Sesame Place

On Tuesday, July 28th, we finally switched from fun-for-adults historical sightseeing to something the kids would REALLY enjoy: Sesame Place!

I mean, the kids did really great with all the other sightseeing, and seemed to enjoy themselves. But come on. If you are under five years old, nothing can compare to Elmo, live and in the flesh (fur?). So get ready for a picture-heavy post here, folks, because cute kids having the time of their lives tend to photograph well.

We were really excited about this day, and got up early that Tuesday to make the half-hour drive from Philadelphia to Sesame Place. That week was the 35th birthday celebration for the park, and actually Eric and I were just barely too young for a major perk of the birthday party: that week, anyone born the same year as the park (1980) could get in for free. Unfortunately, us '82-ers were just a little shy of that date! But, I was able to get a free pass via Pampers Rewards Points and Eric was an all-star with finding deals for both our theme parks on this trip, so we made do!

Sesame Place!

We arrived at the park prior to opening because we had 8:45 a.m. reservations for Breakfast With Elmo & Friends. As soon as we arrived, the kids went nuts at the sight of so many Sesame Street favorites just wandering around the dining hall. 

E.J.'s little pointer finger got quite a workout!

Before we found our table, we stopped to take a picture with Elmo. What a perfect way to kick off the day!

Ellie was SO EXCITED.

Then we found our table and got some food. The buffet was decent—nothing groundbreaking, but some good staples (cereal, eggs, tater tots, yogurt, French toast, etc.). We learned that E.J. loves him some tater tots. (This actually kicked off a new phase where he basically only wants to eat what we're eating, all the time, and he will grunt at you until you give him your food. It's very elegant.)

Breakfast time!

Mmmmm, tots.

As you eat, the characters come around to your table. Cookie Monster was first to stop by to see us, and E.J. EXPLODED WITH JOY.

Um.

OMG.

I mean, come on. Back that up and look at that face again.

This may be the happiest he has ever been, and he is the happiest baby on the planet, so that's saying A LOT.

Honestly.

Of course, then E.J. remembered he still had tot-in-hand and that got him refocused on what is most important.

Nice chatting with you, Cookie, but, you know....TOTS.

We were also visited by The Count, Zoe and Abby Cadabby. Ellie loved them all, and E.J. kept trying to feed them.

Eric and the Count! (We were each dressed like our favorite characters!)

Girl talk with Zoe

Here, Abby. Have this entire yogurt.

We had also bought an autograph book and made sure to have all the Sesame Street friends sign a page for us. It was far less of a big "thing" than it is at Disney, but it still made for a fun souvenir for sure!

Eric went back to get Elmo's autograph!

This breakfast was probably my most favorite part of the entire trip. The kids just loved it so much! We knew they would, but to actually see the joy on their faces was really special.

But the day didn't end there! We still had lots of fun ahead of us!

A perk of having breakfast reservations so early is that you get early access to a selection of attractions, before the park is even open. Unfortunately, the only part of the park you actually get access to is the water park portion, and we didn't want to start off being wet right away so we didn't take advantage. It was still nice to be in the park early, however, because as soon as it officially opened we were able to dash back to the Sesame Street stoop to take a picture while it was still pretty empty!

Sitting on the stoop!

We also checked out the rest of "Sesame Street":

We found our way to Sesame Street!

Grouch-in-training? (If so, he's not doing very well.)

The residence of one B.Bird

Hooper's Store

Cute people manning the fire truck

After that we stopped to meet Rosita and Bert and Ernie, and rode the carousel.

Ellie and Rosita

These crazy guys!

That's a pretty fun carousel!

Ready to ride! (Notice the pigeon and worm on the bench! So cute.)

Then we continued on, exploring the park and stopping for rides, shopping and photo ops as we saw fit.

Elmo loves you!

E.J. rocking his Cookie Monster carrier slipcover I made for the occasion!

Ellie and Eric riding Elmo's flying fish

Singing an ode to Rubber Ducky with Ernie

This kid seriously had THE BEST day.

Twiddlebug topiaries

Super Grover!

I have to pause to mention the heat. This summer has been brutal in Florida; I haven't even wanted to leave the house because it has been so suffocatingly hot. I was really looking forward to our little road trip up north and hoped that our northern destinations would bring at least a slight relief from the heat. Unfortunately, we hit D.C./Philly/Sesame Place/Pittsburgh in the middle of a heat wave and it was really pretty unpleasant. Sesame Place Day was the worst, and when watching the news that night we learned it was actually hotter there than it was back here in Jacksonville. Needless to say, we drank a lot of water, made use of cooling towels and stopped into air-conditioned gift shops with some regularity.

Ellie trying to cool off

Hydrate!

I was thankful that Sesame Place offered an air-conditioned nursing station when E.J. needed to eat. It was little more than a glorified single-occupant bathroom with a chair in it, but it was cool and private and I was appreciative when the time came.

After a nursing break for E.J., we played at a little kids area for a bit, then went off in search of more characters: Grover and Oscar the Grouch!

Ellie loved this sandpail slide in the kids' play area!

E.J. just HAD to go under this bar. HAD TO.

Grover! My favorite!

Oscar the Grouch!

We really wanted to catch one of the Elmo shows that day, and after our Oscar encounter we knew we were about 10 minutes early for the "Elmo: The Musical" show nearby. We went over and got in line, only to be told within a few minutes that the theater was full and nobody else would be allowed in, but we could wait for the next show in an hour. Needless to say, we abandoned our dreams of seeing a show because we were not about to try to keep those kids entertained in line for an hour. Shucks!

So, we decided to get lunch instead. Elmo's Eatery was right next door and the Sesame Place app was offering a coupon for a free birthday cupcake there, so we were sold. It felt nice to get in out of the heat and sit for a while! Ellie didn't eat much (she really didn't eat very well on the trip as a whole), but E.J. chowed down. In addition to food we brought for him, he ate Eric's steamed veggies side dish, plus tried his first pulled pork sandwich and French fries. He loved it!

Look at this little southern boy and his pulled pork sandwich!

After lunch we got changed and made our way over to the water area. The kids had a blast there! There was a big pool that only went up to about a foot and a half deep, and on either side of it were smaller pools with some fountain features to play in. Ellie loved swimming around and E.J. loved the fountains!

Splash!

Little fish!

Eric, Ellie, E.J....and one heck of an Ernie photobomb.

As we played in the water, we heard the 3:00 parade passing by on the street near us, so we hopped out of the pools and went out to watch what was left of it. It was a pretty fun little parade!

Get it, Grover!

Ellie was bummed this was all we saw of Murray. She wanted to actually meet him!

Cookie, rocking a hat

Elmo (and Dorothy) float at the end of the parade

After the parade I took Ellie back in the water for a few minutes while Eric got E.J. dried off and changed. It was sort of a sad mom moment for me: I was so excited that she and I would have some one-on-one time to play in the water together, but as I "swam" around with her, I realized she actually wanted to leave me to go off and play with other kids. I mean, I know that means I'm doing my job right but it just felt too soon to have that, "Oh...okay, sweetie. You go play with your friends. Mama will just wait over here all by her lonesome" kind of moment. She's growing up too fast!

Ellie and I swam a little longer then got changed and we did a little more souvenir shopping on our way out. Needless to say, by this point, everyone was spent!

Eric and two tired kids!

Look at this sleepy little meatball! My kids rarely (if ever) sleep in a stroller so you know this was some serious exhaustion right here.

And so, we packed it in and went back to our Philly AirBNB. The kids had dinner and went to bed early, and then Eric ran out to get us some cheesesteaks for dinner (and they were quite excellent!). We did some organizing of our things, because we were heading out to our next destination in the morning, but mostly just tried to relax before calling it a night. What a day!

Philadelphia dinner!

That's a wrap on Philadelphia and Sesame Place!

To see more pictures from Sesame Place, click here.

Coming up next: Travel to Pittsburgh, with a rest stop at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Philadelphia

I mentioned in my last post that our last night in D.C., we were sleeping all four of us in one bedroom. We tried to avoid that for our trip where possible, and were successful for all but this one night. But I figured, hey. We can make it work. My biggest concern was E.J. waking Ellie, because he still gets up once or twice a night. Ellie didn't worry me, because she's a great sleeper. She sleeps through the night easy, and I thought that even if he did wake her, she can usually get herself back to sleep quickly and with no trouble.

That's what I thought.

For whatever reason, that night was a weird fluke Ellie sleep night. E.J. woke up at 3:45 a.m. or so, and I got him back down quickly. As soon as I got settled back in bed, I heard Ellie fidgeting all around. And fidgeting. And fidgeting. She was awake and could not get back to sleep. For hours we tried to help her get back to sleep, to get her to stay still and close her eyes, to stay quiet. We tried ignoring her and we tried helping her and it just wasn't going to happen. Finally, around 5:30 or 5:45, I told Eric to go sleep on the living room couch, because I knew he was going to be driving us from D.C. to Philadelphia that day and wanted him to rest. With him gone, I tried to stay close to Ellie hoping my presence would make her stay still and then fall asleep.

Then, all of a sudden at 6:00 she started SCREAMING. Just crying and yelling and screaming, completely out of nowhere. No wind-up, whimpering or whining beforehand, just instant full-volume. I scooped her up and sprinted out of the room with her, but the damage had been done. E.J. was up and I couldn't get him settled back down, either.

So, we decided to just pack up our stuff and get out of there. We didn't even eat breakfast; we opted to stop after driving a while. It is only a 2.5-hour drive from D.C. to Philadelphia, so we figured that since everyone was up, we should just go, do some sightseeing, then check in to our AirBNB for lunch and afternoon naps. And so we departed D.C. and began our journey to our next stop.

Left: E.J. hamming it up for old ladies at Cracker Barrel

Right: State welcome signs we passed on our way. Delaware quite possibly has the most boring sign in the country. They are so unenthused.

Of course, as soon as we were in the car, the kids did this:

Must be nice!

To be fair, this was our biggest kid-related snafu on the whole trip, so really we had it pretty good. But we were some tired people that day!

When we arrived in Philadelphia, we dove right into the little bit of sightseeing we had planned. You may recall that Eric and I visited Philly and did some more in-depth sightseeing four years ago (I was about four weeks pregnant with Ellie at the time!). So, we didn't do a whole lot this time; just enough to sort of get a taste of it and get some pictures of our kids in such a cool place.

First, we saw Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

In front of Independence Hall

Pretty fancy!

George Washington statue in front of the building. Also, those sunflowers were fabulous.

Then we stopped in to see the Liberty Bell.

The Liberty Bell

Pass and Stow

Pretty Ellie with the Liberty Bell

Silly E.J.!

Then we walked over to Christ Church Burial Ground, where Benjamin Franklin is buried (along with many other signers of the Declaration of Independence).

Christ Church Burial Ground

I liked this - the church organist!

I thought it was beautiful that someone placed a flag by all that is left of this headstone.

The grave of Benjamin Rush, father of modern psychiatry

Benjamin Franklin's grave

I really liked this inscription

By that time we were ready for a break, so we went back to our car and found our AirBNB. Unfortunately, the path Google Maps had us take to the rented apartment took us through a pretty rough neighborhood, and by the time we found our lodging, Eric and I were a bit on edge—so much so that we fed the kids lunch there then packed everything back up and left for the rest of our Philly sightseeing with the intention of going elsewhere for the two nights we had planned to spend there. Ultimately, we ended up staying—the apartment itself was nice, and when you came in from the other direction, the neighborhood was fine. It just bordered a somewhat questionable part of town, and that wasn't mentioned at all in the description or reviews. We should have been more thorough in researching the area when we booked, but this was actually the second Philly AirBNB we reserved. Our first was cancelled on us two days prior when Eric texted the owner about check-in time. So, we were scrambling to find a replacement when we booked this one and were not as diligent as we should have been. It ended up being fine, but we had a pretty stressed out afternoon as we searched for other options (there were none that would not have doubled or tripled our total cost for the two nights). Lesson learned!

Anyway, we left the AirBNB place after lunch and went out to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the famous "Rocky steps." E.J. fell asleep in the car so Eric stayed with him for a bit while Ellie and I walked around. We cooled our feet in the fountains in front of the museum and looked at the very cool summer beer garden setup they had in the park across the street.

Fountains in front of the Art Museum

Doesn't this look like a delightful place to spend an evening?

Toes in the fountain!

Art Museum selfie with my best girl

When E.J. woke up, we went up to the actual Art Museum for some Rocky fun. Both kids made their way up the steps and stood victorious at the top!

Rocky!

Rocky feet at the top of the steps

Go, Ellie, go!

Way to go, little Rocky!

E.J.'s turn! Eye of the tiger!

He may not yet know how to walk, but that won't stop him! He's ready to take on Apollo Creed!

On the way down, Ellie even sang the theme song to a blockbuster movie....it just wasn't exactly the right one.

VIDEO: Ellie channeling her inner Elsa on the Rocky Steps

We were ready for dinner by then, so we swung by a Whole Foods for some essentials and then went back to the AirBNB. We ate some dinner, got the kids to bed, relaxed with some TV and then went to bed ourselves. We had lots more fun in store for us the next day!

To see more pictures from Philadelphia, click here.

Coming up next: Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away...we're off to Sesame Place!