Horse and Buggy

We're trying to soak in the final days of summer before school starts on Tuesday, so we set off this morning on a little mini-vacation.  We headed to Lancaster, PA, known as "Amish Country."  I thought it would be cool to show the kids another culture and way of life.  We stopped first at the Bird in Hand Bakery Shop.

We swung on the amish-made swing, played at the amish-made park/swing set, fed their goats and munched on the yummy homemade soft pretzels!

We drove all around Bird in Hand and Intercourse and loved seeing the Amish coming down the road in their horse and buggies.

Saying hi as we pass each other on the street.

And it was fun to see all the homes with buggies in their garages instead of cars.

And all the clothes lines since they obviously don't have washers and driers.

And then we headed to Hershey Park! 

Lacey and Tanner have been here a few times, but Riley has only been here once before when she was two and today was Ella's very first time going.

Amen to that

Salivating over all the giant sized Hershey candy products below

It's tradition to start at Chocolate World!

And then we got sized up before we headed into the park.

Lacey and Tanner are Twizzlers

Riley is a Hershey's

And Ella Bella Boo is a Reese's!

And last, but not least, Mom and Dad are Jolly Ranchers.  Although, suffice it to say, one is a much taller Jolly Rancher than the other ;)

Tanner's future car 

Helicopters

Our first time at an amusement park without a stroller.  It worked as long as she caught a ride from time to time.

Coal Cracker (flume ride).  Ella declared this her favorite ride of the night.

But I'll tell you what she declared NOT her favorite ride of the night - Comet.  It's a pretty intense roller coaster, but Reese's were allowed to ride when accompanied by an adult so we had her go.  She screamed the entire time saying "get me off, get me off!" and as soon as it was over, she cried and said "I want to go on the baby rides!" And then that was that. She refused to go on any other roller coasters the rest of the night.

But luckily there were lots of other options for her!

Cocoa Cruiser

Good night Hershey Park.  Looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow!

$4.50

Last week, Tanner attended a baseball camp at the Bowie Baysox stadium, a minor league Orioles affiliate team.  They gave him a free ticket to attend a game and he wanted to go that night.  But he had football practice, so we told him he needed to do that instead. And we've had something going on every night since (that they've had a game).... until tonight.  And since tomorrow is their last game of the season, I told Tanner to hop in the car so we could catch that game he'd been wanting to see!

I gave the voucher to the ticket person and said I needed to buy one more for myself and to give us the best seats he could because my kid was determined to get an autograph!  He gave us 2nd row seats behind the Baysox dugout.  Sweet!  And what was even sweeter was that he never asked for money.  I held up my wallet and said "I never paid" and he just waved his hand and told us we were good to go.  How nice is that?  And parking is free too.  So, here we are in our 2nd row seats. For free.

As soon as the game was over, Tanner bee-lined it over to the dugout and started asking for autographs.  He was thrilled to get one from Ryan Mountcastle, #17

And D.J. Steward, #22

And I was thrilled that we did this entire night in beautiful weather with great seats and autographs and food for just $4.50!  About half way through the game, T said he was hungry.  They don't let you bring food into the stadium, so I made sure I ate before we left.  But T didn't want what I made.  So, I went to get him the $4.50 kids pack that they usually sell. But it wasn't there.  I asked someone about it and she said it was shut down for the season.  So, I went to the concession stand where everything was outrageously priced and asked him if there was anyway he could give me something similar to the kids pack.  He was super nice and next thing I knew, he handed me a hot dot, a large sprite and a bag of candy for just $4.50!  😊 

A bonding bargain baseball night with my favorite boy.

10 miles

Dave just ran the Annapolis 10-miler with some of our neighbors.

He's decided he's glad he's not signed up for any more races and I'm thinking it's high time I signed up for one!

I just found these gems online....

Finally.... the finish line!

I love this pic where his friend Dan is like "Whoo hoo" and Dave's face is like "I am SO done!!" haha!

Great friends and running buddies.

For his records: 1:37:42

A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Or a partial eclipse of the sun, as the case may be. 

We spent Monday afternoon camped out in our court with our neighbors looking at the eclipse with our eclipse glasses.  It was very cool!

Our sad attempt at an eclipse selfie.

This is the extent of the eclipse that we saw here in Annapolis.  Two of my four siblings were in the belt of "totality" living in Carbondale, IL and Lexington, SC.  They both said it was one of the most awesome things they had ever experienced so now I'm a little bummed that we missed out on something that awesome! I didn't realize that it was that big of a difference between "mostly eclipsed" and totality.  

Clearly Ella wasn't all that impressed.  As I ran in the house to get her to come out to look at the eclipse, I found her dancing with her bestie, Dom and totally uninterested in the eclipse.  They are seriously so stinkin' cute.

My favorite eclipse pic of the day ;) 

In addition to the eclipse on Monday, Tanner also started a baseball camp.

His camp was at Bowie Stadium, home of the Bowie Baysox, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Orioles.

He loved that he got to practice on the field, put his baseball gear in the dugout, etc.  Very cool experience!

But his favorite part was on the last day when they all got a baseball and the players came and signed their balls and gave them a free ticket to that nights game as well as a pizza party lunch. 

As for the other kids..... Lacey has been begging me to take her roller skating.  I'll admit it.  I'm not a big fan.  I don't really enjoy skating all that much - it hurts my ankles and I just get tired of going around in circles and I just don't like the atmosphere of skating rinks - bleck. BUT.... it's the summer and I'm trying to keep my kids entertained, so I finally gave in and told the kids we'd spend Wednesday at the rink and even invited a couple neighbor friends.

Tanner getting his groove on.

And then we ended the week with this!  Yesterday, Lacey had Activity Days Day Camp.  She invited several of her neighborhood/school friends to go with her and several of them came.  

Tons of fun activities planned.

And I was in charge of the Hula Hoop rotation!

And then today was Tanner's very first football game. He's been practicing and scrimmaging for 3-4 days/wk for the past 5-6 weeks and today was finally game day!

T is #32

He's in the U90 group.

So far, this has been a major learning experience for all of us.  I don't know anything about the positions or plays and Dave never played football so we're both pretty limited in knowing the intricacies of football and Tanner is too.  Major learning curve for all of us.  So many plays. So much strategy.  So much intensity. But also a lot of excitement and fun!

And with that, we are down to one full week of summer left.... school starts in just 10 days.  For being such a long summer this year, it sure has gone by fast!