(October): Sad Day

It was a sad day for Mike when he had to switch our plates from Texas to Maryland!

(October): Heyser Farm Field Trip

I was able to accompany Erin's class on a field trip to a local small farm last fall.  They were learning about apples and were able to see the apple orchards, how the apples were sorted and cleaned, and how apple cider was made.  I thought it was interesting too!

Farmer Mike caught a rooster for each of the kids to pet

Watching the apples sort into small, medium, and large

Picking out her apple

yummy apple cider

(October): Lancaster, Pennsylvania

My Mom and I wanted to visit Amish country near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  It is about 2 hours from our house, so we left one morning right after the girls left for school and arranged for them to go to a friend's house after school for about an hour so we could have the full day there.  It was such a fun day. 

It is so picturesque, and as you can tell I've included a million pictures.  Something about the quiet, simple life that the Amish lead in this area adds to the beauty of the landscape.  The hills were dotted with small Amish farms. 

We didn't really have any particular itinerary, we just wanted to enjoy whatever landscape and culture we happened upon.  We found a driving tour of 5 covered bridges in the area, and based our drive roughly upon that.  We saw all of this beautiful landscape just driving from one covered bridge to the next. 

I love all these produce and flower stands along the road

All the Amish settlements looked something similar to this

This looked like a community center or something, but it was just pretty

clothes hanging on the clothesline

Doesn't this look like a picture in a calendar or magazine or something?

Love this!

Another Amish home with the horse and buggy out front

We'd see lots of Amish men and women on their bicycles going about their daily routines

Loved coming across these two men chatting on the roadside

There really is beauty in the simple life

I love this picture of these 2 men coming down the road towards us

You probably can't read the sign, but it says, "hitching post for horses and buggies only"

We saw lots of these roadsigns, and lots of the buggies

Someone's buggy at a farmer's market

I just love that this is how life is there.  Riding your bike to pick up some produce, and bringing it home in the wagon hitched to your bike.  It makes me want to ride my bike over to the local farmers market and bring it home in a wagon.  Somehow, it doesn't seem as picturesque when I do it :)

Isaac was great! He napped and read his books and got out to stretch his legs once in a while.  I'm grateful he's an easy kid who endures all of my crazy little excursions so well! :)

(October): DC Date!

Mike had Columbus day off work, but the girls still had school, so we were excited to go into the city sans kids!  Ok, well we still had Isaac but he's pretty easy in his stroller.  Mike hadn't been to the Air and Space museum, so we started there. 

When we went to NASA in Houston last April, Mike was so excited about touching a moon rock.  I think there are only 7 in the world that you can touch, so we thought it was pretty cool.  Well, the Air & Space museum has one too, so the girls and I rubbed it in Mike's face that WE had touched TWO moonrocks, and he'd only touched one.  So, I had to take him here so he could catch up to us.  Now, we need to find those other five moonrocks! :)

 

The Wright Brothers' plane, the Wright Flye

The Spirit of St. Louis - the plane flown by Charles Limbergh in the first non-stop flight over the Atlantic

After the museum, we went for lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, which is in the historic U-Street neighborhood.  This area was kind of a trendy African American neighborhood before and during the Civil Rights movement, and also the location of the DC riots in the 60s.  Ben's Chili Bowl is apparently the first restaurant Barack Obama ate at after he moved to DC as President

I love architecture and am fascinated by how different neighborhoods are characterized by different architectural styles.  I loved walking around and looking at the buildings here around U Street.

As we were walking we saw some historical markers talking about Duke Ellington, who was raised in this neighborhood and I believe lived here during his early years as a musician.  Duke Ellington is one of Mike's favorite Jazz musicians.  We we able to find a couple of his homes (the one above and below)

(October): Wacky Day at School

We had fun dressing up for Wacky Day at school!

(October): My little yard helper

Maryland has a lot of trees!  We spent so many days this fall raking and filling up bags of leaves.  I'm glad I had this little helper who kept me company and tried to help out a little! 

 

But really, pushing this little car around was the most fun!

(October): Fall in DC & Georgetown

I hadn't realized how much I love and miss the seasons until I moved to Maryland and fall arrived.  I couldn't get enough of the red and yellow and orange trees as they changed color, and was a hazard on the road because I was always distracted by all the different colors and scenery.  It's so beautiful!  I was dying to go to my favorite part of DC (Georgetown) during the fall and see the neighborhood with all the different colors

While we were heading there I realized that the White House was offering free garden tours of the South Lawn that day, so we went there first, got our tickets, and walked along the mall while we waited until our turn to go through the White House Gardens.  The mall was beautiful at this time of year

Georgetown of course was breathtaking with the charming row houses and the tree lined streets in all the beautiful fall colors.  It was fun to wander through the streets with the kids and enjoy fall in such a beautiful setting. 

The Kennedy's lived in many different homes in Georgetown, so I looked up a few and found them on our walk that day, which was kind of fun:

JFK was living in this house when he met Jackie for the first time

Just down the street, this is where JFK and Jackie lived during his Presidential campain (the house on the left)