Amish Day

A couple of months ago we went to Lancaster County PA to visit one of the farmer's that we get some of our food from (meat, milk, eggs, honey, syrup etc) He isn't the farmer I buy from the most, but he still has good stuff and he was having a customer appreciation day. So we rented a car and headed out. My parents joined us as well since it is only a 2.5 hr drive for them and they also love PA.




On the road into his farm there were so many Amish houses. You could tell by the clothes hanging on the line. Simple cotton and lots of black.



This was his very simple property. This is actually the house that his parents live in but his is right next to it and very similar. Their garden was beautifully planted and well taken care of. His wife and I talked for a very long time. We have a lot in common, she had all 7 of her kids at home which of course I loved :) She was very sweet and spunky.



Because it was customer appreciation day they provided a buffet lunch. All organic all homemade and amazing. I didn't get a shot of the dessert but it was so yummy complete with homemade raw milk ice cream. Yum! And these chips are from another local, they are fried in lard so they are the best chips I have ever had.

This is Abner Jr. For the rest of the afternoon we had free reign of the farm and he showed us around a bit and helped us catch the chicks.

E in the barn looking for the litter of kittens that was running around.

Here is Abner again with his pony. There was a cart attached that the kids were going to ride in. I thought that they were going on a dinky little ride around the yard.

So I put the kids like this, basically E is flush with the side and L is above it. Which is fine if you are going on a ride around the yard. Not racing up a country road and around the bend. I was so terrified because E was already leaning as Abner Sr. made the turn, so I ran after it but it was going so fast I couldn't keep up. A million thoughts raced through my mind like boy, head, smashed, pavement. A headline that read "Amish picnic gone tragically wrong" Crap. Finally, I saw them coming back around the bend with E clinging to L with all her might but he was still leaning over the side too far for comfort so I ran along side it and he slowed down enough for me to fix him until he got back to the yard. Phew! Crisis averted.

One of the milk cows that wasn't out to pasture that day.

The herd of about 30 being brought in for the evening milking. All of Abner's daughters round them up each day and bring them in by chasing them and slapping their behinds. It was quite amazing to see these little girls bringing 30 cows across the street.

I love getting my food from these Amish farmers. Not all of the Amish are into sustainable organic farming but this one (and a few others) are. It is so nice to know that my food is fresh and that the animals are treated well and fed right (ie cows eating grass not grain and dead chickens. And chickens eating bugs not grain laced with antibiotics etc) This family was so wonderful and so ready to answer questions and show us around. I love love love the country, it is so beautiful in PA and so quiet and peaceful.

We visited the farmer that I use regularly this past week so i will post about that soon.

Soap

This is from my sister's chiropractic blog, it is so true and that is why you also shouldn't use antibacterial hand sanitizer like Purell.

Is your soap making you sick?

Trash worship

So I am slightly worried that my readers took me seriously on my last post.....

Right before I left for DC I went with my lovely friend Fork to a trash worship sale. Since it was her last week in the city before she went back to Switzerland, I thought I would humor her. No offense Fork :) I met her lovely friend Rolando, he was really sweet to the kids and blew these enormous bubbles. He had some very interesting stuff all made from garbage. It was really cool to see what he had put together, much more creative than I could ever be.

Celebrity Sighting

Right before we left I had a MAJOR celeb sighting. Now I hope you are sitting down for this one....RUBEN STUDDARD was at Dag Hammerskjold plaza!!!!!!! (which is 4 small blocks from my house) for a sickle cell anemia fundraiser. Let me tell you, that was an A list event. Of course he was the only A lister, which is weird. I know, I'm practically famous myself. Wow, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. He is really tall. All the girls were screaming and fainting, it was a little silly but I must admit I did swoon and cry just a little bit. I told him to call me as I handed him my number but you know...major celebs are busy people, so we'll see what happens....

Summer tans

I hope that everyone is enjoying the warm weather. My favorite part about summer right now is being tan. I love the sun and I love to be tan and to have cute little tan kiddies. I hope everyone doesn't think me shallow, but I don't think I know anyone who doesn't like being tan. Of course last time I said I didn't think someone didn't like something I was proved wrong.






PS these pictures are of pasty, city kiddies. Soon to come are pictures of extremely dark suburb kiddies.

School's out for summer!

I guess maybe I shouldn't put an exclamation point on that since school being out for summer isn't necessarily worthy of such excitement. I love having lots of downtime with the kids, but it can get stressful coming up with things to do everyday, especially when everyday the question "what are we going to do today?" is asked in anticipation of an exciting and interesting answer.

So off we went to Mia's house in DC again, but this time only for a month. Cannon was lonely without all of us last summer, so this year we've cut it down. So now at Mia's the question of the day can be answered by "go outside and play" I love to say those words. They are words that I hope someday I can say all year long to my kids as they grow up. I love the city but it would be nice....

We are also working very hard on our tans at the pool and that is always fun. Last year L hated the pool and when he went for the first time on Monday, he was so excited he screamed everything he said for approximately 2 hours. And every morning E wakes up at 6 and puts her suit on for her 10:30 lesson and asks "how much longer till swimming?"

Ooh and I'm doing a boot camp that is so much fun.




This is a cute picture of E on her last day of school enjoying all of her many many many papers that she worked on throughout the year. She was so proud to show us all of the things that she accomplished.

We are so proud of her, she loves school and has really grown so much this year. She is now officially a reader and she loves to read chapter books and the Book of Mormon.



L and E at one of the many end of school year parties. L is the class mascot and the kids just love him, and of course he loves all of the attention.