Over the river and through the woods...

to Grandmother's house we go.

So we didn't go over a river from the airport to get to my folks house, but we did go over some very lovely wooded hills and vales. And boy was it all green!

I think they store bears in that silo

Before our trip, my kids made a list of the things that they wanted to do in Pennsylvania. The first on their list was THE Bear Store. No, not a build a bear place (although, they do have their own on the third floor). This was the Boyd's Bear Mecca. Imagine a building twice as wide as a Dillards, and three stories tall (not including the cafeteria/bakery in the basement), that's a close size conversion. We went on Wednesday, and the kids loved it.

Everyone found just who they needed. Davin got his Civil War bear (after a long 2 year wait), Aidan found a karate bear, Eme got a glamorous pink bejeweled bear, and Maddie found one (after being shown several) and immediately said "my bear". I don't know how mom does it, if I had a store like that w/in 30 minutes of my house, I'd be in trouble (ahh, the Jim Shore stuff...)

Isabella and Campbell

Our list also included seeing lots of cousins. And boy did we do that! There were 11 adults and 17 kids ranging from 2 to 15 (this was on Sat and Sunday, there were fewer earlier and just us by the end). By the way, it takes 3 boxes of mac 'n cheese to feed 12 kids, just in case you were wondering. But my mom deserves major kudos for the meal planning for that many people, including those with food issues (diabeties, celiac, colitis, and just plain picky), the meals went with out a hitch each night.

Aspen and Eme

Eric's to do list included hitting the Hanover Shoe outlet (Bostonian/Clarks, for those not in the know), which we did on Thursday before people got in. He went with the intent of buying one new pair of dress shoes, I went with the intent of getting him to buy 2 pairs. We left with 2 pairs of black dress shoes, a pair of brown leather casual shoes (for Eric), and a pair of cute sneakers for me, all for just under $100. Especially awsome when you concider that the cheepest reg price for one pair was $80. I love that store!