Reds Fever

I'm not much of a baseball follower, but Cincinnati is all a-buzz right now because the Reds won some division or other. It seems to be a big deal, because the Reds haven't been in post-season play since 1995: that's 15 years! People have closed their businesses, taken off work, and partied well into the nights over this whole thing. Seems that the next thing we have to do is win a pennant. I am just happy because Cincinnati's professional athletes are getting publicity for something other than incarceration!

In honor of all the baseball hooplah, I had the boys wear their personalized baseball shirts that I ordered them a while back. I didn't know what numbers to give them, so I gave them their ages.

Kara

Amish Country

We just got back from a wonderful Friday-Saturday trip to Holmes, County, Ohio (about 3 1/2 hours from Cincinnati), which is the world's largest Amish community. It was sooooo wonderful! Mom and Dad met us up there, and we all had a great time. I have determined that Tim needs to be an Amish preacher and that we need to move to Amish Country! Electricity and running water are entirely over-rated anyway...

Our trip proved to be a large exercise in self restraint for me, as someone who likes to take pictures better than doing just about anything: I couldn't take many pictures, because I didn't want to disrespect the Amish's beliefs against pictures. The pictures I did shoot were from a far distance or where they couldn't see me, or they were of the landscape.

This is going to be mine and Tim's farm when we become Amish.

I've named our cow there "Bessy."

I couldn't get a great angle of this picture because we were at the bottom of a hill,
but this was an entire field full of bundled foddershocks.

Black and white cows: my favorite!!!

Of all the amazing stores in Amish Country, by far my favorite was The Quilt Barn in Berlin (pronounced BERlin, not BerLIN, as we English are inclined to say). The Quilt Barn used to be an old Amish barn but had been converted into an Amish quilt store. These pictures were taken in the loft: most of the first floor consisted of fabrics and patterns and supplies. The quilts that you see cost $1000+ each, and are completely sewn by hand - no sewing machines. Someday, when my children are all out of college and I no longer have many expenses, I'm getting one! They are well worth the cost.

You can stroll all up and down the streets in Amish Country and meander in and out of little stores. One of my favorite parts of Amish Country was the baskets. They're gorgeous! Even the streets are lined with plants in these baskets. I bought a 'small quilt basket' which is about 3 ft by 2 ft and has a lid: I'm storing my plastic Tupperware-type containers in it (it's pictured at the top of my blog). It's the most well-made basket I could imagine owning, and it's signed on the bottom by the weaver. Can you believe that basket was made by Ada, an 11 year old girl???? I can't wait to go back to Amish Country and get another one!
Anna and John took a break at a children's table in a furniture store.

One of the things you have to get used to in Amish Country is the horses and buggies: they're everywhere! The picture at the top shows the "Buggies Only" parking that you find at almost any restaurant or store. (And yes, that on the ground is exactly what you think it is.)

Tim made the journey to Amish Country for one and only one reason: food! He ate 16 pieces of fried chicken in 48 hours. For those of you counting at home, that's two entire chickens!
We ate and ate and ate while we were there: whoopie pies, eclairs, cookies, mashed potatoes with gravy, homemade rolls, sandwiches made with homemade breads and homemade mayonaise, and on and on. At one point at the end of our trip, I literally ached from being so full! Tim joked that we only went shopping and sight-seeing to kill time between meals.

I don't have any pictures of my absolutely favorite part of the trip, though: we went on an Amish buggy ride! There is a place where the Amish offer buggy rides to us 'Englishers;' the buggies are driven by some elderly Amish men who are a bit too old to work in the fields anymore. All 7 of us piled into a buggy and our driver Dan took us for a little jaunt. He was fantastic! He laughed and talked the whole time, telling us about his horse Shirley, and about his wife of 64 years, whom he says "still works so hard and is still in such good shape." Dan asked us, "Do you know how I stay warm in the winter driving this buggy? I have a blanket and I have a wife!" He let John sit on his lap and control the reigns. Mom and I would have LOVED to have snapped a picture of Dan to remember him by, but we'll just have to remember him in our mind. I'll never forget sitting in that carriage beside Dan the buggy driver, laughing and talking, and listening to the clip-clop of the horse hooves. One of my favorite memories ever!

Pumpkin Farm!

About 5 minutes from our boys' school in Milford, Ohio, there is the coolest little farm called Shaw Farms. Shaw Farms has been in the Shaw family since 1805, and they grow a whole hodgepodge of crops like soybeans, corn, and pumpkins; however, every fall, they also open their farm up to children for about a month to explore. Granted, they sell some canned foods and goodies from their farm; but they don't charge any admission for the kids to come and visit, and they make sure that every child gets to take home their very own little pumpkin. Yesterday they opened, and here were some of the pictures from our visit...

One of the coolest things the Shaws do is turn some of their pumpkins and gourds into characters all over the farm, such as Dorothy and the Good Witch (above), and the Tin Man (below)...

The Big Bad Wolf...

Tim joked that putting this S.W.A.T. pumpkin infront of the 3 little pigs' brick house made it look like a crack house (ha-ha)! He started singing "Bad gourds, bad gourds, what'cha gonna do when they come for you?"Anna explored the Flintones' house, with Wilma Flintstone standing outside.

She even got to sit in the Flintstone-mobile. The resemblance to the cartoon car was uncanny!

Cinderella and Price Charming

I think Tim and John and Anna Jean were looking for the Great Pumpkin!

Our family had the opportunity to do our very first corn maze at Shaw Farm! I must admit that with the temps pushing 90 degrees, it didn't feel very autumnal. Nonetheless, we had a great time for about an hour meandering through the corn. We only made it halfway through the maze, though: that was one big corn maze!

I would call the following picture "Children of the Corn," but I think that was a movie...

Christopher took comfort that if we got lost and never found our way out of the corn maze, at least we wouldn't starve!