Busy Bee

For the past week, my mom and sister were here visiting. The first day, we visited the Harry London Chocolate factory and took a tour. Yay for free samples. Yay for the bags of "Oops!" chocolates and the buy 4 bags get the 5th free! Boo for expanding waistlines.

The second day, we visited Amish country. All three of us are quilters, so guess what we did? Not only are Amish women fantastic quilters, they are very proud of their work. The first "shop" that we stopped at, was actually in their home. We got a very close up view of how the Amish live, which was something I didn't expect to get to see but very awesome indeed. The people were very welcoming and spoke with thick Dutch accents.

I had to refrain myself from emptying the bank account on some of the bed-sized quilts. There was hand quilted stitching on all of the quilts (which we could appreciate since we do all of ours by hand). Because we made many wrong turns, we were able to see a lot of people working on their farms on the back roads. Very impressive. The men collect the corn stalks, pile them onto the horse drawn wagon and haul them back to the barn. My sister was afraid to let them see her taking pictures, but soon realized that when they saw her with the camera, they would wave back in a friendly manner. This was cause for many outbursts of nervous laughter as she felt like the papparazi in Amish land. I guess she had a point in saying that, "it feels weird taking pictures of them when they're just trying to go about their day." The best part of all was when we spotted the children walking home from school. It was absolutely the cutest thing I've ever seen (and I think I said that so many times it became annoying at some point).

The third day, back to the quilt shops. We had gotten a late start the day before due to Jesse's eardrum feeling like someone had "crushed it". So back off to stalk the Amish we went. We got plenty more pictures the second day and visited the rest of the quilt shops.

The fourth day, we went downtown to Quaker Square were the old Quaker Oats mill is. They have now turned it into some gift shops, a restaurant where you can dine inside of an old railcar (which we did) and a hotel in the old silos. Each room is a complete circle. I guess they put the beds in the middle of the room?

The fifth day, we ended up at the zoo. Jesse now wants a capybara for a pet. "They're soooo cute!" Yeah, just what I want to cuddle up with at night. Maybe she can get one if she goes to live with Bearette. ;)

The sixth day (today), we headed to a local quilt shop for one last hurrah since their flight did not leave until this evening. Just a little while ago, the phone rang. "You're not going to believe where we are...." It's my sister. Their flight from Cleveland to Chicago was cancelled due to weather. So, tomorrow morning they will be flying east to Washington D.C. (to visit Liz)
Then, they will head back west to San Francisco and home from there.


**Top picture is the quilt my mom and sis bought for me at one of the shops. They shouldn't have, but I do love it.

Middle picture, Amish children walking home from school. So cute! (If you click on it, you can see them much better.)

Last picture, the buggy had stopped while the bus let children off, then the driver waved to the Amish family as they passed by.