Mother's Day weekend. Amish style.

I love making new family traditions, especially with our own little family! After last year's camping trip, we decided that Mother's Day weekend is the perfect time of year around here to go camping. So we made a list this year of all the places around that we want to see and ended up in:

Lancaster, PA

aka

Amish country!

It was--gorgeous. rejuvenating. relaxing. exciting. new. different. historical. cultural. outdoors. rainy. SO needed.

Because Steve is traveling ALL over the world for business, he had been saying recently that the USA just doesn't really do it for him travel-wise anymore. He's well-traveled within the states and has felt like in order to experience new cultures you REALLY have to get out of the United States. But during this trip we talked a lot about how there still is so much cultural diversity within the U.S. that is surprisingly accessible. The Amish people are completely fascinating. And the county of Lancaster is breathtakingly beautiful. It was amazing that this kind of diversity is almost in our own backyard! That's one thing I love about the East Coast. There is so much at our fingertips. I feel like we're between 2-4 driving hours away from SO much. I love it!

We also LOVE camping. Wow, there is just something about fresh mountain humid air ;) that is just so rejuvenating. We want to be a camping family and it was so nice to take our last vacation day of the year and use it on just our little family. We love spending our time with extended family and church activities too, don't get us wrong, but oh it was nice to just be us out on a new adventure for a couple days. 

Things we did in Lancaster County:

(PS--Do not waste your time going into the city of Lancaster. All the Amish farmland and things to do are out in the county. I wish someone had told us that before we took the time to drive all the way in there.)

Friday

Drove up in a packed car--how are we ever going to have more than one kid on a camping trip?  ;)

Checked into our campground, set up camp and then headed out in search of one of the many covered bridges in the area.

Found a park right by the bridge--perfect for getting all the wiggles out from the long car ride.

Ran some races alongside the river by the park

Found cool historic houses

Drove on roads with this kind of scenery--and HILLS!! Who knew we'd ever be excited to see those?!

Played "dolf ball" back at our campground...Jaden's new favorite game

Made tin foil dinners. Luckily they finished cooking right as it started to DOWN POUR. So we ate in the car in the dark. It rained all night long, but luckily we stayed dry.

Played with and then dumped out all the bubbles...even made it into the hair...

Played with rope. The most genius toy ever. Why do we even spend money on toys? Rope has proven to be a favorite time and time again.

Saturday

Had dutch oven peach dumplings and boom (milk) for breakfast 

Saw more gorgeous scenery as we drove toward Lancaster City.  We stopped along the way at an area in Intercourse, PA with quilt shops, country stores, and amazing foods.

Ate lunch here in Strasburg while it started down pouring again

The biggest highlight: riding the train in Strasburg! (And luckily the sun came back out!)

While we were waiting for our train to come, we walked into the toy store by the train station.  Jaden got pounded with an overload of blue. He was blown away by all the Thomas the Train stuff. Since then, he has wanted to watch "Chu, chu, nnn, nnn"  EVERY. DAY. I don't let him, but come on man, you finally have everything Cars related on the planet, thanks to grandparents! Now we have to switch? Not going to happen. Nope, you have to like Cars forever :). 

Watching the real live train come in!

Cooooool coach cars.

Saw more stuff like this...

...and this...

Waving to the cars as we pass by

Saying goodbye to the train. We even got photo bombed by the coolest guy in overalls :). 

We were tired, sticky from rain and humidity, fighting allergies, and almost soaking wet at points, so this picture is not the most lovely family photo in the world, but it was seriously the BEST. TRIP. EVER. Can't wait for next year's Mother's Day weekend camping adventure!