PA Trip- Monday

Monday morning Dan and I went for a walk. We walked down 895 to Covered Bridge Rd. A beautiful cool morning for a walk in the woods. :)





Back to Dad's. My sister Lisa made this sign for them! :)



Their back patio.... we sat here to enjoy the cool air, watch birds, squirrels and deer and to spend some quiet time in devotion. A beautiful, peaceful setting!!



Wash on the line was a common sight! Especially towels! :) With 20 people in the house, they needed to be done nearly every day! I am thankful Dad's don't only have 1 bathroom as they did when us kids were growing up!! :)



Breakfast for Brianna~



Relaxing around Grandma's table.....



Danny sat in Grandpa's chair often, watching for deer on the hill. The binoculars on the table beside him were used quite a lot! :)



Javin & Danny entertaining Brianna....she was the center of attention a lot of the time! :) What a sweet lil gal!



Wearing Uncle Javin's hat! <3



Our sister Lisa rented the Weiler's indoor pool for us Monday afternoon. All us sister's and our children were there. It was a neat place!



Climbing to the top of the slide....



Check it out!! :) I actually got up the nerve to try it and enjoyed it! :) :) There was a nice stream of water coming down the slide that helped you keep moving. What fun!



View from the other end. The smaller children loved the little slide...



Desi and Emily...





Back at Dad's...cleaning up the supper dishes. Lots of help! :)



Nicole!!! ;)



My oldest brother and his wife with their grandbaby!!



The kids played "Mother May I" in the garage while Grandpa's truck was out....



Took this pic for all the antlers in Dad's garage....this is most of the deer he shot over the years (with the exception of the ones he got mounted). I couldn't quite fit all of them on the pic, but its close.



A lot of time was spent visiting on the front porch, especially in the evenings when the sun was going down!

Trip to PA ~ Part 1

We left for PA last Friday, August 20 around 4:30 PM. Drove straight through....all 18 hours of it! :P
This was the pretty sunrise Saturday morning! :)

Driving up the mountain to my parents. I forgot to take a picture of the road leading back to their house. It's enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies! :)
I can't believe how 5 years has made me forget how narrow and turny PA roads are!

My nephew Kendon & Aggey, from Ontario, showed up at Dad's about an hour after we got there Saturday morning.
This is their baby Brianna :)

A couple hours later, my brother Lynn & Lisa (Kendon's parent's) and their family arrived from MO.

Saturday evening we were invited to a 50th Anniversary celebration for Dale & Velma Schnupp. Dale was a "mentor" to Dan while he was teaching school and during the first years of our married life.

Their whole family gave a program in dedication to them....

The main reason we were invited to the Ann. celebration, was because Dale's fresh air girl from back in the early 90's was going to be there. Cathy became a friend of mine while she stayed at Dale's years ago. She lived with them a good part of a year and went to school with me for at least a half a school year. I hadn't seen her since then. I think it was the year I was in 4th or 5th grade!!
It was SO good to see her again and reconnect. She looked the same as I remembered....just a few years older. Also got to meet her husband, children and mom! :)

~Myself, Cathy and Darlene Weaver~

After the ann. party, we stopped in at the home of Leroy & Mammie Lantz, an amish man that Dan used to give a ride to work when we lived in PA. He was just walking in his drive and his wife came home soon after that. It was good to reconnect with them again. They are in their 70's but sure don't seem to be slowing down a bit! :)
Wished I could have taken a picture for memories sake, but they don't pose for pictures and I wanted to respect that!
So instead, here's a picture I took Sunday as we drove to visit some friends in Ephrata. :)

Sunday we visited our old home church, Womelsdorf. It was good to see friends from there again. All the children are just growing so fast!! :)
We ate lunch with Lewis & Gloria Nolt and Mark & Cheryl Newswanger. Good times.....

In the evening we ate supper with Jay & Marilyn Martin, our wonderful friends we miss so much!!
Tamara, Lauren and Jayce playing Life....

Durrell, Danny & Dylan

Leg wrestling.....

Friends~

All our children.....
Kaden (2), Durrell (10), Danny (11), Tamara (9), Dylan (10), Lauren (7) and Jayce(5)~


Enjoyed some good games of Snitch and the children had fun just being together again! Marilyn made us a yummy supper of subs, made with homemade buns and macaroni salad and chips....and wonderful choc. peanut butter cake!! :)

Got back to Dad's late. Dwayne and Chris had showed up soon after lunch, so all the out-of-staters were there safe and sound! :) We sat around and visited till after 11 PM. It was so good to be surrounded by family again!

More to come......

Yesterday the kids and I drove up to GA to visit with my sisters. My nephew Scott was doing some training at Ft. Benning and had family day, so Merv & Joanne went and picked him up and brought him to my sister Chris' house for the day. It was good to see him again. He graduated today and flew to TX, where he will be in more training till January.

My great niece, Marcy
She was eating applesauce! :)

A pile of trouble!! :)

My nephew Scott and his friend, Ashlynn.

Niece Amanda and her husband Mike and daughter Marcy


Today I am trying to clean up the house and get a little wash and a little packing done. We leave for PA in about 24 hours!

I am also starting a second blog for our school. I joined a blog ring with other families who use My Father's World curriculum and decided to have a blog specifically for that, so as not to bore those who aren't interested and so those in the blog ring don't have to wade through all my other posts to see what we are doing. BUT I am having a very frustrating time with the background on my new blog! Grrrr!! I will probably not work on it more till we get back from our trip.

We hope to start school on Monday, the 30th. :) I am starting to get excited about it now, finally!

I also found out today that I am going to be able to meet a childhood friend, while we are in PA, that I haven't seen in close to 20 years!! :) I cannot wait! I thought about her a lot over the years! I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of my family too! 16 months is a long time! ;) Well, longer than I've ever been apart from my family! I will enjoy every moment. We didn't plan much this time, so I am looking forward to just enjoying my family!! :)

Family~

We had the privilege of hosting my oldest sister and her family at our house over the weekend! This was their first time to Florida to see us. We had a great time and the days went by so quickly! They are in GA with another sis right now and tomorrow we are going up there to spend the day together! Then we get to see them again in PA next week!! :) :) That is very unusual to see my sis 3 times in 2 weeks time!! :)
A few pictures from the weekend....they got here Friday morning after driving all night and left Monday morning.

Merv relaxing with a book....


I enjoyed hearing piano music!! :)


Fun games of Apples to Apples!! :)



Coffee to stay awake!

Sonya and Neil :D


Saturday was Stephen's 11th birthday.

Where does time go? They grow so fast when you only see them once a year or so!!

~Lego Time~

Sonya reading....it was a little more boring here for her since there was no one her age and Neil had left Sat. morning to spend the rest of his time with his GA cousins.

Saturday late afternoon we headed to the beach! It was a beautiful day but the waves were pretty high. There was a red flag flying.
[The red flag indicates "High hazard, high surf and/or strong currents."]

We didn't spend much time in the ocean side at St. Andrews, but instead went to the bay side were the water is more shallow and the waves were much smaller!

Ocean side.....


Bay side....

A big freightliner that went through! The thing was HUGE!!

Building castles in the sand....

Tamara and Anne

Danny and Stephen

Stopped for supper at McDonalds on the way home.


Henry's Internet Cafe' :)

Merv, Joanne, Sonya (15), Anne (12) and Stephen (11). Too bad I didn't think to take a picture while Neil (17) was still here. Maybe I'll get one of them all tomorrow!?? :)

Today I need to take our van and get an oil change and the tires rotated....and most likely a new tire :P before we head north! I really need to get my mind in travel mode and start getting stuff together for our trip to PA this weekend. Can't wait!! :) It's been 1 year and 4 months since we were up there and I have a new niece and nephew and a great-niece to meet for the first time!! :)