"I've Got a Golden Ticket!"

Dave is great about reading chapter books aloud to the girls.  He's been doing this since they were young.  Since he has so many meetings at night, it does take a little while to get through a book, though.  So, for the past few months, we've been sharing Roald Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Besides hearing the book, we've also watched both versions of the movie, comparing and contrasting the old and new, discussing which movie stayed closest to the book and debating about which one is more magical and which Willy Wonka character more fun to watch.

The girls were delighted to discover candy bars with golden tickets in them in their klompies on Sinterklaas Day! (Click on the below picture to read the Golden Ticket-- I took most of the wording right from the book and think it's pretty fun!)

The Golden Tickets gave the girls the gift of an outing to our nearest "world of pure imagination"-- the Jelly Belly Factory.  We were excited to kick off our Christmas Break with this family adventure yesterday.  

We've been here lots of times, but this time did seem more special some how.  Maybe because we've been watching and reading about candy so much lately, or maybe because we gave the girls permission to pick out whatever they wanted this time, or maybe because the factory was running at full speed during yesterday's tour (something we've never actually seen).  Whatever it was, we stayed longer and had more joy than usual!

We decided to just go all out and make it "Kid Day" by ending our day with an hour at Jump Highway, one of those warehouses with wall to wall trampolines.  These types of places are always a huge hit with our girls.  They did seem to have an extra bounce in their bodies after the Jelly Belly experience too! Imagine that! :)

"This was the best day of my life!" Ella told us on the car ride home (though, perhaps that was sugar and jumping adrenaline talking).  It was fun to spoil our kids with a day all about them at the start of this break.  Delia has volunteered to cook, clean and give me lots of snuggles over the next 2 weeks in return! :)