!" But I refrained. We took Anna over to a little
play area where you just run around, fall down, jump, whatever you want
to do. There were lots of little shapes that you can pick up and throw
and carry and roll over. It was right underneath a really tall (maybe
3-story) series of nets that you climb on. I wanted to crawl on the nets
myself - it was pretty cool with little net-tunnels going every which
way, but Anna didn't want to. Oh well.
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