Day 28: Pittsburgh to Hopewell, NJ

Another morning waking up in a hotel, but this was our last time for a little while and everyone seemed almost giddy.  We stopped at the McDonalds on the way to take advantage of the playground and to let Mr. 0 eat some scrambled eggs. And then it was onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Around 11:30 we were approaching Harrisburg and beginning to feel like we needed a break.  I looked for something fun to do and realized we were close to Hershey, Pennsylvania, home of Hershey Chocolate.  It looked like they had a free tour and it was only a few minutes out of our way so we decided to try it.

Hershey's Chocolate World is the glitzy, big corporation wonderland to Taza Chocolate's small, neighborly atmosphere.  Rather than a walking tour of the actual production plant where someone who knows everyone who works there talks about how they make sure there are only 2-4 ingredients and they're all picked with great care - you take a carnival ride through a pretend production line with singing animatronic cows.  Actually it's fun but I think Taza is more our style.  We bought some chocolate and headed across the parking sea to our car.  A good break but on to more important places.

The younger boys were sleeping as we passed through Valley Forge so we kept going but hope to make it back.  We were headed to Hopewell, NJ, to visit a good friend of David's from college and his lovely family.  R was actually the best man at our wedding, meaning we saw all but one member of our wedding party on this trip.  They welcomed us with open arms and the kids immediately threw on swimsuits to join theirs in the sprinklers.  They fed us a delicious dinner and we walked to the nearby ice cream parlor for homemade ice cream.  After the hour of craziness that is necessary to get 6 kids to bed, we had a chance to just sit and chat with R and L.  And we now have a whole list of excellent books to read on faith and science (I actually bought one of their recommendations on Google Books today).  We hope they will return the visit to Boston soon as it was so wonderful to see them and get to know their lovely girls.  Their older girl recommended the series Bella Sara to Mr. 7 and he read the first 2 chapters of the first one before bed last night.  We do love good book recommendations