The Eberly Journals: Trip to Big Valley... and some other things.

August 18th the kids and I took a trip up to "Big Valley" PA to visit my Grandma and check out her new home at an assisted living facility. It took us a good two hours to get there and the kids were so excited to see their Great Grandma Yoder again!

Grandma gave us the "grand tour" of the place and then we sat outside and chatted while we waited for her sister, or "Aunt Sis" to come meet us for lunch. It was a nice day to sit outside.

I drove us all over to a little restaurant nearby and we had a nice lunch all together.

I love their faces here... Grandma loves the kids and they love her so much, it's so heartwarming :)

We took Grandma back to her room and sat and looked at old pictures a little before heading home.
The scenery around there is beautiful...

The kids thought this big cow was the coolest thing ever.

The next day we started school. I still haven't gotten around to taking back-to-school pictures. I guess it's not that big of a deal though since they're not actually leaving the house :P The first week we only got a couple days of school in but it was nice to kind of ease into it again. I quickly realized though that we needed to tweak some things and after talking to my lovely sister I dropped some things altogether and changed math curriculum. We now read A LOT every day and that takes up most of our time. It's going so much better now.
Chase had his last hockey session until November. They had playoffs and they ended up being pretty exciting. Chase's team and another team were in the finals and tied, so had to play another game and tied that as well! They ended up losing their third game but were very gracious losers as they watched the other team skate around the ice with the "cup".

The 22nd My wonderful sister-in-law Patty said she was going to keep my kids for me ALL DAY so I could do whatever I wanted BY MYSELF as an early birthday present! It was seriously the nicest thing ever! I decided to go to the little town of Lititz and just walk around and go in to all the little shops that I wanted to. I enjoyed just walking around looking at all of the interesting things that there were to see. Lititz is such a cute little town. I was thinking maybe I'll get Ricky this suit for his birthday:

Loved the big metal rooster.

I felt like I needed to get this:

and this sign made me laugh out loud in the store :P

Pretty cool to see a log home in the middle of the town.

I sat down at the Tomato Pie Cafe for lunch and it was the most glorious thing ever. I was able to eat my whole lunch, without sharing with anyone or having to get up for something or making lunches for anyone else or having to answer a million questions. I got to sit there with a book and just enjoy my yummy lunch :)

I even splurged and got a desert and a specialty drink from the barista.

After I finished walking around Lititz I had enough time to run over to Khol's and picked up a couple shirts for myself.

It was such a fun day. The kids had a lot of fun at Patty's too!
The next day Ricky and I got up bright and early to head over to my very first craft show! I had been preparing for it for a while and even made up a bunch of beard hats ahead of time.

my friends let me borrow their tent and I made the banner myself. The letters are crocheted and sewn on to a strip of burlap.

Ricky's parents let me borrow their two folding tables and also watched the kids all day for us so Ricky could stay with me and keep me company! The day went really well and I was pretty excited about how much I sold :)