Tuesday, we had a long list of errands to run. All of the big box stores are at least 25 minutes away, so I need to make the best use of my time and my gasoline! :o)

About half way through the errands, we picked up some lunch at Subway (love those $5 foot long sandwiches!) and headed to the park we fondly call 'The Duck Park'. The park has a large wooden play area which is next to a large 'pond' which is home to many ducks. We had some stale bread from our last civil war re-enactment which was perfect 'duck bread'. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids at the park:

I was able to pick up a couple of 4th of July decorations (on sale at Michael's) and some President and United States flash cards (in the dollar section of Target), so I made the table look festive:

Tonight, Kelsey has a friend spending the night. We made this Red, White, and Blue Garland from the Martha Stewart web site:

I pray that you and your family have a safe Fourth of July. Take a moment and thank God for the freedoms we enjoy in this country.

Yes, I have officially entered the Twilight Zone. That stage of homeschooling when everyone asks, 'Are you really going to continue homeschooling through high school?' I have made it this far, do people really think I am going to put my well-behaved, kind, quiet son in a public high school?

My first priority for Matthew is to love the Lord with all his heart. Where better can he learn to do this than at home with a family that loves the Lord and loves him also. I know that God has a higher purpose for Matthew. What that is, I don't know right now. I may never have the opportunity to know.

I have started reading College without Compromise. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has children at this before high school stage of life. In fact, there is a whole chapter about preparing sons for life after high school which I am hoping that Kev and Matthew will review together.

I am excited because Matthew did say he wanted to learn HTML. I have a book that he can use and I will be preparing a 'course' for him for next school year. It will be interesting to see what he does with this and if I can have him enhance my blog a little. Maybe I can give him extra credit for re-doing my blog! :o)

Ping:

One of the sounds I love to hear in the summer time is the sound of canning jars making that 'ping' sound. You know the one. You have been standing over the stove in usually 100 degree heat, stirring that pot of fresh fruit, sugar and pectin to make some delicious homemade jam. Apricot jam is one of my favorites! We were blessed with an almost full 25 pound box of apricots, so I made 2 batches of jam and par-boiled the rest for the freezer. My neighbor has some plums on her tree that she said I am welcome to come by and pick some. Looks like plum jam is next on my jam making list!

Laundry:

What happens when your dryer is not working in the summer time?

Where do you hang the undies if your husband doesn't want them hanging out in the backyard?

The break down of the dryer lead to this:

Projects:

My sewing machine has been very busy lately and will be very busy over the next couple of weeks. I recently finished hand sewing a shirt for Matthew to go with his Civil War uniform and I just finished one for Kev also (it just needs buttons and buttonholes). I need to start working on new dresses for me and Kelsey, as well as corded petticoats for both of us. While I am waiting for Kelsey's pattern to arrive, I have been working on this dress for her Felicity:

Yesterday, we went with our 4-H group to Discovery Kingdom for our end of the year trip. The 4-H group chartered a bus and paid for our tickets into the park. This was a very nice way to end our 4-H year!!

Now, we need to work on getting record books done before Friday. I missed the deadline for Kelsey's entry at the county fair. That means she will not be doing rabbit showmanship this year at the fair. But we did get Matthew's entry in for some of his photographs. We need to go through and get those photos ordered, printed, and matted before they are due to the fair next month!

Day 8 – Today started a little bit earlier than the rest of our days since we needed to get to the airport to fly home! We got dressed, had a quick breakfast at the B&B, finished packing and got on the road. It ended up taking us about 2 hours to drive to Philadelphia since we were driving at the same time as some of the commuters.

We checked our bags and got our boarding passes. The limit weight for luggage is 50 pounds and one of our bags ended up weighing in at 50 pounds! I guess if it had been over, we could have transferred a couple of things to another bag. We made our way to security. Kelsey and I went though one way and Kev and Matthew went another way. We breezed right through and were wondering what was taking Matthew and Kev so long. I guess they looked through Matthew’s backpack because they were concerned about his roll of quarters he still had!!

We were not able to get boarding passes ahead of time since we did not have access to the internet while we were here. Since our boarding passes were letter ‘C’ and we learned from the flight out, Kelsey and I pre-boarded so she would not have to sit next to two strangers. Kev and Matthew ended up somewhere towards the back of the plane. Once everyone was on the plane and we got towards the runway, we ended up waiting for about 20 minutes while 18 other planes took off ahead of us. The pilot informed us that the City of Philadelphia decided to close one of the two main runways that morning so that the grass could be mowed around the runway! He also told us that Philadelphia is one of the most congested airports to fly out of in the country. We will have to remember that for next time!!

Our flight to Las Vegas was over 5 hours long. That is a long time on an airline that doesn’t serve much to eat! Kelsey and I spent the time organizing some of my photos on my memory card and helping her get started making her Storybook from the trip.

The landing in Las Vegas was a little rough so Kev wasn’t feeling too good when we landed. We found some food to eat since we really hadn’t eaten much since early that morning.

Once we got to Oakland, we decided to drive straight home rather than stop for dinner. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up milk, bread, eggs, lunch meat, and ice cream!! Kev had a sandwich for dinner and the kids and I had ice cream. We figured with the time difference, it was really time for dessert anyway!!

Overall, we had an absolutely awesome time on this trip. We were so blessed to be able to see and experience so many things. Seeing places that shaped our country is just truly inspiring.

Now I have a week’s worth of laundry to do and over 800 e-mails to go through!! But it was definitely worth it!!

Day 7 – Today started with another really good breakfast at the B&B: scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage, some really good coffee cake, fresh fruit, and orange juice. The kids went out to gather eggs after breakfast. Kelsey was an old pro at doing this since she helped a couple of days ago.

Our agenda today was to drive the back roads through Amish country. Our host family put together a back road route with places they thought were good to stop at. Our first stop was a place that sells farm toys. There was every kind of John Deere farm toy imaginable at this place. They also had Breyer horses, so Kelsey found a new friend to bring home. His name is Barley.

Next stop was Lititz. This little town has a chocolate museum and store called Wilbur’s. While we were waiting for the store to open, we found a park with a feed dispenser for the ducks. Kelsey let most of the feed fall to the ground because the ducks were crowding around her to be fed! Wilbur’s was less commercialized than Hershey, we found chocolate buds here and some chocolate soap. It smells really great: Orange Chocolate and Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. We are saving the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle soap for someone’s 50^th birthday later on this year!

Then we stopped at a couple of homemade quilt stores. The quilts were absolutely beautiful! While driving through this area, we saw our first Amish buggies and people working the fields with horse drawn farm equipment. We found the pretzel store that started the Auntie Anne’s pretzel chain for a quick snack. I thought the hot dog and cheese pretzel wrap was pretty tasty with that cold lemonade!

After a couple more stores we browsed through, we worked our way toward the Lapp Family Farm. Here they raise Swiss cows and sell fresh milk, butter, eggs, and homemade ice cream. While we were there, we witnessed a little calf out roaming around. He was rather cute, but looked a little lost.

While we continued our drive on this really hot and humid day, the kids both took short naps in the back of the car as we drove towards Lancaster. Our stop here was Wheatland which was James Buchanan’s home before, during and after his presidency. It was rather interesting to tour his home, being the 15^th President of the United States. After he died, he left the home to his niece. She eventually sold the home, but the James Buchanan Foundation acquired the home in the early 1900’s. The home has a lot of original furniture and items in the home.

We headed back to the B&B for some rest time before getting some dinner. After dinner, we had to start figuring out where everything was going to go in the luggage! We acquired just a few things on the trip and they had to get home somehow!

After dinner, Kelsey spent some time riding around on the little tractor toy and playing with the kittens. We got everything we needed to into the luggage and went to bed somewhat early so we would be ready to wake up at 5:45am to get ready to head to Philadelphia for the flight home.

Day 6 – Today, the initial plan was to go to Harrisburg to visit the National Civil War Museum, then head over to Hershey. Since Kelsey (and I!) were so disappointed about Boyd’s Bears being closed, I checked with Kev and Matthew to see if they wouldn’t mind if we altered the plans a little bit. We didn’t tell Kelsey that we were planning on heading to Boyd’s Bears that morning!!

We drove down to Gettysburg for the third day in a row. Kelsey was tired from the day before so she ended up napping in the car on the way down. This worked out perfect! We drove into the parking lot at Boyd’s Bears and she was still asleep. We opened the car door for her to see where we were and the biggest smile appeared on her face! She jumped up and down and even said ‘thank you’. We had a great time visiting here. It is probably a good thing this is not close to where we live or I might end up with a frequent shopper card. There are three floors of bears and a restaurant with more bears in the basement level.

Once we finally finished at Boyd’s (I found a couple more things I just had to have!), we started our drive towards Harrisburg. We found the National Civil War Museum and began our self guided tour. I bought Matthew a scavenger hunt guide that he had to fill in with answers he found throughout the museum. The two story museum gives an unbiased timeline of the events and happenings of the Civil War. We were very impressed with this museum and would highly recommend it to anyone (and don’t forget to ask for your ‘teacher’ discount!).

By this time, it was time to start thinking about dinner. I suggested that we head over to Hershey, get some dinner, and decide if we thought it was worth making an additional trip up the following day. Once we found the town and the park, we walked over to the Kit Kat Café for dinner. We were not very impressed with our meal and once we started walking around the shopping area, we were not very impressed with that either. We took a couple of pictures, bought some personalized chocolate bar wrappers (that were on sale!) and started back for the car. Talk about a money pit! We didn’t need to see the history of Hershey since we had been to the factory in Oakdale many times before it closed down. I wasn’t about to pay $20 for a T-shirt or buy any other overpriced souvenir or chocolate item that we really didn’t need anyway!

We were able to get back to the B&B early enough to enjoy a couple of cookies we had bought at Boyd’s earlier in the day. Kelsey was able to ride around on the little tractor outside and we were all able to relax before bed.

Tomorrow, we plan on heading to Amish Country!

Day 5 – Today started with another great breakfast at the B&B. Scrambled eggs (fresh from their chickens!) with ham and cheese, toast, baked oatmeal, and fresh fruit. Kelsey ran outside to help collect eggs before we headed back to Gettysburg for another day.

Our first stop was the visitor’s center so we could see what programs were going on for the day. We found out that three living history programs were being presented at three different locations around the park. We found out where they were and headed off. Oh, did I mention that it was a lot more hot and humid than it had been the prior part of the week??

We arrived at Spangler’s Spring and quickly drank a lot of water while we waited in the shade for the New Jersey Infantry to be ready for their demonstration. They basically explained what a Union Army Infantryman would be wearing and fired off their rifles on the battlefield. What was so cool about this was the fact that they were reenacting right on the battlefield where men were fighting 145 years ago! While this all was happening, Kev and Matthew were talking to a gentleman who reenacts with the 20^th Maine Company E.

On our way to the next living history demonstration, we stopped at the top of Culp’s Hill. We climbed up to the top of the Observation Tower to look out over the full battlefield. It seemed like we climbed up about 8 flights of stairs to the top. The view from the top was incredible. There were panoramic photos at the top which pointed out the different locations around Gettysburg and the battlefield.

Then we headed over to the Pennsylvania monument for another demonstration by another New Jersey Infantry unit. They basically presented the same information as the previous group, but this time, the field was a lot more open and you could see General Lee’s statue across the field.

Our last living history stop was at General Meade’s Headquarters where they had tents set up for the Christian Commission Campaign. The commission was set up to present the Gospel to the soldiers. After this, we headed over to Subway for $5 footlong sandwiches for lunch.

After lunch, the plan was to stop at some different stores and some additional tour sites. We stopped at General Lee’s Headquarters, a living history set up at the American Civil War Museum and a civil war diorama with a 30 minute narration of the battle. The diorama is the largest of its kind and has over 20,000 hand painted individual pieces. It was definitely an incredible thing to see.

Matthew wanted to go to Little Round Top once last time before we left Gettysburg. We started driving that way and made a wrong turn somewhere, so we ended up at the memorial for Major General John Reynolds again. We stopped to take a few more photos then headed over to Little Round Top. A couple of people were walking up that way so we were able to ask them to take our picture at the 20^th Maine memorial.

We planned to go to Boyd’s Bear Country for dinner, so we found our way to the freeway and headed south. We followed the signs and found the entrance. The sign at the entrance said the hours were 10am – 6pm. Boy, we (I mean, Kelsey and I) were disappointed. After two days roaming all over Gettysburg, the tears fell down Kelsey’s checks. She was really looking forward to the Boyd’s Bear place.

Once we cheered her up a little by looking around the outside of the building, we headed back into Gettysburg to find some dinner. We found a little café by the Abraham’s Lady (which I ended up buying a few more things at) which served a pretty good dinner.

After dinner, we went through a couple more shops on our way back to the car and headed back to the B&B. It ended up being a very long day and a pretty late night. We quietly got into our room about 10pm.

Day 4 – After a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon, fresh strawberries and orange juice, we started toward the location Matthew had been waiting for since we decided to take this vacation: Gettysburg!

We arrived in Gettysburg around 10am this morning and headed for the new visitor’s center that has only been open since the middle of April. It is an absolutely beautiful building inside and out. We decided to watch the movie ‘Birth of Freedom’ that they recommend starting your visit with. The movie is narrated by Morgan Freeman and gives an overview of what led up to the war, a brief outline of the battle, the end of the war, and the continued battle for freedom that some still have today.

Then we toured around the museum facility, although we somehow entered the back end and toured through it backwards from the end of the war to the beginning of the battle. There are a lot of original items they have found from the war and are on display throughout the museum.

We had a small lunch at the visitor’s center before meeting up with our guide. It had been suggested that we pay for a licensed tour guide to drive us around the park. We found out that this gentleman studied for 2 years to prepare for the test he needed to take to become a licensed park guide. He definitely knew a lot of details about the battle. The highlight for Matthew had to be standing at the spot where the 20^th Maine fought on the second day of the battle.

After our tour, we headed back to the visitor’s center since we hadn’t even been through the book store yet. We bought some postcards and a couple of books (can’t go anywhere without buying books!) I found a fun one about children in the 19^th century which should be fun for reenacting.

Matthew brought his money he had been saving so we went downtown to find the Regimental Quartermaster. Matthew made a wish list of things he wanted to purchase to add more things to his union uniform. Kelsey and I found Abraham’s Lady first though, so the boys headed down to the Regimental Quartermaster so Matthew could do his shopping. The ladies in Abraham’s Lady where very nice and even gave us a Farby guide to help us be more accurate in our reenacting. We ended up buying some material to make us both new dresses. Matthew bought the items from his wish list and even ended up with money he can still spend on the rest of the trip.

We stopped for dinner on the way home at Ruby Tuesday. We enjoyed eating at this restaurant the last time we were on the east coast. I loved their salad bar!!

We headed back to the B&B to get some sleep so we are prepared for another day to spend at Gettysburg tomorrow!!

Day Three – Today moved us out of Philadelphia and eventually closer to Matthew’s ultimate destination he has been waiting for. But first, we had a couple of stops to make.

First stop was Valley Forge. This is where George Washington and the Continental Army camped during the winter of 1777-1778. We started our visit here at the Visitor’s Center where we were able to watch a short film about the time leading up to the encampment and facts about the encampment itself. We toured around the museum and saw some very interesting artifacts from that time period.

Then we headed out on the self-guided tour around the park. We were able to stop at most of the encampment tour stops. The best stop had to be Washington’s Headquarters. Much of the building is still original, even the banister going up to the second floor.

Our journey continued along the Pennsylvania Turnpike so we could end up in Manheim. Here in Manheim, we are staying at a working farm called Stone Haus Bed & Breakfast. The family has a seven year old daughter that Kelsey immediately befriended as they toured around the yard to see the kittens, the goats, the sheep, the barn, and the play area.

Once we were settled, we headed over to find a spot for dinner. We took the recommendation of our hosts and stopped at a place called Country Table Restaurant. The food was really good! You should have seen the fresh strawberry pie that both kids had for dessert!

We stopped at the local grocery store to pick up some bottled water to have with us for the next few days. We also looked for some snacks to take along and found some of the funniest gummy candy we have ever seen: gummy chicken feet and gummy fried eggs!

Tonight, we just rested a little, uploaded more pictures and will be heading to bed early so we can head to Gettysburg tomorrow. I wonder if Matthew will even be able to sleep tonight.

A couple more photos: