Get Away From It All... Lancaster County, PA

Today, guest blogger Samantha takes us on a tour of one of my very favorite places, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (aka Amish Country):

Earlier this week, my husband and I went to a conference at Willow Valley Resort in Lancaster.  While we were there, we had some down time and decided to visit some of my favorite places in the area.

We visited some shops, saw some of the lovely farmhouse architecture, and of course, went to Kitchen Kettle Village, which is a tourist village that has some of the most delicious food and drinks.  We stopped at The Roasted Rooster for some cider and pumpkin spice lattes...

And oh myyyyyy, was it good.  We also visited my very favorite place in Lacaster, The Jam and Relish Kitchen, where jams, jellies, relishes, and salsas of all varieties are jarred and sold.  You can actually peek into the small kitchen in the back to see the Amish girls working on the batch of the day! It is really fascinating.  The best part though, is that there are samples of EVERYTHING sold in the shop!  It could quite easily be a full meal...

Visiting Lancaster really is a special treat for me.  I love getting to be out in the country with all of Pennsylvania's rolling hills.  It is truly inspiring to see the simplicity of the Amish way of life, and it reminds me to slow down sometimes and enjoy all things beautiful.

By the way, if you are not familiar with the Amish- they are a religious sect which eschew modern ways of life- they dress "plain" (women in dresses, men in black), they drive horse drawn buggies instead of cars, and don't use electricity. If you are interested in learning a little more about them, you can read an article here and here.

Last, on our way home, we stopped at Terrain, which was a very special treat, since there are only 2 locations in the country! (Terrain is a garden/home goods shop that is owned by the Anthropologie folks).

They are getting ready for Christmas! I can't believe the holidays are here this soon, but I am delighted that they are.  I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, and then comes Christmas shopping and Christmas baking and Christmas music!  I am a junkie for it all!

Are you ready for the holidays? Extremely excited, or totally terrified? How are you finding ways to rest before this hectic season begins?

Happy Weekend!

Samantha

A note from Jacquelynne: Congratulations to Christine in Australia and Karrie in Michigan who won the giveaway last week!! Your prizes are on the way! And thanks to everyone for their very nice comments about my block tutorial. I was not able to respond to everyone, but I did read each and every comment (with a big smile on my face.)

Also, I have had to turn on the captcha again for comments. I really hate to do it, but spammers somehow found their way past the filter, and in a 48 hour period, I had no less than 70 spam comments posted to my blog- all for prescription drugs. (If anyone out there needs Tramadol or Ativan, let me know- I have a long list of sources for you now....) Sorry for the inconvenience- I hope you will still leave comments!!  :)  Maybe I will try turning it off in a week or so and see what happens......

Town Tour: Woodbury

A guest post from my daughter Samantha:

There has always been something I love about a small, historic town; probably because I grew up in one.  I love the architecture and the big trees populating every lawn.  The town my husband and I moved to is no exception, so I've decided to take you on a little photo tour of my new hometown, and some of my favorite places so far.

This is a small painted bridge tucked into the back of town over the railroad tracks.  Did you notice the theme? Quilts! How lovely is that?

Some of my favorite architectural pieces in town are, of course, the historic homes, but also places like the court house, the fire company, and this little railroad-station-turned-coffee-house!

Last is my personal favorite; the local Episcopal church.  This little beauty reminds me so much of Robin Hood with its almost Mediaeval style bell tower and stone style.  I only wish I had more room for pictures!

I hope you enjoyed taking a walk with me through my town and enjoying all the little things Woodbury has to offer.  I hope you have a favorite little town of your own!

Happy weekend!

Samantha

More England Photos

A few more miscellaneous photos from our recent trip to England.
Cows with character in the Devon countryside.

A friendly and curious pup in a window in the town of Bath (the same Bath where Jane Austen went on holiday. I liked walking on the same streets where she would have walked.)

Storefront in Launceston full of lovelies. (Note to self: next time, bring 2 or 3 empty suitcases on trip.)

We visited a natural history museum in Oxford (I don't remember the name of it- probably something really clever like Oxford Museum of Natural History.)

This photo entitled: 2 Foxes.
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahah

That's it for now. Let me know if you are getting tired of vacation photos yet. I'd hate to be like Uncle Milton, boring everyone to death with vacation slides from his trip to see the world's largest ball of string (though I hear it's lovely this time of year in Cawker City, Kansas.)

England- Amazingly Old Stuff

The castle above is called Wardour- built in the 14th century, it is where Robin Hood with Kevin Costner was filmed.

Above, Bath Abbey. I don't remember when it was built, but most of the churches/abbeys/cathedrals we visited were at least 800 years old. To walk on floors where the faithful walked a thousand years ago.... where they worshiped the Eternal God and still do.... to touch crypts and tombs that are that old....an incredible experience.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come, the Almighty." Revelation 1:8

Something else that struck me as I gazed at the workmanship of these magnificent buildings- the incalculable hours that countless artisans and craftsmen devoted to building and carving and sculpting and creating the windows..... all to the glory of God. Worship comes in many different forms, usually we think of it as music or attending a church service..... but whenever we use the gifts that He has given us to make the world more beautiful, kinder, softer, welcoming or loving.... that is worship.

England Photos

We took, no exaggeration, 700 photos while on our trip to England. So I'm having a very hard time trying to choose which ones to post and how to organize them....
Where to start? Photos of 1000+ year old churches? Gorgeous green rolling pastures? Wild rocky coastline? Yummy food that we ate? How about starting with some family photos?

This is Holly and Ella. My husband has a cousin who is English, and these are her 2 daughters. So cute! The outfits they are wearing were gifts that I brought over for them- it was fun to shop for little girls' clothes- mine, at ages 15 and 19, really don't like me to shop for and dress them anymore!

The 4 of us at Clevelly. Daughter on left was in England for 5 weeks studying at Oxford before we got there- and boy did we miss her! It was nice to spend time as a family again. By the way, we bought more than our fair share of scarves while there, in just about every color. The weather was perfect- 70's most of the time, and no rain (they are in a drought- which turned out to be perfect for us tourists.)

The girls on the sea wall at Clevelly, a town where there are no cars. You must walk down a very steep cobblestone street, lined with adorable little houses, to get down to the little village. Of course, that means to leave Clevelly, you must walk back UP the hill. We got a good workout while we were there. Didn't feel too bad about eating fish and chips after that.

Hubby and kids at Stone Henge. Very very tourist-y, but pretty much required on the site-seeing agenda if you are visiting England.

Avebury-a little village with stones kind of like Stone Henge, but smaller and spread out and not piled on top of each other. We enjoyed walking through the middle of the sheep pastures (kids had to be careful- they were wearing flip-flops!) to see all of the stones.

My husband has family friends, Stephen & Lynda, who own a bed and breakfast called Golden Park in the gorgeous Devon countryside. We stayed 2 nights at their place, it was really lovely. And Lynda is a fellow quilter, so there was a show and tell session, too.

Hubby and I in London. We went to London on 2 different days. One of our favorite things while in London was seeing the recreation of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. We also went to several museums and saw original daVinci's and Monet's, among others.
So there you go- 7 photos out of 700. More to come....

Digging Out (again.....)

We got another huge snow storm Tuesday night and all day Wednesday. This time the snow was not light and fluffy like Saturday's storm, but it was slushy and heavy, almost impossible to shovel. I don't know how much we got this time, probably about 18" (frankly, I am tired of keeping count). Thank goodness our neighbor came and spent an hour with his tractor plowing us out again (daughter made him a lovely chocolate cake from scratch as a thank you.) If he hadn't come by, I think we'd be snowed in until April.

Hubby took some great photos (I took photos too, but mine stink next to his.)

I put out lots of bird seed. The birds had a feeding frenzy all during the storm, sometimes they were very aggressive and unpolite towards each other! Kitty staked out her spot by the window early and spent the whole day there, watching the scene. Some mourning doves decided to roost right on the window sill, can't you just imagine what Kitty is thinking (Come here, little friends, I want to eat you.....)

Of course, Daisy took her job "patrolling" the yard very seriously- she is such a hard little worker!

Oh Spring, Spring- where are you?

We anxiously await your arrival......

Weekend Plans

Well- we are hunkered down for another huge snow storm. It started last night, and it's still coming down and the wind is a-whippin'. Even so, I have some serious plans for the weekend.....

I went to the library the other day and got piles of movies, and went to the store and stocked up on snacks (looks like we may not make it out to the Super Bowl party that we got invited to.....). There is stitching to be done, and many cups of tea to be drunk......

We live in the pink area- the one labelled 18" - 24" ....

Daughter decided she didn't want to be without television, so she ventured out to clear off the dish

(Isn't she cute???? My little "Laura Ingalls")

Also, we noticed last night that the batteries for the Wii remote were almost dead, so hubby braved the elements and went out in the storm to the corner store for more AA's (at least we have our priorities in order....)

Stay warm where ever you are and have a great weekend.