Thursday, September 30, 2010

Our favorite Lancaster Eatery

Our first day in Lancaster we ate at a deli named Isaacs, right near our hotel. It was SOOO yummy, we returned our last day. If you ever are near one, GO! The tomato basil soup was heavenly! Some of us had it our first night and we ALL had it our last day, YUM!



Along w/ the roast beef sandwich on a pretzel, so good! the kids menu was fantabulous. They loved the rainbow bread and make your own PB&J. i wanted to buy the bread to bring home but at $5 a loaf decided, no.

Fun straws!

Even Sawyer smiled here, and if you know our Sawyer, you know how picky he is!

Marshmallows for PB & J is so fun!


Finally, only a month late I finished up our vacation! It was a great trip and lots of fun memories! Thankfully we had an uneventful trip home. We had planned to stop at Gettysburg but by the end of our trip we were so tired and Mark decided taking the little girls there did not sound like fun. He said he will take Sawyer sometime as a boys trip to walk the battlefield!
So after a very busy summer of traveling, we are home with no trips scheduled! Next posts coming up... First day of school, Gotcha Day, and birthday party catch up. Birthday season is upon us at our house!

Malaines Baby!

While in Lancaster we wandered upon a doll factory. A dream come true for girls, not so much for boys. We went one day and Malaine is my "baby" child. She LOVES babies, adores them. Out of all my girls, she is the most like me as far as that goes. I was really into dolls as a child. So this place was heaven for her. We went one of our first days and all week she talked about wanting to return to use her $ to buy a doll. So, she just batted those big blue eyes at her daddy, flashed that toothless grin, and back to the doll factory we went!


At the doll factory they have a "special" doll nursery upstairs. (also known as the not as cheap area of dolls of course) And wouldn't you know, that is right where our little Lainey headed. but who can resist? Babies laying in bassinets that look real? A dream come true for a doll lover! So she spent a very long time looking over each baby, checking out how they felt, their expression and oh was it a hard choice! But finally this little beauty won out having Lainey as her new mama! They gowned her up, and placed her new baby in her arms! I mean come on, is that face not priceless!
They weighed the baby, who was actually about 3 lbs!


Even got Dr Makenna in on it. (dad sent her in to tell us to hurry up since he was stuck in the car w/ the other 4!)
And then we were off to decide a name. Which was settled as Rachel, since she was born in Amish country and all. I think Rachel has the most perfect mommy ever!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Back to the Amish Village

On our last day we felt we had not had enough of the amish experience, plus we wanted to buy some shoe fly pies to bring home, so we headed to the Amish Village. It is an old amish historic home they turned into a museum of sorts. This was much better than our first tour and we felt we got a better feel for who the Amish are.



he kids insisted I take a picture of this old well. They had a good history lesson seeing how life used to be. Think Little house on the prairie is what alot of it was.

This is a view standing in the kitchen, looking back into the living room area of what a typical amish home would look like. It is set up for sunday church. You can see the pews face each other. Men on one side, woman on the other.
No pictures but they do keep records of their family line. No pictures because of the verse from the people, you shall have no graven images.



A typical modern kitchen. They do have refrigerators and dishwashers now, as long as they are run on propane.
A girls bedroom. They do not have closets, and when their hooks on the wall are full, that means they have enough clothes. Closets just make us need more. How true is that?
Just enough shoes for what is needed, though in summer they go barefoot for the most part.


They are not allowed bikes (in this district at least) but they do allow rollerblades if it takes them to a job. Bikes go to fast. Oh and the bishop dictates what colors they may use, so in this district they can paint the walls, blue or beige and the shades must be green.

The parents bedroom. Above the bed is their childrens art work. This is the only place in the house they can display it. Not where others can see, because that would be bragging.
Playing with the goats outside. Yes, he is eating a leaf from Malaines mouth!

Riding on the scooters, they are allowed those!


The one room schoolhouse. Children attend school from kindergarten through 8th grade and then they are done.


Our kids could have played in here forever. I guess they miss an actual classroom a little bit! ;-)

This was probably one of my favorite things we did on the trip. There was so much to see at the Amish Village and we all had a great time!

Hershey Park


We spent Wednesday evening and Thursday all day at Hershey Park. It was HOT and it was crowded, which just seems to follow us no matter where we go! It is a nice park. I like that they have kiddie rides mixed in with the big rides. Made things much easier.

I love watching my kids personalities at the parks. Makenna & Sawyer have no fear and will ride anything. Malaine, can typically be talked into most rides, but is really happiest on the smaller rides. Mavery, WANTS to ride it all. The faster the better for her! Unfortunately that is not safe for her with her heart and some of the rides we did allow, were probably not good. Sage, surprisingly is fearful on the rides and is perfectly content on the merry go round or even just sitting in the stroller. We did take the youngest 2 on their first roller coaster ride. They LOVED it. (think mine train at 6flags) Along with the merry mixer, some cute giggles could be heard from that!






We did not have our double stroller because most every time Sage refuses to sit in it. Of course this trip she wanted to sit, so we had to improvise!




Mavery spent alot of the day looking like this. Heat, no nap and lines do not go well for her! If she was on a ride she was fine, but if not, watch out!


I love the height chart, each size a different chocolate. My cute, but tired little kisses!





Finally, cotton candy, their favorite!


The big kids were here, I promise. I just spent more time with the littles this day while Mark took the bigs on the big rides!

Carriage Ride Amish Tour

One of the things I was most excited about this vacation for was getting to tour the Amish areas. I have always been fascinated by them and reading fiction books based on their lives are one of my favorites. We spent Wednesday going on a buggy ride, touring an amish home, an amish bakery and eating at an amish buffet. Where I got my first taste of ShoeFly Pie, YUM!!!


2 little girls so excited to sit up front with our driver! I think she was as fascinated with them as they were with her! For the record, our driver was menonite, not amish.

This is the house we went in. When they said a house tour, they did not mention that all we would be able to see was the basement! Isn't the house fancier than you would imagine? Notice there are no lights by the door. We were told that the reason they do not have electricity is because they take literally the verse in the bible do not be yoked with unbelievers which to them means to not be linked with even electric lines.



This family was going to be hosting church at their house for the week and so the trailer is full of pews to be used for service. One thing we read is that the Amish think it is interesting that we build these nice fancy houses, that we do not worship in. And then spend a whole bunch of $$ on buildings to worship in just once a week. Those Amish, we maybe should take a few tips from them! ;-)

Amish Schoolhouse. We asked our guide if any amish homeschool and she said, no, why would they? Well I guess I have no idea!

They make an awesome swing set.


More baby goats, barely born. If they stayed that tiny and cute, I would get one!

The buffet we ate at had a kids buffet behind this ark. Very cute!

Cherry Crest Adventure Farm

We spent Tuesday in Lancaster at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm. What a fun place! It is similar to Eckerts that we have here, but much larger and no apples to pick!

We walked forEVER through a huge corn maze that is over 5 acres. We finally did have to admit defeat for fear that we would not see anything else in the place so a kind scout led us out. In the maze they did have different activities you could do, a rest stop of snacks, clues to try to help you through.








They had a great petting zoo and we were all convinced that baby goats are the cutest thing ever! Baby chicks, milking a "cow", fun for all.

TONS and I mean tons of activities for you to do. We could have spent 2 days just playing.





We ended the day getting to see Aunt Mary who has moved out near by. So good to visit with her! Thank you Mary for driving to see us, we miss you!