It's already Thursday, tomorrow is Friday, yet it still feels like the beginning of the week. Not mad about that! We took advantage of the long weekend as best we could.
On Saturday, we went to a farm in the Lancaster area to pick raspberries. One of my favorite things about Pennsylvania is the beautiful Amish country. I am actually much more of a city person, but the rolling hills, open fields, and farmland in Amish country get me! Madeline was super into the berry picking. It look her a little bit to get the hang of it. At first, we were collecting lots of green raspberries with leaves and all. Both kids were doing a fair amount of taste testing along the way too.
We didn't do this, but they had a "you pick" flower garden too. For $10 they give you a huge jar that you can fill up with fresh cut flowers.
On the way home, we stopped at this little drive-in burger/ice cream stand called Boehringer's. They had the best set-up with picnic tables next to a creek. We enjoyed an amazing strawberry milkshake. Milkshakes are my weakness!
On Sunday, we went to church, came home, ate lunch, and all took naps. It was glorious. I think we're going to start doing that every Sunday. In the evening, we headed up to Reading, PA for the Fightin Phils game (minor league baseball team). I didn't have high hopes for the game. I figured the kids would last a few innings at most. Much to my surprise, they kids loved it and we stayed the entire game, plus an extra inning, and even through the firework show at the end. There was so much entertainment for the kids...little games on the field between innings, characters walking around, give-a-ways (George caught a little stuffed baseball that was thrown from the field!), music, $2 hot dogs, ice cream, funnel cake, a bounce house, it was amazing! I was even on the Jumbotron twice! Made a fool of myself by dancing really crazy with the kids to get on it, but that's besides the point. Hahaha. It was a great night and will be great memories for us.
On Monday, we drove down to Annapolis, MD. Annapolis was on our Northeast bucket list and we figured what better time than the 4th of July? We weren't the only ones that thought that though...it was a bit crowded! The town of Annapolis is adorable. It's just what I expected with lots of little shops, restaurants, and bars. On Monday, we walked all around the town. We were actually trying to get Luke asleep in the stroller so we walked and walked and walked! But it was great way to see the town. He never did fall asleep. On Tuesday, we walked all around the Naval Academy campus. It is gorgeous! I highly recommend touring it if you're ever in the area. We also took a boat tour of the Annapolis harbor on Tuesday afternoon. We picked up a pamphlet on our walk around town on Monday and Madeline looked it over a hundred times. On Tuesday, she randomly said, "Are we going to go on a boat ride or what?!" So, we looked into it and went! Occasionally toddlers have good ideas. :) Unfortunately, we were just so beat from the heat and humidity that we decided not to stick around for the parade and fireworks. We drove home, unpacked, got ready for bed, and intended to go to bed, but then decided to go watch fireworks at the last minute. We found out at the baseball game that our kids love fireworks so it was worth another late night to see them so excited.
Here are a few videos from the weekend :)
The first part of this video is me trying to get Luke to say his name. He's starting to talk quite a bit now. It's mostly babbling, but he does say about 10-20 words, including Madeline. He's repeated his name once, but we haven't been able to get him to do it again. I loved it when Madeline learned her own name. Something about them saying their name is precious.
We got out of our seats a lot (thank goodness we were sitting on the end), but when we weren't walking around, the kids did such a good job of sitting in their seats. They were even clapping and cheering. It was so cute!
And here's a short video from Annapolis...
Thanks for reading. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!
