An exotic vacation to....Erie, PA!

We decided to take a family vacation to Erie, PA this year to visit Jeremy's brother, Jeff, and his family. They are living out there while he does an Orthopedic Surgery residency. We promised we would make it out once while they were living there and we kept that promise. Carolee had just had a baby in May, Mr-I'm-too-stinkin' cute Brady and we were all excited to see him, especially the girls. We had so much fun, in fact, that my picture taking was sadly neglected. I didn't even get a picture of Brady to share with you :( We were there for his blessing so Jeremy represented for the Biehns. The next day, Monday, we all loaded up into our cars and drove to Niagara Falls! Here are are few pics. The weather was GORGEOUS and it was surprisingly not very crowded. We picked a great day to go.

Doesn't the sky look fake here? The falls create a huge amount of mist!

This is what happens when hairspray meets mist and wind :) Sorry, Carolee, I just had to include this one!

Here's our happy family all decked out for a trip on the Maid of the Mist. I was a little nervous about the girls and how they would handle all the water but they were total troopers!

The really liked their blue ponchos and they totally helped the keep the girls nice and dry.

Here's a shot from the boat. We didn't take too many for fear that our camera would get soaked!

After Niagara, we drove to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, home of the original Buffalo Wings. They were delish! This is the only picture I have of Jeff and his family from this trip. I told you, I sadly neglected my duties with the camera...

The four of us decided to take a little side trip to Hershey, PA, since we figured we would probably never have that opportunity again. We set out early Wednesday morning and started the day out with Tessa running a high fever. Hooray! She wouldn't eat or drink and slept for the whole 5 hour drive. Poor bug! We only had one day there so we decided to give Hershey park a shot.

Here's the first place you see when you get the Hershey Park. Chocolate World had every kind of Hershey-themed souvenir you could want. There was a free ride you could go on that showed how the chocolate was made. There were three animatron cows who sang "Hershey's Milk Chocolate...it's the milk chocolate..." over, and over, and over......It was catchy. A little too catchy...

There were all sorts of things do to...

Natalie was super excited to be at the "chocolate park." This was on the aforementioned free ride.

This was how Tessa looked the whole time we were there. We decided to get some lunch before going into the park and while Jeremy and Natalie went looking at all the souvenirs, Tessa fell asleep. She just felt miserable so we decided to leave and come back the next day if she was feeling better.Luckily, her fever broke later that evening and she decided she felt much better and went swimming and ate a good dinner. So, back to Hershey Park we went the next day. We went back to Chocolate world and tried a "Frozen Cocoa". Oh my goodness! One wouldn't think that would be very refreshing but it was soooooo good! It was like an icy, slushy, hot chocolate. Yum. I almost wanted another! Here are the girls enjoying their frozen cocoa. Natalie kept telling us it was her turn to have a drink....

As you can see, Tessa was feeling much better!

Here's Miss Tessa enjoying a ride on the Merry-Go-Round

Ok, so the characters are definitley not as cool as Disneyland but we had to get a photo with one of them....

If this really had been a giant bottle of Hershey's Syrup, we probably would have bought one. It's actually just a piggy bank.

Of course we had to get a picture with the giant chocolate bar.

Back in Erie, we enjoyed some of the signs from the local shops and restaurants.

Doesn't this sound appetizing?

This is kind of a one-stop-shop for those safety conscious, diabetic pyromaniacs with a sweet tooth....

This is the same place as the picture above. Carolee sang the theme song for Mr. Fudgie Fudge and it had us all cracking up. The girls wanted to take a picture with him, but.....

....would you let your kid take a picture with this?

We really did have a blast and Jeff, Carolee and the kids definitely kept us all entertained. Thanks again for letting us stay with you! We love you guys!