Spring Break 2014-Part 2

...our next stop was...

We talked about going to Jamestown and Yorktown but decided to spend our time exploring Colonial Williamsburg since the general consensus was that there was little to do at the other two locations.

We attended our church meetings at the Williamsburg Ward. Before attending, we found out that our niece, Liz had a friend from home serving her mission in the Williamsburg Ward. We made it a point to introduce ourselves to the sister missionaries. She said we looked familiar and we'd taken her home from Liz's house once, plus visited her home ward multiple times. 

I asked her companion where she was from and she said Bunkerville, NV. Well, I knew 1 person with her last name from Bunkerville...Bob. Turns out he is her DAD! He and I were in the same ward at BYU many, many, many moons ago. When she told me who her dad married, I recognized her mom's name too, also from the BYU 160th Ward. Fun to discover that I "knew" both sister missionaries. There might have been connections with the elders too, but we didn't visit with them to ask.

Of course, after the meeting ended, we took a couple snapshots with them to send to family and I emailed the one so she could share it with her parents too.

The sister from Idaho.

The one from Nevada. I'll have to go back to my old pictures so I can better seen the family resemblance.

While touring Colonial Williamsburg, listened to Patrick Henry & George Washington speak, participated in some group portrayals, learned some dances of the day, learned about the impact of slavery at the time, heard and judged some court cases, and enjoyed the warmer temperatures and sunshine. Both of us were even sent to the stocks.

Toured the barrel maker, weavers, woodworker, apothecary, church (that still holds weekly services), several homes, and the shoemaker.

We also visited the dressmaker/tailor's shop. He was so snooty that we didn't bother with any pictures of him, we were afraid that he might be offended and ruin the dress I ordered. ;)

Just outside the colonial part of Williamsburg were other shops that we strolled in and out of. There was a Scottish store with several tartan plaids. Whenever I see a store like that I go search for our family plaid. Someday I'll have a skirt made in our tartan but I have to do some saving before that becomes a reality.

The final portion of our Spring Break was spent closer to our home. My parents came to visit us at our place and we gave them the grand tour!

We headed over to Chocolate World to do some shopping for treats and take the ride that tells about the Milton S. Hershey story and how the Hershey company makes it's famous chocolate. Of course, we really took the tour for the end result, some free chocolate!

The four of us took a trolley tour that goes around town and talks about how Milton Hershey set up the town, where the factories were/are, and tells the story of the Milton Hershey School he started in 1909. Again, the information was great, but the chocolate they handed out along the way was the highlight.

One of our fellow houseparents let us take Mom and Dad into their empty student home so we could give them a better feel for how each house houses 12 students and the houseparents.

Mom and Dad stayed with us and enjoyed the view and our little farm house. Dad later told me that he thought it was a confusing layout; guess that means he needs to come back and spend more time so it feels more comfortable to him.

The last big thing we did was head over to Valley Forge and tour the historic site where the American soldiers camped for winter during the Revolutionary War. None of us had any idea what to expect and we only had a short amount of time to see everything before the park closed. We left pleasantly surprised and want to go back again.

One other thing on our agenda was go get Mom & Dad's paperwork all completed so that they can visit us again and stay with us next time. It's a requirement of the school for background checks to be done if people will be coming more than once a year. It took some doing for Dad to get his finger printing completed so the last background check could be completed. After a few attempts, we discovered that he no longer has fingerprints. Of course, we had a good time teasing him that he was really trying to hide his past from us.

It was an enjoyable few days with them and we look forward to their next visit. Hope it's sooner rather than later.

More of April

For my birthday this year, we decided to use a one of our Joint Personal Days so that we could do what we wanted to celebrate. I decided that I wanted to go for brunch at Hershey Pantry and then drive to Washington DC to attend the Temple.

Dan let me stay home that morning and sleep in. (When we don't have to cover, only one of us has to go in for the morning portion of our schedule.) He arrived and we got ready for our outing. We did a late brunch at Hershey Pantry before heading out of town. Yum Yum!

We then got on the road. Because of the craziness of our work schedule, we get to the Temple about once every six weeks. Each time we go I take a picture of the grounds since we're capturing it seasonally. It's fun to see the changes to the landscape. Even if the trees are bare, the grounds are beautiful.

This trip was not exception to our grounds picture tradition. We decided to also take a selfie in front of the Temple. As you can see, they are not our forte.

They are all about having fun, right! At least we got a good laugh at ourselves.

The most embarrassing part is that we didn't do well with the selfies we took with our work iPad even with turning the camera to the front screen so we could see what we were doing.

Guess this one will have to do:

After completing our service in the Temple, we decided to drive into DC (hoping to miss the commute home traffic) and go to the Jefferson Memorial. Unbeknownest to us, it was smack in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Festival and we were heading straight towards all the blossoms! It was G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S.!!!

We then walked around the area and the Memorial. It was a peaceful and pleasant way to celebrate my birthday; maybe even a tradition in the making.

Dan insisted that since it was my birthday I had to be the only one in the pictures. Guess that's ok since I'm usually the one behind the camera.

The following weekend was the big Cancer Care Community Walk. It was a 24-hour relay walk sponsored by the school though anyone was welcome to attend. Several students stayed the full 24-hours and a few walked over 30 miles in that time frame.

Leading up to the walk the different student homes did unique and creative fundraisers to raise money for cancer research. Some of the ideas were bake sales, sports memorabilia auction, scrap metal recycling, car washes, t-shirts, restaurant percentages, etc. With the winners receiving dinner at a popular Amish buffet, the competition ran high.

The event started on Saturday late morning with everyone doing the first ceremonial  lap together lead by cancer survivors:

The stands then began to empty:

We held a special chapel service on Sunday to close the walk after doing the final lap together. After chapel was complete, we remained in our seats to see the preliminary final count of funds raised for cancer. Can I have a drum roll please....

That's $102,417! The most amazing parts were: (1) the fundraiser was a last minute decision and we only had about 4 weeks from start to finish. (2) The students came up with the ideas and did most of the work selling, cleaning, sorting, baking, etc. (3) The students were selling to the same population for 4 weeks straight-houseparents, students, teachers, administrators, etc. It was a remarkable and Herculean effort. The goal was $100,000 and when all was said and done the final number was closer to $120,000. What an amazing experience for everyone involved!

Spring Break then onto Summer fun!

Impromptu Ft. McHenry Visit

Back in March, we decided to explore another American History site. We had taken an early trip to the Washington, DC Temple. We ended our time there fairly early and decided to spend a little extra time in the Baltimore area.

With the use of our trusty GPS we found ourselves at Ft. McHenry. This is the harbor where Francis Scott Key was imprisoned on a British ship in the bay while a battle ensued between the Americans and British. When the battle ended, he wasn't sure who had won until the smoke cleared and he saw the American flag waving above the fort. He was so stirred by the sight that he penned what is now our National Anthem.

We didn't have much time before it closed but we did the visitor's center and then strolled around the outside of the fort until they kicked us out. I'm hoping we go back so we can spend a little more time inside the fort.

Statue of Francis Scott Key facing Ft. McHenry

The Bay where the battle took place.

Replica of the flag F.S. Key saw from the British ship.

Told you it was a fort!

Dan asked an employee for a recommendation for a seafood restaurant. We took his suggestion and tried this place. The table cloths were butcher paper, the drinks came in Solo cups, and napkins were nothing more than paper towels. If we ordered crabs they would have dumped the whole steamed crabs on the middle of the table, handed us mallets, and let us go at it. A different experience, when do you want to join us?

A Super Full Christmas Season!

2013 quickly came to a close. The year was full of adventures and December was no exception. We were able to take a tour of the Historic Hotel Hershey. We learned more of the history & generosity of Milton & Catherine Hershey and enjoyed the beauties that have been added to the hotel since the 1930s.

Dan decided to try some of all the pastries.

It was fun to be home one evening and discover a rebroadcast from a former Christmas performance:

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir rebroadcast on PBS in PA, who knew?!

Some of the student homes were built in the 60s and have basements with bomb shelters in them. One particular home has turned their bomb shelter into a miniature of the school and town of Hershey with train sets running throughout. They've even included rides and characters from Hershey Park!

A student home & the school's creamery shop

Founder's Hall-there's even a wedding taking place outside the gazebo!

We joined my sister, Ann, and her family for Christmas. We had a great time with all of them joining in their family traditions and celebrating Christmas!

Towers are made to be knocked down!



Gingerbread House Decorators Extraordinaire; sounds like a future HGTV show they should host.



The traditional retelling of the Nativity Story:

Christmas morning came and it was enthusiastically welcomed by the young ones! The gifts couldn't be opened fast enough; it was so fun to watch everyone's excitement.

Part of their tradition is to open a gift all the way and play with it before moving onto the next gift. Sometimes that happened and sometimes it was more exciting to move onto the next package and see what it contained.

Dan and I took some of our gifts with us and added to the craziness with our wrappings.

Lucy was so excited about some things she put together for Dan and me. One of the things included in her gift were "tickets" to see the new Disney movie Frozen. In reality it was an advertisement and part of the receipt from when she saw it with her family. So cute of her to think she'd really given us tickets to the show. When we did see it the next week we were sure to let her know. 

On our way home from Ann & Tyler's home, we decided to stop in Charlottesville, VA and tour Thomas Jefferson's former home, Monticello. His innovation and ideas were amazing! We decided that in our dream home we will build an alcove bed between two rooms but can't agree on which rooms the bed should be between-the bedroom and closet or bedroom and kitchen.

Alcove bed picture in 1st collage and all pictures in 2nd collage from this site.

We commandeered the 2nd week of Christmas Break. Since we had only two students all week and four more by Friday night, we decided to make the most of the smaller numbers.

One evening we took a drive through Hershey Park's Sweet Lights:

We received permission to take the two girls to Washington, DC. Though it was cold, we had a great time walking the National Mall and seeing the monuments, walking past the White House, and seeing the exhibits in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History.

For New Year's Eve we had big plans to head to downtown Hershey for their concerts and the Kiss Drop. Well, the temperatures were hovering around 0 so we let the girls decide the night's agenda and they opted to stay home and snuggle down to celebrate the New Year in the warmth of the student home. We had the fire going, moved the furniture into prime tv watching shape, let them select movies, and then got cozy awaiting the stroke of midnight.

The movie ended (the girls picked the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and LOVED it!), we turned the tv to watch the ball drop in Times Square. For the first time in our lives, we were able to watch it live on tv rather than on a broadcast delay.

Even though his help was minimal, Dan made sure to participate in the puzzle putting together Horrocks Tradition. It was a challenging puzzle Amanda & Jake sent us. His first challenge was trying to figure out how to section the pieces for the most effective completion; i.e. all the greens, then blues, then reds, etc.

Just after the New Year, two more girls arrived. We decided to attend the Pennsylvania Farm Show together. (Out west we would call this a Fair but minus any rides.) We took the four girls to the rodeo first thing. They were thrilled with the different events; pole bending, bull riding, and calf roping. We even saw a couple get engaged between events. (The city girls were a little freaked out when he knelt down in the dirt to propose.) Then we spent several hours walking through the different exhibits seeing ducks, chickens, geese, cows, horses, goats, rabbits, pigs, peacocks, and a butter sculpture. A new experience for the inner city girls and they had a good time.

We saw the following at the Farm Show and didn't even consider giving them our business; we are just that loyal to our Idaho Farmers & Spuds!

It was a full Christmas Break with lots planned and unplanned, exactly the best kind of break and we wouldn't have changed a thing about it!