Pennsylvania

We spent our Winter break with the Jarrard family in Pennsylvania. We are so grateful for their friendship and hospitality. This is definitely the best way to learn history!

Not much history here but we had a blast snow tubing!

The James River

Abi confused George Washington with George Bush, oops!

Independence Hall - Hannah wondered how anyone could not be moved to tears by visiting such palace.

Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg is the coolest bookstore we've been in.  Mary got lost in a beautiful copy of  Les Miserables.

She wanted to carry her pencil and paper and draw everything she saw. The Liberty Bell is truly beautiful in person.

"Rocky steps" lead to the Art Museum. Now that was amazing!  We saw one of the original Van Gogh Sunflowers and countless works of Monet.

On the way we stopped at a "random" church for worship. We were reminded of God's sovereignty and it was a great service.

The Amish Farms are humbling. But this peacock was "Just Plain Fancy."  Did you notice the reference to one our favorite children's books?

Old Salem

In early October, we made it to Old Salem, NC for a short trip to play in the field and eat way too much junk food. Some traditions are too good to stop. Every girl needs a serious game of kickball every now and then. We missed Rachel and Adrian's family with us.

Daytona Beach - Summer 2015

I've been cleaning up my blog posts and came across this. I don't know why it was never posted, but I can't wait to get back to the beach! It will be interesting to see how the beach looks after the hurricane.

A most familiar, but loved view for our family.

Abigail and Lydia

Sarah, always ready with a camera.

Sitting in the waves with this sweetie was absolute joy!

Adrian, Lydia, Hannah and Sarah spent a lot of time on the boogie boards. 

Abigail and Susannah loved playing together and had a great time!

We take almost all of our food and we LOVE Rachel's homemade cinnamon rolls.

It took Josiah most of the time that he was there but he finally learned to love the beach. 

How Do You Get a Smile Like That?

Give her all of the ice cream she can eat! When we go on our yearly trip to Old Salem, North Carolina we always make sure one of our meals is for ice cream at Mayberry's Restaurant. This year Abigail and Susannah realized what a great tradition it is.

Their bean and bacon soup and hot chips are the reason we go back for the second meal.

Food on Vacation

At the beginning of our "vacation" to Louisville, Ray sent the word out on Facebook asking the best places to go and eat - tons of responses! Louisville is known for food, and we enjoyed every meal that we had out. The Mussel and Burger Bar was probably my favorite, trendy and cliche', but still delicious food. I had never tried mussels before and loved them.

I'm sure this isn't the first time I've mentioned how much I love chocolate, but The Hot Chocolatier has a new location in Chattanooga and still the best hot chocolate around.

Nord's Bakery is famous for its bacon donuts, beautiful cookies and extremely low prices.  This place was on everyone's list of places to go in Louisville. When we got there at around eleven in the morning the glass cases were nearly empty because they don't bake all day. We didn't get to try a bacon donut but the things we did try were yummy! and cheap. And the coffee shop next door was pretty good too.

Fried Oreos. That's all that needs to be said, right? Driving around Louisville one afternoon to find an out of the way place to eat that wasn't a chain, we stopped at this pizza place. It turned out to be one of the places several people had recommended to us. At first, it looked like a place that you would get mugged and not where anyone would want to be after dark. But it turned out to be great fun. We ate pizza inside of an old Cadillac turned food booth.

While in Louisville we drove over to Indiana to visit the acclaimed Schimpff's Confectionery.  We enjoyed a candy making demonstration, tour of the museum, a banana split and delicious hot off the belt cinnamon red hots and lemon drops.

Abigail loved Wild Eggs' breakfast. It certainly lived up to it's name for having the best breakfast in Louisville. And as a bonus, our server was the brother of a friend we have in Georgia.

I Guess It Was a Vacation After All

Since we decided not to go on a vacation this year we went to Louisville, Kentucky with Ray.  He has to spend a week at Southern Seminary every so often in seminars while he works on his doctorate. While he worked and studied we spent lots of time playing. The girls researched lots of really fun places to visit in the area.

Carmichael's Bookstore

The Lincoln Birthplace National Park

Sunset over Lousiville

The Coolest Tree in Louisville is at the library

21c Museum Hotel 

Falls of the Ohio State Park

Cutie Patootie with a Balloon

Creation Museum 

Camel Riding at the Creation Museum

Shakespeare in the Park

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

Nashville Fountain

This fountain was very tempting.

There is only one way for this to go.

Completely free to play!