Nolan Family

On April 20 th and 21 st we celebrated Josh’s 10 th Birthday.   Josh celebrated first at school with a giant cookie, then after school several of his friends came over for a sleep over and trip to Funset Blvd.   Once everyone arrived we loaded up and drove to Appleton to Funset Blvd.   Everyone was excited and they quickly piled out.   We enjoyed pizza, soda, and cake.   Then it was off to play.   The kids enjoyed miniature golf, bumper cars, games, and lots of laser tag. Finally, at 10pm we dragged the kids away from Funset Blvd.   As they loaded into the car one of the kids realized he did not have his cell phone.   He was in an utter panic about losing his cell phone.   Of course, he had yet to memorize his phone number.   After several phone calls we found the number and started calling it.   With great disappointment we realized that it wasn’t in the car where he swore he had left it.    I sent Dave back into Funset with two boys to search in the room we had been in

We headed back up to Shenandoah National Park.   This time the ranger station was open.   The boys finished their Junior Ranger program and we enjoyed a great movie about the CCC camp in the 1930’s.   It brought back memories of the stories my Grandfather told me when I was growing up.    It was fun to share those stories with the boys. Then it was back to the swimming pool for our final time swimming.   This time both boys worked on diving off of the board.   It was fun to see their swimming skills grow. After packing we headed out for our last Virginia dinner.  We went to a diner that served fried green tomatoes and peanut soup.  Since they served breakfast all day, Ryan was happy with his chocolate chip pancake.  Josh had the chocolate pancake taco.

Everyone voted to stay close to home on Thursday and we explored Harrisonburg a little more and did some geocaching.    The geocaching brought us to an arboretum at the University.   The arboretum had a pond which had catfish, ducks, and turtles in.   The boys had fun feeding the animals.   Then it was time to play at the pool.   Ryan showed that he was able to swim far enough to be allowed to jump off the diving board.   He was very excited with this new accomplishment.

On Tuesday we headed out about 9am towards Pennsylvania.     Having thoroughly researched Hershey and Gettysburg it was decided that we would go to Hershey first and then Gettysburg.   The website said that Gettysburg was open until 10pm and Hersey closed at 5:30pm, so we would go the furthest distance and then head to Gettysburg.   We arrived at Hershey at 12:20pm and decided to go on the factory tour first.   March is a good time to go to Hershey and we were the only people on the tour.   We boarded our tour pod and headed off past the barn of signing cows, the train of cocoa beans and into the chocolate world of Hershey.   Watching Ryan was like watching Charlie’s eyes light up in Willy Wonka’s Factory.   After the tour we had lunch in the Hersey Cafeteria.   Then Josh, Ryan, and Dave went into the build your own candy bar factory and I headed to the Cocoa University and Tasting.   Rosi decided to tour the gift shop. At the University, I learned that the Cocoa Tree picks up the f