Toby Mac and Hershey...

Last Saturday Jason and I surprised Sarah with an early Christmas present, a trip to Hershey, PA to go to a Toby Mac Hits Deep Tour Concert with our friends the Moorman's. Our friends Gary and Aura and Jason and I have been keeping this a secret since early September, so it was wonderful to be able to finally tell our kids about the trip. Aura and I had the excitement of taking the older kids while Gary and Jason stayed home with the little boys.

SURPRISE!!

Merry Christmas Luke, Sarah and Emma

Toby Mac is one of our favorite artists. He is a Christian hip-hop/rapper. Along with himself he had 6 other artist on tour with him - Manidsa, Jamie Grace, Britt Nicole, Brandon Heath, Chris August and Group 1 Crew. We are already Mandisa and Jamie Grace fans and became fans of the other artists who played with them.

Sunday afternoon we headed to Hershey continuing to keep a surprise that we had gotten tickets to the VIP Pre-show. The concert didn't start till 7, so the kids couldn't figure out why we had to be there at 4:30 to wait in line. They were surprised and excited when we were ushered in with free CDs and front row seats along with 80 other people to hear a couple of pre-concert songs from Toby Mac, Jamie Grace and Chris August, as well as a time of question and answer.

After the pre-show and before the concert my girlfriend found out about a meet and greet with Toby Mac, very cool. We got in line with about 50 other people and got our picture taken with him and autographs. This was an added bonus to the night for the kids.

While waiting in line to meet Toby, Johnny and Stacy Stone were in front of us. They are local Christian radio station hosts and are a favorite of my girlfriend Aura's. She cracks me up.

Meeting Toby Mac in person, a huge Christmas present for our girl Sarah.

The concert was amazing! All the artists came out and sang 2-3 songs and spoke for 5 minutes. After an intermission Toby Mac came out and sang for about an hour.

Jamie Grace

Group 1 Crew - This sister and brother duo got some amazing big hair

Chris August

Britt Nicole - love her dress

Mandisa - Top of the morning to ya 'Disa

Brandon Heath

After the concert some of the artists were in the concourse signing autographs. We got to meet 4 out of the 6.

Jamie Grace, she is only 21. Sarah is a big fan. What a privilege to meet her in person.

Britt Nicole

My girl with Chris August and Mr. Talkbox

Brandon Heath

We had such a great time together. Lots of laughs and fun stories between us. A wonderful Christmas memory to share with our kids.

Cool kids!

Cool Moms! We got hip-hop, although I don't think are kids thought so when taking this picture.

By the time we left the concert, had a late night snack and settled in our rooms we went to bed at 1 a.m. and had a great nights sleep. I loved sleep in till 9:00 a.m., a rare thing for me.

We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and decided to spend our last few hours at Chocolate World. What kid doesn't love to hear the words "Chocolate World".

We took the tour to see how Hershey makes their delicious chocolate.

The kids got to go and make their very own chocolate bars, which took about 30 minutes.

We enjoyed some hot chocolate while we waited for them.

Sarah's chocolate bar filled with pretzels, white chocolate and milk chocolate. She even got to create her own wrapper.

Chocolate World was fun for all of us. It may have been a rainy day outside, but our sugar levels were HIGH.