Bethany's first vacation

I went on my first vacation with my parents this past weekend to celebrate Mommy's birthday. Daddy took two days off to take us to south Jersey. We stayed in a hotel for two nights. Mommy and Daddy tried to keep my napping and eating to my usual schedule, so I was able to sleep well at night. While I did all my napping in the car, they breathed out a sigh of relief when I went to bed at night without much struggle. Overall, it was a very fun trip as I got to see many different things. It also gave my parents the confidence to take me farther next time. What about a plane ride?

10/18 Thursday

It was Mommy's birthday and Daddy's first day off from work. We were busy running errands with Daddy going to the doctor's for his annual physical check-up, Mommy getting a hair cut, and me going to the library for my first story time. In between, we also went to the supermarket to get snacks for the trip. It was so busy that I missed my third nap, so I was very tired in the evening. My parents had no choice but to let me sleep earlier than usual at 8pm. However, I mistook that as my third nap and I got up at 9.15pm and refused to go back to sleep until 12am! Mommy and Daddy had to stay up with me. This was the first time I was up so late since many months ago! You know what, I couldn't sleep because I was excited for the trip too!

10/19 Friday

Because of the late night, I woke up an hour later than usual at 8am. After some last-minute packing, we left the house around 10am. Our first stop was at Princeton where we checked out my potential school (Mommy said it depends on how much scholarship they're offering!). We didn't stay there for too long because it was getting rainy. Princeton was a cute town, we all enjoyed it and will be sure to visit it again.


After leaving Princeton, we checked in to our hotel at Mount Laurel. We got a nice room with fully-equipped kitchen so that Mommy can prepare my food there.
After relaxing there a little bit and checking out the facilities, we headed out to the Camden waterfront. Camden is a town across the river from Philadelphia. It is not a very good town with some questionable characters on the streets. We only stayed around the waterfront area where the attractions were and had the car doors locked for the rest of the time.

In the evening, we met Auntie Julia, Uncle Erol and Justin for dinner. They live only 20 minutes away from our hotel. We went to a family-style restaurant called Prospectors' Grill. The food was HUGE! Justin could eat very fast with his fingers, but half of the food ended up in his bib or placemat. I was very excited and screamed for joy a few times and made Justin cover his ears! It was a new trick that he did that not even Auntie Julia and Uncle Erol knew about! He was hilarious!

10/20 Saturday

After the storm on Friday, Saturday turned out to be a perfect day for travelling. We thanked God for the good weather. We started out going back to the Camden waterfront where the Adventure Aquarium was. I loved seeing the fish and other kinds of animals. We wished there's an aquarium near where we live!



After lunch, we went to a town called Chatsworth an hour away for a cranberry festival.
It was supposed to be the third largest cranberry festival in the country. We were hoping to try out different kinds of food made from cranberries as they are sometimes featured on Food Network. However, the festival turned out to be very disappointing because only a few stores sell cranberry stuff (and nothing out of the ordinary, just jam and spreads) and the rest of the stores were not that different from a regular street fair in Manhattan. It was not worth the drive!

10/21 Sunday

We went to the Grounds for Sculpture which was on our way home. It was a very nice park with many outdoor sculptures. We had to exercise a lot of imagination! My parents were not particularly artistic people and for many exhibits, even after reading the description, they still scratched their heads and sighed out a "huh?". We were home by mid-afternoon. I struggled a bit for my third nap because I was very used to napping in the car for the past three days. Thank God that I was fine by the time I went to bed for the night.



For more pictures, check out the link below.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=c07awmz.6nzumjdz&x=0&y=-fwefcc