Focht Family Blog

The next day Nathan and I had to be at the spa at 3:00 so I had the morning free to take the kids somewhere. Nathan stayed at the RV to get some work done and my mom and I took the kids to Zoo America. It is a small zoo but we had reciprocity. One of my favorite animals I saw was the porcupine. The porcupine was up in a tree and looked dead (he wasn’t). When I mentioned it in the store they said he looks like a Q-Tip in the winter because he stays up in the tree and gets snowed on…

In one of the buildings they had some of the nocturnal animals. I tried to get a picture of the foxes but it is still a dark picture…

We stuck around for the 11:00 feeding of the bears. Here are the kids waiting near the bears…

When the staff came out they placed a metal tub on the ground and layered ice and cut fruit into it. Then they came out with two whole melons and threw them into the pool. When the largest bear came out he used his paw to hit a watermelon and then grabbed it with his mouth. It was quite impressive to see him with a watermelon in his mouth. Here is a picture of the largest bear when he came out. Timmy took one look and said that it was just like the bear that ran in front of us in Vermont.

Here is one of the smaller bears. I think it was shedding its fur or something…

After the zoo we found a Red Robin for lunch since mom wasn’t planning on having a great dinner and I knew I was missing dinner because of the times I set for my spa appointments. Nathan and I went to the spa a little early and tried out the jacuzzis at the hotel. Then I headed in for my Cuban Immersion (scrub and wrap) while Nathan had a beer and enjoyed the jacuzzis and the steam room. After my treatment I met Nathan and ate a chocolate muffin for my dinner. Then we had the last massage appointment of the day. We left at 8:00 as the spa was closing very relaxed! :)

I figured out quickly that we could make our path go by Hershey. I enjoyed my visit to the Chocolate Spa so much last year that I have decided that I am going to make it a yearly event. So I made reservations for a scrub, a wrap, and a couples massage with Nathan. Since I was now going to be at the spa for about 5 hours, I started feeling guilty about the kids and my mom being in the parking lot for that time so we left a day earlier than originally planned and stayed two nights at the Hershey Campground. This made it so we had a day and a half to do Hershey things with the kids and then my mom had more room and electricity for watching the kids while Nathan and I were at the spa.

Last year we went to Chocolate World. I looked on the website to see if there was anything else to do and noticed that they now have a Hershey Museum…

At the front of the museum is an amazing mural of Milton Hershey talking to children. It is so lifelike it feels like you are there with him. The kids posed with the mural…

One of the things I signed us up for was the Chocolate Lab. You go into a kitchen area where you have to put on hairnets and plastic aprons…

They give you each a bar mold and you have dishes of marshmallows, rice krispies, colored sprinkles, white chocolate drops, and raisins. Next they give you bowls of milk chocolate (would have been better if you could have dark chocolate). You can then design a chocolate bar however you want with the ingredients given to you. Mine had marshmallows, rice krispies, and white chocolate. Josh put sprinkles and marshmallows in his. After he was done he found another use for the leftover chocolate…

Then he got bored and started playing with his hairnet…

Timmy had sprinkles and rice krispies in his chocolate bar. He was using the other bowl of chocolate….

The result…..

Samantha made a “2009 Bar” but she will not share her secret recipe. :) Here are all of the children with their creations before they ate them…

Other than the fact that it was milk chocolate the bars were delicious! :)

So… scouting is done for the summer. My mom had a bit of an issue with her camper that we noticed as we left Boston in June. One of the corners where the tie down system connects was tearing off. Here are some pictures of it…

We tried stopping by a RV dealership that was listed as a repair place for her camper manufacturer. They sent the pictures in to see if it would be covered and we were told by the dealership that it looked like water damage. The manufacturer said it looked like we had hit a speed bump??? I am pretty sure that a truck camper is supposed to be able to go over a speed bump! It was looking as if mom was going to have to spend a few thousand dollars repairing it. We decided to continue back to PA and call the manufacturer back.

Apparently mom had been speaking with the wrong person. The person she spoke with the next time told her that if she could get the camper to Winchester, VA that they would take care of it. Winchester is where they used to make the trailers on the east coast. Now they are just made in Oregon but they still have facilities and people who can repair in Virginia. She scheduled a service visit for August 17 (see… I am almost caught up). It ended up that we needed to go to Vermont for work so we left a little early so we could do some touristy visiting on the way to Vermont.

Nathan’s uncle Bob makes all kinds of things out of wood. He made a beautiful box full of wooden blocks in different sizes and shapes for the kids. They all love building with them. Samantha and Timmy decided to build a chair for Joshua. Here is the chair without Joshua in it…

Here is the chair with Joshua in it…

The day I picked up Samantha from camp I also dropped Timmy and Nathan off at their last camp for this summer. This one was in Pennsylvania about 30 minutes from Samantha’s camp. The theme for the week was Space Camp. Here is Timmy with the troop he was paired with…

Here is Timmy and his group doing some kind of skit…

The troop Timmy was with had another Timmy in it. Here is a picture of Big Timmy and Little Timmy as they were called…

Since it was Space Camp they had to something with the theme so here is Timmy with his rocket that they made out of a soda bottle…