What We Did for Our Summer Vacation

An Amish horse and buggy at the Hess gas station. Someone must have had a craving for a slurpee or whatever it is you buy at the Hess (Doritos? pork rinds? um, gas?!) or possibly they needed their Dunkin' Donuts fix. I wonder if that is like crack to the Amish?

Remember as a kid, you had to write up a brief essay explaining what you did on your summer vacation (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING)?! This is that essay. Sort of. First we took no real vacation, although we did go to Amish country in Strasburg PA for a long weekend. Here is the month by month low down of our summer.

June. We did nothing. Well technically not nothing, but we did stuff, mostly boring everyday stuff. You know. nothing.

July- Ian also had the nerve to turn four years old. Yes. FOUR. No. I cannot believe it. He is now a little boy. Somewhere between 3 and 4 he lost any last traces of baby-ness. His face thinned out (this could be from the fact he doesn’t actually eat food), he can now climb agilely, jump off of things, ride a bike, write his name, stand on his head, and navigate around a website. His voice is that of a small child, no babyness left in it. Speaking as an adult, it seems like it takes forever to become a grown up. Watching my first born, I realize, forever is a short amount of time. It’s amazing to watch; it’s satisfying to experience and slightly heartbreaking all at the same time. Our baby is growing up.

Goodbye baby; hello little boy.


Also in July

We decided to take a long weekend and ride an old train. We opted, this year rather than spend a day out with Thomas (http://smytacchiworld.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html) to go to beautiful Strasburg, PA. They have a lovely old train station and train museum and an old train that pulls the old cars and you get to ride. We never made it to the museum but we did ride the train and hang out at the train station.

The highlights of our trip were our accommodations and the fact Strasburg is in the heart of Amish country.

Sitting on the "porch" of our Caboose. The boys are playing with the plastic cups they give you for use to brush your teeth or whatever. Why we ever buy them toys is beyond me.

We stayed at, “The Caboose Motel”, which, as the name implies, is just that. A series (34) of cabooses have been converted to motel rooms and plopped down about ½ mile up the road from the train station. If luxury and space is what you are looking for, well, look elsewhere. Our caboose, appropriately enough, was from the Strasburg Railroad. It was long and narrow, and sat on a slight incline. Andy and I had to rearrange the bed so when we laid down to sleep all the blood didn’t rush to our heads. Alex spent the weekend walking his head into the sharp corner of the formica table, that had once been much bigger, but cut in half in order for it to fit in a caboose. Two people could not walk through the thing at the same time, we had to take turns, or climb on a bed to get out of the way. FUN! But hey, it was a CABOOSE! WOOOOOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The area surrounding the train station and the caboose motel was mostly Amish farms. They were absolutely lovely and made you wish the world of farmers were all Amish. No run down dilapidated buildings, no rusty equipment sitting in a field. Everything was neat, and tidy, and clean, and landscaped (including the propane tanks). Gardens were lustrous and full of healthy looking plants (unlike our yard).

Our “Little House on the Prairie” moment occurred when we were out for a morning run. Andy and I loaded the boys into the double jogger and off we went down hilly, two laned roads. The cars roared by at 90 miles an hour (because this is PA and this is exactly how Pennsylvanian’s drive) The horse and buggies clipped clopped briskly by us. Old, Amish people would enthusiastically wave, children would stare, and young adults would sort of giggle and wave.

On our first morning run, we came upon an Amish farm with a small stream running through property on one side. There were 5 Amish boys, outside playing in the stream. They were wearing black overalls that did not quite come down to their ankles, blue button-up shirts, and straw hats. All five were barefoot. Andy yelled something in German at them, but I was too far behind him to hear well (and HE pushed the boys in a stroller and I still could not keep up with him); He said it was “Good Morning” or “God’s greeting”-but I think he said, "haben sie Bier bitte!?" (thanks to Google and internet language translation programs, hopefully that says, "Do you have any beer, please!?" and not "I want to massage your Grandmother")

While in the area, we went to an amusement park called, DutchWonderland. What amazes me, everytime we go to Pennsylvania, is how very rural is smack dab smooshed up against, amazingly developed. There is never any transitional areas where the rural slowly leads to strip malls. Its visually and pyschologically jarring. To get to DutchWonderland we drove along a lovely, rolling rural road that brought us to Route 30; as soon as we turned onto that main artery, we were magically transported from the early 1800's to stripmall-o-rama. DutchWonderland is smack dab in stripmall-o-rama and you would never even notice it for all the crapola-malls that are there, unless you wondered what that castle was doing sitting there, next to what I initially thought was a car dealership, but really was just the parking lot for the amusement park and a place that sold fudge.

It was kitch x 100!! It was the perfect amusement park for small children. Alex could pretty much go on a majority of the rides. There were some, he just stood staring at and shaking his head, "nonononono" which is Alex for, "No. Thanks. I'd rather not".

Also, I attempted to grow tomatoes:

heh heh heh. This blog has nice tomatoes eh?

August: My company hosted an "Employee Fun Day" at Six Flags. If we hadn't hit a massive traffic snarl up trying to get ourselves over the bridge into Maryland to Six flags, we probably would have had a much better time. Let's just say after Alex ripped my toenail off in the water park, at precisely the same moment Andy came from around a large water slide that was in the shape of a dinosaur (or whatever it was) saying, "Have you seen Ian? I can't find him", and I could do nothing but moan in pain (due to my toenail HANGING by a thread and blood and stuff; which might give you all pause the next time you decide to swim at a public pool or water park) and say, "uuuuuuuuuuuuooooooooow" that the day pretty much went down hill from there. Suffice it to say, we found Ian and made it home at some point; my toenail however was toast... (for anyone interested in knowing WHY my toenail was ripped off- it all has to do with recycling our old TV. Also before Alex inadvertantly de-toenailed me, I was yelled at by the lifeguard for sliding down the dinosaur "no adults on the slide!")

September. Alex turned TWO years old. TWO! My other baby is about to leave us as well. He Loves to climb and run, although his balance is still a work in progress. Needless to say he is our little bruised boy. He likes to point at his legs, which are nothing but scraps and bruises and say, "boh boh" which is "boo boo". He has definite ideas about what he wants and when he wants them and by golly don't stop him And tho' his language ablilites are not fully developed, he can definitely express what he wants. Alex also likes to walk by you and wave "bye bye"..which is fitting. As everyday passes, the baby that is Alex is walking away waving "bye bye".. bye bye little baby...

Alex enjoys wearing hats. He also enjoys wearing his bucket. And riding around on the toy car carrier. We think the first will be a major fashion trend this fall; the second will become the rage with all the kids.

Also, Andy turned 50. He likes to joke that he has this strong urge to drive slow in the lefthand lane with his left turn signal on. He is now a card carrying member of AARP.

I have been feeling very very old of late and at a little sad with all the birthdaying and growing up that is going on.

And that has been our summer. And now, more pictures!

Waiting for a ride on the miniature train near our house. We had ten minutes but Ian insisted we sit on the train and wait, just incase.. Alex, is contemplating his 2nd birthday. We went to this park specifically for his birthday, even tho' we went the day after his birthday, because this is what happens when you are the second child.

We played a rousing game of miniature golf at the same park. Surprisingly, we thought Alex would be all over the whole ball/club thing; but it was Ian who enjoyed whacking things around. Its not like we kept score (although I woulda kicked Andy's butt had we been keeping score!). Alex preferred leaping off the rocks that doubled as obstacles on the course.



A better view of the Caboose Motel.



Having a meal in the dining car at the Caboose Hotel. Yes it did too have a dining car. Of course!
The boys ought to be pulling ME! Alex is looking learily at the giant Amish dude.


The Smythe boys wish to be Amish. They try to figure out where the "start" button is on this.

The Smythe boys have loads of fun on a trampoline. This was at the Delaware Smythe's house for our niece's, Kyle's, high school graduation party. Kyle has started college and has already run into a college student. Literally; with her car! She claims the woman walked into her, while (I guess) she (kyle) was stopped . A likely college story!


A rare photo of the boys NOT naked in the pool in the backyard. Note the little purple pool. We bought it for Woody years ago. The boys love it. Woody refuses to go near it while the boys are in it. Poor Wood!



Rasta boys! They decided to wear the winter hats I made them and rock in the chair.