Jelly Belly Factory

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the kids were out of school & Trek didn't have to work, so we decided to go somewhere fun on our "Bay Area Bucket List" since we've only got about 5 more months here.  We ended up going to the Jelly Belly Factory & we were SO glad we did.  It was a blast.

They do free tours of the factory there which the kids had a blast with.  Everybody got to wear these cute hats & we got to see first hand how Jelly Belly jelly beans are made.

There were SO MANY JELLYBEANS.  Just stacks & stacks & stacks of beans.  The tour said there were over 40 million beans in the factory that day.  It was incredible.  The entire place smelled like a cavity if that's even possible.  It seriously smelled so sweet that it almost made you sick to your stomach.  The kids of course LOVED that.

It was really neat watching both machines & people work together to make, sort, & package all the jelly beans.  Some of those machines are AMAZING.

They also have some really fun mini-games for kids to play along the tour route (which is like 1/2 a mile long).  They enjoyed that too.

There was also a beautiful gallery of portraits made completely out of jelly beans.  The kids liked the Darth Vader one.

After the tour you get a free box of jelly beans to try & then we spent a good half hour in the jelly belly store trying free samples, & buying favorites.  Trek got a ton of fudge & I got some buttered popcorn jelly beans.

It was a really fun family day.  Local friends, if you haven't got up to see this yet, go.  It's free, it's fun, & it's fabulous for kids of all ages.