something wilde: Hershey's Chocolate World

Last month we were able to take a trip to Pennsylvania with Jason for work. He was taking a three day training class, so we decided to extend our stay and have a few fun days as well. That had to be one of the BEST decisions we ever made!

We started in Hershey - at Chocolate World to be exact. What a wonderful place! We decided that since we were only in Hershey once, we were going to go with the Chocolate Enthusiast's package.

We learned how to taste chocolate. There's a lot more to it than you think. We each got a little bag of chocolate and then were given strict instructions NOT to bite. There was no chewing allowed in class. Clark wanted to follow all of the directions, so he's trying not to chew. The problem was that it wasn't necessarily melting on his tongue either. He learned a few things that day.

We learned how we needed to use all of our senses to really taste the chocolate. We had to see it, smell it, touch it, hear it and then of course taste it. We've never really been fans of dark chocolate here, but this made it tolerable.

Our next activity was the 4-D movie. It was nice to have a little break and the boys liked the 4-D effects.

Then we went on a little tour ride. You can't tour the actual Hershey plant, but they have this little ride to take you through the process of how they make their candy. It's pretty intense. I never knew a little Hershey kiss was so labor intensive. This Today's Production photo was taken at 10:38 am. They had already made over six million kisses - holy cow! There was something so giddy about seeing all the candy there in my favorite wrappers. YUM-O! The boys' favorite part was the singing cow sisters.

On to one of our favorite things - the Trolley tour! We learned SO much and really came to appreciate Mr. Milton Hershey and what he did for his workers and his company. Jason became a complete Hershey convert on this tour. I don't think he's still eaten a Snickers since we've gone. That's saying something.

Chocolate World was seriously heaven for my sweet tooth. A world made of chocolate wherever you turn! This was in the little bakery section - they had made a whole village our of Hershey candy.

We decided to break for lunch at Chocolate World. We figured it was worth it to order the weird chocolate items since this was the only place we'd probably see them. I ordered the Chocolate BBQ Chicken Pizza and Jason ordered the Chocolate BBQ Chicken Sandwich. The boys - Hershey's chocolate milk, of course!

The Chocolate Holiday House made entirely out of Hershey candy too! Clark is posing as a Hershey kiss.

Our last event at Chocolate World was to create our own candy bar! FUN. But even more fun is seeing these boys in aprons and hairnets - too cute!

We were each able to choose our candy bar base, our fill ins, and whether or not we wanted sprinkles. Now I thought...who wouldn't want sprinkles. Clark. That's who. Just in case you're wondering if I am one of a kind, the screen shot below shows that 0% of other people made the same bar that I made. Hmm.

After our bars were created, we were able to design our packaging. I was busy making my own while Jason helped Kent and the worker helped Clark. Come to find out that when you are small, ownership is what is most important.

Here we all are with our chocolate bars. One of the funniest parts of the whole day was how often the workers would comment on Kent's chocolatey face. They give you chocolate EVERYWHERE here. If I pulled out a wipe each time to clean his face, I'd have to bring 6 packages or something! It was just so funny how people were laughing at his chocolate face as if they had never seen a little boy covered in chocolate at Chocolate World before!

Some Hershey icons...and who wouldn't want to be part of the Chocolate Workers' Union?!

We stopped at The Hershey Story museum after Chocolate World. It was too much for the kids. They were done, but we still were able to walk around and see a few more things. We heard the chocolate lab here was a really cool experience, but Kent was too young and we decided not to split the boys up since we had already done the candy at Chocolate World. Next time though!