Sesame Place Weekend

We just came back from a weekend getaway to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania! We went on this adventure with Ms. O and her parents, and we must say that it was a blast and to top it off, the weather was perfect. Leading up to the weekend, we had anticipated rain at least on one of the days, but it was the best fall weekend yet (and the first of this year!).

We decided to take the NJ Transit train to Trenton, NJ which is about a 90 minute ride, and I have to say that H loved it. It was the 8:14am train so we had to get up a little earlier than usual and of course H decided to sleep in that day - we ended up having to wake him up and get him dressed and ready in 15 minutes. I think he didn't know what was going on but he was definitely excited. He loves to be up and know that he is going outside.

H talked the whole train ride, we tried teaching him to use his indoor voice but that didn't work. He spotted other trains/subways, tiny ones, black ones, yellow ones, and tunnels, bridges, train tracks, people sitting, people eating....and wanted to announce every single thing that he saw.

He even found a new way to play with his fork...by placing it in the "tiny circles" on the ledge of the window. He has become so curious lately and wants to experiment with everything.

He was very good on the train and even had a few quiet moments with Daddy, enough for Mom to fall asleep a little bit (a very rare moment!).

Once we arrived in Trenton, which is a pretty sad looking town, we decided against a 10 minute cab ride to Sesame Place ($30!!) and instead took a local bus ($2.25/ each) but 50 minutes to Sesame Place. H loved this as well so it wasn't a big deal at all.

We arrived at Sesame Place around 11am and it was like a small children's Mecca- I have never seen that many strollers and kids everywhere! H was a little confused but he noticed the Halloween decorations and immediately yelled out "Halloween" (Aunty has given him a Halloween book that he likes to read so he is quite knowledgeable about the holiday). He also spotted a picture of Elmo and Big Bird and it was hard to tear him away from those even though we insisted that he would see the real ones inside.

Ms. O and her parents met us inside the park since they drove from NYC and all that H and O wanted to do was run around, literally in circles. They loved the open free space...at least O knew some of the characters and wanted to meet them eventually, meanwhile H just wanted to run around all over the place.

Once H got some of his energy out (and relaxed on the floor), we started to walk around the park and meet the characters. While he didn't know all of them, he was fascinated by their fur and big features. He wanted to go up to every one and touch their costumes, although O was scared of many of them and didn't want to get too close.

Here are some photos of H with many of the characters...it does look like he is confused why these big furry things are walking around but towards the end, once he saw Big Bird and Elmo, he was totally at ease and high fiving them and saying see you soon!

 Shaking Grover's hand! He listened to all of the instructions that we gave him, very obedient!

 Touching Oscar's fur. He wanted to do that for quite a while but other children were waiting for their picture opportunity so we had to hurry him up.

H also drove the big old fire truck, and he was very careful in doing so...using both hands and making sure he could see out of the windshield. Like a pro!

 We then went to see a concert of a character that O loves but as you can see, H didn't seem that interested, he was studying the bleachers and figuring out how to climb them. However, once the character came out to sing, O started crying and saying, "I want to go home" and shaking...H just stared at the character and then started climbing up and down. Eventually, O calmed down and enjoyed the show but we had to leave early (it was only 30 minutes long) since H lost one of his shoes in the bleachers (we later found it) and was just restless. He needed to be on the move!

 The next day we went to visit a farm to go pumpkin picking! H saw a huge inflatable slide and kept saying that he wanted to go on the escalator. He is a little too small for it so we didn't let him.

 But he did go on his first pony ride, which as you can see from his face, he was not really excited about. He was fine with it for the first few minutes, and once the horse started walking, he lasted about 1 minute and started crying and saying Mommy, Mommy....at least we didn't have to pay for the ride!

We then went on a tractor "hay ride" but the hay wasn't there...he loved this! We went on two tractors and he waved bye bye to each and stared at them as they drove away.