Family Tradition

We arrived safely in NY last Thursday and Joseph has been having lots of fun getting spoiled by Grandma & Grandpa since the moment we arrived. He had all sorts of new toys waiting for him and someone constantly there to give him what he wants. In fact, he has already learned to run to Grandma every time Mommy tells him "no". Grandpa loves giving him big sugary popsicles right before dinner and Grandma always lets him run around naked for 30 minutes after his bath (apparently she is less concerned about urine stains on her carpets than Mommy is).

So far the best part of the trip has been the trip we took to Hoffman's Playland.

For anyone who grew up in the Albany, NY area, all you have to say is "Hoffman's" and a flood of childhood memories is sure to come to mind. The place has been there for over 50 years. It's filled with kiddie rides (carousel, mini-boats, mini-ferris wheel, a train, etc.) and was one of my favorite places as a little kid. I can still remember our parents asking us "Do you guys want to go to Hoffman's?" and nearly falling over ourselves to get into the car. This was especially true because a trip to Hoffman's usually involved dinner at Ponderosa (another Albany establishment) where my brother and I loved the buffet with fried chicken wings and macaroni and cheese.

So on Sunday with Joseph's visit to Hoffman's, it marked 3 generations of our family having fun at Hoffman's.

A picture of my mom on the boats - circa 1962:

And me on the carousel - circa 1983 (I am sporting the cute pink sweat suit and Reebok kixx.)

So when we arrived with Joseph, the place pretty much looked exactly the same as my last visit - which was probably circa 1991. I was hoping to take Joseph on the boat ride since I also had a picture of me on the boats and was looking forward to posting 3 generations of photos of our family enjoying the boat ride. Unfortunately, parents can't ride the boat ride....which basically limits Joseph from riding it until probably age 8. A hyper-active little boy and a ride that involves water are not a good mix. So instead Richard started him off on the balloon ride (which actually is new since I was a kid).

Mommy & Joseph tried out the Jolly Caterpillar (and if Jolly Caterpillar had lasted 30 seconds longer, Mommy might have lost her cookies).

Grandpa took Joseph on Mommy's favorite from when she was a kid, the Helicopters. Mommy was a little nervous to take Joseph on this one because it goes up and down and Joseph can be pretty wriggly sometimes....

After 3 whirly, twirly rides, we decided to slow things down with a ride on the train. The little train takes 2 trips around the park. Joseph had enough of the train after about 1 1/2 trips. It was a little slow for him and he had already seen it once before and we had all we could do to keep him from climbing out.

(That last picture is from the first trip around when Joseph was still curious as to what was going on. Have I ever mentioned my kid has zero attention span?)

The train let us off right near the Bumper Cars and the big kids in the group (i.e Richard and my Dad) decided to challenge each other - my Dad won. (Although, please note that Richard claims there was something wrong with his car).

To end our trip, we took Joseph on the Carousel. He was pretty amused by it when we first got on. However, he started to lose his patience while we waited for the ride to start (unfortunately for him some lady had to come around and make sure everyone was properly buckled on their horse - and Joseph just really didn't have time for that). Luckily, his mood perked up once the ride started.

In this last video, Rich was getting Joseph to ride "no hands" and he was loving it. You can hear his giggle on the video.

The Carousel wrapped up our visit to Hoffman's. Surprisingly, Joseph was not interested in partaking in the tradition of eating some cotton candy when we left (yes, we actually tried to give this hyperactive child pure sugar). I am sure this will be the first of many visits to Hoffman's for little Joseph!