Trip to PA

We had a very nice visit in PA. Too short as usual but nice just the same. Everyone there seemed to be doing well. We went to visit the Rodenbeck's on Friday night. Scott was in charge of some sort of 'night out for mom and dad', do fitness activities with kids at their church. You find out just how homeschooled your children are when you participate in such activities. Poor little Benjamin had not a clue what a relay race was (not that this is a requirement for life) so when the relay began he thought he should just go with everyone else. Taking turns running was not explained of course since everyone else there knew what a relay race was. So........instead of running down and around one cone he ran down and around all the cones. He is only six but my not very well behaved brain had a compulsion to shout "Run Forest, Run" as he cheerfully went about his business of not knowing what in the world was going on. No, I am not going to start having the kids run relay races so they can be more properly socialized. I have a distinct memory of our older kids having similar difficulties and they were younger but older than Benjamin is now, at a gunny sack race at some other Pennsylvania gathering. I also know for a fact that Anna was not asked if she knew how to run relay races when she applied to college so this will not be added to my long list of things to do. Or........evil giggle..........we could have everyone run relay races at Thanksgiving to be eligible to eat dinner. Hmmm.....

Our visit with Rodenbeck's themselves was very nice. We will have to see if we can stay a little longer next time so I can go to the nearby IKEA and Erik can go to the museum there. How will I remember that????

Saturday noon we were at Mary and Floyds in Somerset. They seem to be doing better than the last time we were there. The kids had fun feeding the old horse up on the hill. Even Stefan was not scared of it this year and kept dragging his siblings and dad out the door to go visit it. They fed the horse apples and that was their basic entertainment at the Reeses this year. Oh.........that and playing Old Maid where the Old Maid card was more worn than the rest so the kids knew which card NOT to pick as it was too obvious. Then.........I played the game with them and solved that little problem of critical thinking............how hard is it to hide the mark on the card behind other cards. The biggest lesson learned in that game was 'what does it mean to play fair and not cry if you get the Old Maid?' They were perplexed how I tricked them.

Saturday night we went to the Walkers home also better known as the place with the cows and the legos. The younger kids got to bottle feed new calves. I have not looked at the pictures yet but that was a lot of fun. The Walkers work harder than anyone I know, getting up at 3:30am to do the morning milking and working most of the day with maybe a nap until 8:30ish at night. I don't think I would be able to handle that. Horners work hard but not THAT hard. We enjoyed our visit with them as we always do and Cindy continued the Somerset tradition of trying to kill you by feeding you to death. We ate WAY more food than we usually do while in Somerset. The kids just kept stuffing it in endlessly. They don't eat that way at home so I guess they were enjoying the freedom to eat or something.

Sunday and Monday we were at Mary and Floyds again for more of the same. The kids also managed to go swimming and rot their brains out in the hotel room watching silly movies.

Walmart provided the opportunity for us to run into Charley's Uncle Ed and family. Richard, their son, is in his mid-forties now and he was helping him mom load groceries. I saw him first as we pulled in. His mom said Richard told her "That was Cha Cha." (Richard is mentally handicapped). So........we visited in the parking lot. I now have a new name for Charley thanks to Richard. Richard is so very cute. We also ran into Mary and Floyd's daughter-in-law Pam and her daughter Lisa and granddaughter Hayden when we stopped to get a few things on the way out of town. Charley (Cha Cha) finally called my cell phone as he thought I was just going to run in and get milk and wondered what happened to me. Uh.......yeah..........I visited with them for quite some time.

So ended our mini vacation. We left a little later than we had planned Monday afternoon and got home pretty late. I think Stefan developed a fascination with rest stop potties and suddenly needed to go to the potty a lot. Another child was not feeling so great (probably from over eating) and I thought we would never get home for all the stopping. Anyway........we are home. Yay! I love my house, I love my nest, in all the world my nest is best!