Two weeks ago, my fiance and I took a few days off and, after saving for more than a year, took the kids on a mini vacation to New Jersey. We went stayed in Princeton, which is such a lovely town, and went to Great Adventure. We arrived on Wednesday, checked into the hotel, and went into Downtown Princeton to check it out. I brought my Nikon but didn't actually take any photos. What a great time we had there though. It was such a great day, the weather was just perfect and the shops themselves were really adorable. One of our favorites was Green Design. You can check them out on Facebook if you don't have a chance to get to NJ. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/shopgreendesign?sk=wall. Or you can check out their blog right here: http://greendesignprinceton.blogspot.com/. Another store we fell in love with was JaZams. It was a children's bookstore/toy store (here is their link http://www.jazams.com/Store/pc/splash.asp). And not a toy store like ToysRUs or Target. But like Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. With play areas and reading areas, toys that are laid out for children to play with, things hanging from the ceiling. I mean, it was just so incredibly appealing. What a great place. They had books their that I had never come across before. Such fun. We stopped by a cheese shop, spoke with a lovely young woman about cheese, which she was adorably passionate about, had a fantastic dinner at a restaurant near a large open square, and then got dessert at an artisan ice cream shop. We ate our ice cream (which was outstanding!) on a set of stairs near where there was some really good live music playing. What a day! I wish I could remember the name of these three places because I would love to pass along the information, but right now my brain is failing me.
The next day we woke up to a rainy parking lot and decided to venture out for breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. While we ate our bagels, the sky opened up and it began to pour. My fiance thought we should go to Great Adventure anyway, in case it was clearer over there, since it was about 40 minutes Southwest of where we were staying. When we got there it was still raining, but we were able to go through the Wild Safari, which was very cool. We loved the giraffes, which were licking all of the water off of cars as they drove by.
And the elephants put on a show for us.
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| Rhino |
We watched as one lioness showed another who was boss.
And another lioness was yelling at us, protecting her cubs.
The llamas kept walking through a gated area as we were trying to get to the other side so we had to sit there and wait for them. We were laughing about it; it looked like they were going to walk on our car. And once one saw another go through, then they followed. So it ended up being a bunch of them.
The baboons were neat, but we couldn't enjoy them so much because at that point we had been going through for 2 hours and our gas light went on! So we left to get gas and lunch, and returned to enjoy Hurricane Harbor since, lucky for us, as we approached the end of the Safari, the sun came out, dried everything and warmed us up. We had a great time on the slides and spending time together. The Bean finally took a nap and slept through Little Misses favorite part. And by the end of the day, we each went on the slide we thought was the scariest. They were intense.
We got back to the hotel as it start to storm again. So we ran inside, leaving the bags behind in the car. Got changed and decided having dinner at the hotel was the best idea.
The restaurant there is called On The Bone. It was pretty good. My meal wasn't incredibly memorable, but my fiance had beef short ribs that melted in your mouth. He always picks the most delicious meals. And I tend to have the worst luck with my food. I should insist on him choosing my meals from now on. After dinner, I looked out the window and saw it had stopped raining. So I ran out to the car to grab the bags and my camera because I saw this:
I couldn't pass up the photo. As I took this picture, the thunder started to rumble again and I ran inside. Just in time to catch the lightening. The rain didn't start until we were all ready for bed. But it did start again. In fact, it was raining hard all through the night. The thunder even woke us all up. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to make it to Six Flags the next day. But we got up, went back to DD for some breakfast since that was all that was around, and headed back out to Jackson, NJ. The weather cooperated, even though it said to expect rain starting around 2pm. The park was virtually empty so we got to have lots of fun. Jay and I split up with the kids. I went on the kiddie rides, and they were supposed to go on the roller coasters. Well, a quarter inch too short is still a quarter inch too short. So no major upside down coasters were enjoyed. Which is fine by me since they pretty much terrify me!
The rain held off until almost exactly 5pm, when the free concert (Gym Class Heroes and two other solo acts) was about to start. And boy did it rain! It even started to hail. It was wild. All worked out in the end anyway since we were all pretty much ready to hit the road.
We ordered pizza to the hotel room when we eventually got back. The plan had been to sleep in and leave around 11am-12pm. What a silly thing to even consider when you have a toddler! So we ended up heading back to Long Island around 9am or so.
All in all, a really good trip. Hopefully something to remember for a long time.
Thanks for reading.
Peace & Love,
Emily
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