A Marietta Mama: StoryBook Land

Last weekend Mark, Jonah, and I were able to get out of the city for the weekend! I love these weekends! For me, there is a sense of freedom that comes from riding around in a car. I did not even know this feeling until living the past 3 years without a car. I get quite excited about the thought of just being in a car and driving on an open highway. Anyways, we headed to New Jersey for the weekend and had a great time!

Mark's boss owns a house on the Jersey Shore at Long Beach Island. The house is beautiful and so is the beach there. We went down for an afternoon last summer and went again this past weekend. We spent the afternoon on the beach with a few of Mark's co-workers. The weather was great and the afternoon was relaxing. We then had dinner back at Mark's boss' beach house, which was really nice. After dinner we headed out to a hotel near Atlantic City, NJ, but not before Jonah gave every last one of Mark's co-workers and their family members a hug to say his goodbyes.

Here's Jonah playing in the sand at the beach. He loved the sand and the waves! Makes me really excited about our trip to Florida in a couple of weeks!

Sunday morning we drove a little through Atlantic City, NJ just to see it. We got out and walked on the boarwalk for just a few minutes, which was nice.
The main event for the day was taking Jonah to a little theme park called 'StoryBook Land'. It is a theme parked geared for children 5 or 6 and under. It was really cute. The theme is obviously storybooks... all the traditional stories, like 'Mary had a little lamb', 'Goldilocks and the 3 bears', 'Jack and Jill', etc. All the rides there are pretty much appropriate for Jonah, although there was 1 or 2 that he decided not to ride.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend.

This ride was a boat that rocked and kind of twirled around. I sat across from Mark and Jonah and was able to watch Jonah's expressions... SO cute!

Mark and Jonah on the boat ride

Jonah milking a mechanical cow :)

Mark and Jonah on the Balloon ride

Mary's schoolhouse from 'Mary had a Little Lamb'. Jonah kept calling it the barn. There was a live sheep outside of the house, so I can see why he thought it was a barn, especially since it is bright red! Jonah loved the little schoolhouse though, it was just his size.

Jonah was SO excited to go in the little school house. I acted like I was the teacher and had him sing his 'ABC's'... he was so proud of himself -- on the other hand, Mark reminds me a little bit of the character 'Billy Madison' in this pic :)

Jack and Jill's Hill had a big slide on it!

Here's the roller coaster that Jonah said he wanted to ride... he was all smiles at the beginning, but all tears and crying for Mama when he got off. Although, later he said he wanted to ride the 'faster, faster ride' again.. We didn't let him b/c we weren't sure if he really knew what he was saying. Now, if you ask him what is favorite ride was, he says, 'the faster, faster ride!!'.

At the top of the hill

There were multiple displays such as this one-- you can't really tell what Jonah is looking at, but he is looking into the home of the '3 bears'. If you pushed the button on the outside of the house, it told the story of 'Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. It was pretty cute. This story seemed to be Jonah's favorite. He is still talking about how Goldilocks broke Baby Bear's chair.