And then suddenly...

it was time to go.

We leave Florida today. Quite the adventure ahead...

spring in the garden shop

one, two, three, four.

Counting my blessings today. So very thankful for these incredible gifts.

care to take a drive?

Christie and I set out on a scenic drive one day with our girls and the babies. I knew my horse-loving middle child would love to see an Amish buggy on the road and hoped we'd catch one or two.

We saw one. And then we saw one or two more. And then more. And more...

Pretty soon we were in an Amish traffic jam.

Actually, everything was moving along smoothly and peacefully, it's just that Everything Was Moving Along. On a Monday, it is typical to see a few carriages about, but most of the Amish people are hard at work in the fields or at home. Laundry lines are full and fluttering, work horses are pulling plows, children are at the one room schoolhouse with the bell on its roof.

Not this day. Every horse and carriage and cart and buggy in Lancaster county was on the road that morning.  We saw a Father playing croquet on a front lawn with his children. We saw boys on scooter-bikes and pulling wagons, girls walking down the road in white-hatted clusters.

I was thankful Christie had offered to drive so I could snap away from the passenger seat of my own car. I didn't want to be the obnoxious tourist photographer type but then again, I did. There was so much beauty in the scenes we were passing. 

We realized we had set out on Easter Monday, clearly a day of rest and gathering in Amish country. 

We drove on to Kitchen Kettle Village to snack on whoopee pies and buy flowered bonnets
for the girls before returning home.

Slowly.

when cousins get together