Mother - Daughter 8.0

May 6th-8th

This year for our Mother-Daughter Weekend, we headed to the country for a relaxing but overly packed weekend.

We started our weekend with a trip down to the Lancaster Central Market. After wandering through the market and purchasing some fun things to take home. We decided to venture elsewhere for breakfast.

Not far from the market we found Rachel's Creperie.  This place was on point. We loved it!

After breakfast, we wanted to check out an Amish farm and not far from where we were was Amish Farm & House. As we approached the farm, we were sure our GPS was incorrect and it directed us into a Target Parking Lot, but it was correct. There in the parking lot was the old Amish Farmhouse with school buses lining up. It wasn't exactly the experience we were looking for so with even getting out of the car, we decided to try a different area to tour.

Through the country we traveled to Landis Valley Museum. This was an interesting place full of history and entertaining employees. We didn't realize it but it wasn't a traditional Amish farm, it was a traditional German community that they had saved from all over Lancaster and recreated in this location.

With the rain starting, we headed out to find a buggy ride to beat the rain. Thankful we were able to find Aaron & Jessica's Buggy Ride.

We had a fantastic time with our Amish buggy drive and he took us through his personal farm and taught us about aspects of his life and the life of Amish families. We even purchased homemade cookies and root beer from one of his grandsons.

We rushed to Wheatland for our final stop of the evening. Wheatland was President Buchanan's Lancaster home. While we were there our tour participated in a Period Re-enactment. I was even asked to be a Senator. It was a really neat experience despite talkative toddlers and salty tour guides.

The night ended with dinner at Lancaster Brewing Company. We had covered a lot of ground but we had plenty more the next day.

On Sunday, we made our way to Bird In Hand Farmers Market. This was everything we hoped it would be. We had an authentic Amish pancake breakfast and purchased way too many Amish treats for our drive home.

Our next few stops were to do a little shopping. We walked around Kitchen Kettle Village and found a quilting store to check out.

In the afternoon, we drove out to the "Coolest Small Town 2013", Lititz, PA. We both really enjoyed our time in Lititz. The Chocolate Festival that was in town was a bit of a bust for us but we made due by checking out all the local favorites like Wilbur Chocolate, little store fronts and a fantastic lunch at Tomato Pie Cafe.

We even took the time to learn about Sturgis Pretzels and became Official Pretzel Twisters!

Time went quickly and it wasn't long before we were heading to our final destination for the day at Strasburg Railroad. It is not a Mother-Daughter Trip without one meal of cheese and fruit and this year we were able to have that meal with a glass of wine on a train.

It was great! We had so much fun relaxing and enjoying the countryside.

I love having the opportunity to have this time with my mom and I can't wait to see what our next adventure will be.

Vegas Never Gets Old

April 27th - May 1st

Jed headed out to Vegas for a Conference and and he decided to add a few days to the end of his trip and I flew out to meet him for a long weekend. Vegas is such a fun city, full of activities we enjoy doing over and over again and every time we go out we find a few new things to check out.

 

Some of the highlights for our time on the strip were good food, new art we found around the strip and a Boys II Men concert!

After a few days on the strip, we decided to rent a car and head east for a few hours to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The West Rim is on an Indian Reservation so we got in and hoped on their bus to take us to the Rim. There isn't any hiking into the Canyon but we did go on the glass bottom bridge!

It is too the left. (No pictures allowed on the bridge.)

The Grand Canyon is just so massive and impressive. We loved just hanging out and taking it all in.

A long weekend in Vegas was so much fun. There is so much fun to take in on random impromptu side road trips that is hard to pass up.

We even made a quick stop at Boulder City where many lived while they were building the Hoover Dam and we "met" Alabam, the Toliet Paper Hero.

We made it back to Vegas and found a hole in the wall Thai Restaurant that reminded us so much of our time in Thailand. We will definitely come back to Thai St. Cafe.

We can't wait to make it back again soon.