Jelly Belly Adventures

Today we took off for Pleasant Prairie to visit Jelly Belly Center. This trip was planned kind of "spur-of-the-moment." My brother and his wife had recently acquired nine bags of boys clothes and offered the lot to us (minus what they were able to use now.) We decided the best way to get them was to meet halfway. We had taken Joel and Cara to the JB factory in California a few years ago, so it seemed appropriate that we would meet at JB center.

Thankfully, the whole family was well so we were all able to go, although I had promised myself I would keep my distance from Ezra since I had been sick...hard to do when he's so cute! We arrived around ten, shopped in the store, and fed the kids a snack while we waited for my brother. We also hit the tasting bar and tried a few different flavors. Ben is the winner for "most adventerous." He tried the canned dog food flavor, quickly followed by a toothpaste flavored one. He stank like dog food for awhile.!!

Joel and Cara arrived a little while later and we all went on the train tour. The first half of the tour consists of watching a lot of screens, so of the children only Matthew was truly interested in the candy making process. Ben liked a little of it, Ezra fussed with his hat, and Anna pointed out pink things and dropped her hat out of the train. Somehow Rob managed to have a kid-free seat. The rest of the tour had some fun things to look at for the little ones. Between the two, the Cali tour is better, but this was still fun.

We made our final purchase decisions and headed to Culver's for lunch. Their register's were working very slowly and our order didn't register in the back. We got our food rather late and were also handed coupons for a free meal and two free custards.

The kids were all pretty restless by the end of the meal, so we parted ways and our troop headed back to Watertown. All three of them fell asleep, so Rob and I had a peaceful ride. And then we went through all that clothing. WOW! It's a major blessing! We won't have to buy much of anything for the boys next winter, if at all.

One more thing we were curious about....who tastes all those different flavors? How much do they pay the people who have to make sure the dog food flavored beans taste just right? Or the skunk flavored ones? Or is it perhaps a job you can do in place of a prison sentence? "Okay, Joe, you can serve ten years in the state penn or one year working in the tasting room at Jelly Belly?" "I'll take the ten! I'll take the ten!"