Hersheypark

This past Thursday our family along with Kelly had planned to go to Hersheypark. It was probably the only day that all of our schedules coordinated and we could go. We were all looking forward to it so we woke up bright and early Thursday morning and guess what? Zach had a fever. In hindsight I probably should have stayed home with him and just let everyone else go. Instead I gave him Motrin and then packed it in my bag to take with me. (Yeah I know, no mother of the year for me!)

He was okay at first and he even had fun riding some of the kiddie rides with Megan while everyone else stood in line for Fahrenheit. His first ride was the pirate ship. He loved it! Notice that he's in the front row, that row that doesn't go up as high.

Then it was onto the Dizzy Drums, at least I think that's what they're called. Megan looks goofy because she was in the middle of talking to a new friend she made that was sitting with them.


Zach wanted to go right back on the pirate ship and since there was no line why not? This time though they were the first ones in line so they got the back row, you know, the one that goes up higher. At first he liked it but the higher they went the more he didn't like it. Notice how even the kids in front of him are trying to comfort him!

He survived it and we got one more ride in, the swings. He liked that one.
After that ride though he didn't want to ride anything else so we headed back to wait for the Fahrenheit ride to be over and to meet up with everyone. Good thing we did since he was starting to feel warm again and they were almost on the ride.

Fahrenheit is probably one of the coolest rides there. I rode it last year and only chose to not to ride it this year since the wait was too long and I didn't want to leave a sick Zach with Lauren. Besides, as we were walking away I ended up talking Lauren into riding it so she got in line with Paul, Kelly and Kristin. She didn't ride it last year with us, too chicken. Plus she didn't ride it when she came with her school last spring. I can't believe I actually talked her into riding it this time!

A brief description of the ride, for those that don't know, you start out with a 90 degree ascent like this: (The four of them are in the first two rows, on the side you can see it's Kristin in the very front with Paul right behind her, both have their arms kind of up.)
Then it plummets down a 97 degree negative drop like this:

After that it goes through loops, corkscrew rolls, an inverted s-roll (this is all taken off their website!) Finally, after 85 seconds of thrill riding it's all over

Lauren said she liked it so I'm glad she got to ride. Megan wanted to ride The Claw next so her, Paul, Lauren and Kristin waited in line for that one. I took Zach's temp while we were waiting and it was almost 104! Poor little guy, I gave him some more Motrin and got him to drink some. Kelly played a game and won him a stuffed monkey which cheered him up some. It probably would have cheered him up more if I had let him have the pink one he wanted! Kelly asked him what color he wanted and he kept saying "pink." Even with given the choice of blue or green he replied, "pink!" I probably should have just let him have it, instead I chose blue for him so it would match his room. Here's my feverish child:
Would you believe that I don't have any more pictures from our time at Hersheypark? I think I took a total of 8 plus the two short videos posted here. That is probably the least amount of pictures I have ever taken on any trip, let alone a day long one. Let me explain why though. After eating our picnic lunch we went to Chocolate World and did the tour for our free chocolate (It was a Hershey Kiss Meltaway this time.) I wanted to get a family picture in front of the Chocolate World sign like we did last year but as we were walking up to the sign you could see a downpour of rain headed our way. That was really weird! We headed over to a tree so we could stand beneath it, it worked for a few minutes but then we had to take cover inside Chocolate World till the rain shower passed. So no family picture this time.

Once we left there we went and did the water park so no pictures of that since my camera was in a locker. The water park was fun and Zach even enjoyed it. I think the coolness of the water helped keep his fever down. He was running all over the place and just laughing, very cute to watch him. I won't mention why Paul wasn't able to go down any of the tube rides. Feel free to ask him when you see him though :)

After changing we did some more rides but Zach started feeling bad again and there really wasn't much to take pictures of at that point. He didn't ride anything else, unless you count the stroller as a ride. The poor guy was miserable, he was feverish, hadn't really eaten much all day and never took a nap. He finally fell asleep on the car ride home. (After taking him to the doctor the next morning I found out he most likely had strep throat. The antibiotic worked wonders!)

Unfortunately it wasn't the best day. We did have fun, just wish we could have had more fun and it would have been nice to see Zach enjoy it more. At least the girls got on some rollercoasters and everyone had fun in the waterpark. We'll try again next year!