Our family just came back from a fun and relatively relaxing trip (remember, we have kids...) to visit Mike's side of the family in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We spent most of our time with Mike's mom (aka Grandma or Jane) and Aunt Barb and had so much fun! We went to a family reunion, swam a lot, visited Amish Country, Philadelphia and Hershey and ended our trip at the Jersey shore.
Here are some shots that captured our fun!
Jack liked the water for a few minutes off and on. He liked it when Daddy bounced him up and down. I liked the stream of water that gushed out of his swim diaper whenever he got his little tush above water.
Paige was a complete fish. She LOVES the water and was jumping in and swimming across the pool like it was nothing.
Paige and Aunt Barb happy to be in the water together.
Jonah LOVED the pool this time too! He felt safe with this fishy float, but he actually SWAM with his eyes underwater a number of times. Yeah Jonah! And he jumped in too! And Aunt Barb was even teaching him to dive.
Woohoo!
Here we are doing the Hershey tour. We didn't want to buy one of those pictures that they sell at the end, so here is our lovely shot! Aunt Barb, Jane and Paige are in the back. Mike, Jonah, Jack and I are in the front. Anyone want to purchase prints?
We all got a treat at the end of the tour. Jack really liked his peanut butter cup!
Philadelphia! We really enjoyed our visit to this city. There was so much to see. We came up for just one day, so that we could meet Jason (Mike's brother) and his fiance' Michelle, along with her nephew Kevin and friends Eugene and Dorothy (They are all really nice, by the way!). They took a train down from New York City where they were visiting for a few days before coming to Seattle. Aunt Barb, Sally (Jane and Barb's cousin), and Jane took the train from Lancaster. And the 5 of us, we drove from Lancaster. It was going to cost our family, $110 to ride the train to and from Lancaster. We drove for about $40, including parking.
The pictures are a little out of order, but for some reason I am having a hard time moving them around! Anyone else having that problem? I am no longer able to scroll down on the right.
Here is Jason and Jane at the Philly Cheese steak place we stopped at for lunch. It was good. Very crowded! But good! Although one time I made a recipe for Philly Cheese steak sandwiches that I thought were better... Yep, I am a little bit of a food snob. Greasy is just not my thing.
This is where the Declaration of Independence was signed.
And Paige and Aunt Barb were here while the constitution was being signed. They are much older than they look.
The Liberty Bell.
Of course Mike had his GPS, so we found a cache in the city. Here are Paige and Kevin with their find. Kevin had never done anything like this before, but loved it. He used his compass to help direct us.
Paige is walking on the oldest continually inhabited street in the country. The oldest of these homes were built between 1725 and 1727. For Mike and I,
Elfreth's Alley was probably the highlight of the trip to Philadelphia. We loved the style of the homes, their character, the compactness, and just the fact that they are so old. When we came home, we had a Benjamin Franklin documentary waiting for us (
Netflix). So, we have been watching it and this street has been shown dozens of times in the film during
reenactments of Franklin's life.
And because we didn't have a full enough day already, having toured Philadelphia, we stopped at Valley Forge for a couple hours on the way back to our hotel. It was so beautiful there. We saw where Washington's army encamped the winter of 1777-78 (I think my years are correct here, but I may be a little bit off. I do know that it was after 1776.). Valley Forge was wonderful for the kids. They were able to let off some steam and just run freely through the grasses and around the cabins/huts and cannons.
Jonah, running through the tall grass.
Paige and a
goofy Jonah.
Here are Paige and Jonah on real bunks of an open cabin (Most of the cabins are closed/preserved.)used by soldiers in George Washington's army.
Deer were everywhere! Jack loved watching the deer and spent a bit of time talking about "our" deer at home. "Deer
boop! In yard. In
gass. Eat
happle.
Num num.
Boop!
Boop!"
Mike and the kids posing at a cannon.
Here is one of the huts.
Amish Country. I was/am fascinated by the
Amish. I wouldn't want to be Amish, but I think we can learn a lot by watching them. I love how they grow their own food, work together as a community and live a much simpler life than we do. It makes me want to keep simplifying ours.
We spent a morning in Intercourse. Not Mike and I, silly! Remember his lips? Eew! Intercourse is a town in Amish country with a bunch of shops. Many items were made by the local Amish community. But there was a lot of touristy type stuff.
Paige and Jonah loved this giant gingerbread man walking around. Jack, did not!
Sorry Aunt Barb, but Jane and Paige look cute, and Jonah is funny. He did NOT want to be the blueberry!
Jack is very easily overwhelmed by crowds and horses (in near distances). Grandma took a turn holding Jack-a-doodle and got a kiss.
Cheese!
Jonah is becoming more and more comfortable touching all kinds of animals. Just in Pennsylvania, Jonah pet this horse, held (and squeezed!) lightning bugs, and picked up a leaf bug that Daddy was too afraid to catch.
We took a buggy ride, another highlight of the trip. It was lead by an Amish girl, Miriam, and two horses, Albert and Bridget. Grandma kept mixing up Miriam and Bridget... Poor Miriam! Luckily she didn't seem to notice. Miriam gave us a great tour of Amish farmland with lots of explanations and answers to our questions.
Sorry again. These pictures are out of order, and I can't just switch them around like I'm used to! Aah!
Here is what Amish Farm Country looked like from our buggy.
We all loved the horses, but Jack liked them best (although he loved them from a distance...). "More horse, more horse, more horse, more horse..." was something we heard a LOT on our trip. Whenever we'd see a buggy go down the street, Jack would shriek "Horse! Horse! Horse"! and then after it passed us or we passed it, he would be back to "More horse! More horse! More horse"! Look at that cute little foal.
Paige and Jonah and another boy around their age got to sit up front with Miriam. They took turns helping her drive the horses. Jonah spent a LOT of time talking about the horse
tushies. That is surprising, huh?
An Amish farm. We did stop at one farm and purchased some homemade
root beer to drink. Very yummy! Grandma got some lemonade,
zucchini bread and
whoopee pies. I think I need to find a
whoopee pie recipe. They looked pretty yummy!
Getting on. Again, sorry about the order. Hopefully it bothers me more than you!
More water play! Grandma and Aunt Barb had a great indoor pool at their hotel. Our hotel did not. Our hotel was clean, but it was a concrete square with rooms on each side and down the middle. No exercise room, no pool, no extras. We were thrilled that Grandma and Aunt Barb wanted to pay more for their room than we did.
Mike and Jonah. Mike, how did you get your hair to do that?
Here's a cute picture that keeps turning itself when I put it on the blog.
Hmm....
Geocaching again! We met Sally and Fred for a geocaching adventure near their home in Lititz. This was fun! And Lititz is a very neat little town. It is old and beautiful and clean and updated at the same time. And Sally and Fred are so nice, so the people of Lititz must all be wonderful, right?
Grandma found this one!
Mike found this one. Everyone was nervous about poison ivy- or was it poison oak?- here. Mike was the only one who would brave the rash. He didn't get poisoned though...
After spending a number of nights near Lancaster, we drove to the Jersey shore to where Mike's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jo have a Beach house. It was wonderful there! Jane and Barb stayed for just one night, but we stayed for two and had very nice accomodations in the apartment over the garage. Usually they rent the apartment out in the summer, but they got it cleared out for us. We were so thankful for this! And we were so thankful for all of their hospitality. We were served lunches and dinners and breakfasts. We felt spoiled, especially because we had been eating restaurant food for a week (Except for the nice dinner that Sally and Fred shared with us. Thank you!).
Aunt Jo, Uncle Bruce and their son Duane (Mike's cousin) and his two kids Alex and Ben stayed in the house. I had met all of these relatives (except for the kiddos and Darryl- Mike's other cousin who came for dinner one night), but it was nice to actually get to know them a bit. I don't think I had seen Aunt Jo or Uncle Bruce since we got married (9 1/2 years ago!). Everyone was so nice! Paige and Alex really hit it off. Ofcourse, Paige cried when we left... Jonah played with Ben, but also with Alex and Paige too. They all really seemed to enjoy playing "Scooby-doo" where they took turns being each of the characters, complete with monsters, zombies and ghosts. They game included LOTS of screaming and running and running and screaming.
Here is Paige with Alex inside an airplane on the beach.
Uncle Bruce was a great airplane sculpter!
Here is Mike, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jo. If you have a hard time seeing her, just look for a florescent red beach cover up. Yep, there she is!
Jumping waves!
Jack is spending a rare moment on the beach. Whenever we got to the beach, Jack would pretty much climb up me. He wanted me to hold him and stand in the water or jump little waves, but he did NOT want to get wet. This picture shows him shoveling sand into the water. Notice the extra long shovel. He would not have done this with a shorter one.
Sand-buddies!
Here is Jack. UP. Just where he likes to be. I am very happy in my new swimsuit. I'll probably look like I'm Mennonite or something when we go to Brazil (with all their teeny weeny suits), but atleast I feel comfortable in it. I really like the board shorts.
We HAD to stop at Ben & Jerry's before coming home.
Paige apparently likes "Chocolate Therapy." She had no idea she looked like this. If she did, she would have insisted that she washed her face up before taking a picture.
Say "Yummy!"
Here are all the kids. Jack, Ben, Paige, Alex and Jonah.
What a fun trip, beautiful surroundings and wonderful family!
Yep, Jonah is still completely obsessed with skunks. He was trilled when he finally saw a real one, it was worth any price of admission (NW Trek wasn't that expensive though). Jonah was a little disappointed when he learned the stink had been removed from the skunks and that he wasn't going to see them spray. 
Jack really loved it. We thought he might be afraid, but he wasn't. He just looked out the window the entire time. What a cute boy!!!
These are some of the animals we saw from our tram ride. It is only a small few actually, we took an amazing amount of pictures, a lot look the same now... We saw deer, elk, moose, bison, long horn sheep, goats, caribou, and some others I can't remember right now.
When we were getting off, I looked over to a nearby pond (in the natural area) and saw this bison drinking water. I thought it was really cool, especially with the reflection of the trees on the water.
After the tram we looked around some more. They had bears, cougars, foxes, lynxes, wolfs, owls, other birds we didn't see, coyotes, badgers, porcupines, wolverines, raccoons, opossums, and of course the skunks!!! There was also some smaller animals, like frogs, lizards, and snakes, but we didn't go to them. We went to hear an animal keeper talk about one of the animals and to see it up close. We had heard it might be the skunk. It was a opossum, which was more interesting than we thought. Julie really just thought they were ugly, scary animals; but cleaned up and cared for they are actually cute. However, they did have a skunk hide on display. The kids loved touching that.
Finally we went back to see some of the mid sized animals one more time. I got a good picture of this wolverine.
And then this porcupine came really close to Jonah and I. Look at the boys face. This was a great day for him!!!
The close-up!!!
And really, I can't finish this post without another picture of a skunk. I mean really it was the reason we came!!! Paige actually took this picture while I was still taking some of the porcupine. 
We will definitely go back to NW Trek. It was really great. It was definitely great to go on a day that was a little overcast also, because I don't think there was one animal that wasn't out and about, incredible.
Here is Paige running through. She is a really fast runner!!!
Grandma Debbie and Grandpa went 
We had such a busy and fun few weeks! But now we are all a bit tired. The kids are sleeping in a lot, I have been getting to bed before 9, and Mike has pressed the snooze button twice this week instead of going on his morning run. You all wore us out! Thank you for so much excitement and play! Don't worry. We'll be all rested by the time you come back!
