I Love the Amish

Not only are they friendly and make beautiful and tasty goodies, they also keep their items at a decent price!  When we were in Virginia, we made several stops to the Shenandoah Heritage Market in Harrisonburg.  It was right up my alley….food, kitchen gadgets, old-fashioned toys, antiques and handmades.  Fun, fun!  Our favorite shop in the market was a dry goods store, selling everything from powdered buttermilk, to soup mixes, to bags of lucky charm marshmallows!  Dave was like, well, a kid in a candy shop! =)

And then I saw all of the cake decorating supplies….for about 1/3 of the price I pay for them!  Bags of sprinkles for $1, candy molds for .75, candy hearts for $1.  Guess who was excited now?!?!  So after spending a small fortune on candy, marshmallows, cappuccino mixes, soup, spices, extracts and dips, we moved on.

*Sidebar: When I got back home….the first thing I did was organize my super-messy corner of my pantry that holds all things decorative.  Now all of my sprinkles, chocolates and icing are nice and tidy!

Next up was their antique market….a maze of vendor cubes filled with all sorts of fun and vintage items.  Some were overpriced and a dime a dozen down here in the south, but we managed to get a couple of good deals.  Here are some of the more expensive things I liked, but didn’t splurge on:

Amelia was fascinated by the tea sets…and looooooves riding in the sling where she can see everything!

We managed to snag an old shutter for $14 (not sure what we will use that for quite yet), and an old little ladder for $15….to be used as a hanging rack and also a ladder in my new laundry room.  “What new laundry room?” you ask…..stay tuned for a big reveal (we are still working on painting and details!).

My dad, GP, was able to meet us out in VA for a couple of days, since Mom Mom had left him stranded in the snow while she visited Nana and Popop in FL!!!  GP’s only requests were to go fishing with Dave (um, no question about that!!!), and to go to Cross Keys Vineyard to stock up on some favorite wines.

We got there right when it opened, on the chilliest day of the week.  And although the worker there didn’t seem too pleased to see us, we did a tasting anyway!

Jayna entertained herself outside while us alchies partook inside!

 You can’t see it very well, but the top of this barrel is all ice….Jayna’s fingers were “ice skating.”

The scenery out there was beautiful!

We had an awesome week in Virginia!  Thanks Will and Diana!

Snowbunnies

Surprise!  Bet you didn’t know we went on vacation!  We got an AWESOME opportunity to join our friends Will and Diana and their kids up in the mountains of VA this week.  Their family has a time share at Massenutten and had an open condo that we were able to use for the week.  Luckily, Dave is blessed to have a really flexible job and was able to get the week off, so we packed up a rental car and booked it to the mountains for the week!

We love Massenutten….my family has a timeshare there as well, so Loo Loo and I spent many a weeks there growing up.  So it was a little blast from the past!

Diana and Will’s son W, is about a year older than Jayna, and their daughter R, is three days older than Amelia!  So it was one big weeklong playdate!  The first day, the kids enjoyed the indoor waterpark on the mountain.   They went down tube slides and swam in the lagoons.  My personal favorite is the lazy river…but for some reason, the kids were not as excited to just sit back and relax….so we only did it once!  Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera swimming, so here are a couple of pictures of the waterpark, courtesy of the internet (see below each picture for credits).

blueridgeparkway.org

virginia.org

We also took advantage of the little bit of snow there was on the mountain and went skiing.  We had shown Jayna a couple YouTube videos of little kids skiing, so she was really excited!  Too bad Dave and I are not quite the champion skiers we may have led Jayna to believe…

But luckily, Will and his dad ARE!  So they took the little kids up to the top of the Green Circle slope (that’s right….my little girl doesn’t need no bunny slopes!), and skiied down with them!  Will’s dad sat next to Jayna on the chairlift and held her under one arm as he got off the ski lift.  Then she stood between his legs and he held on to her coat as they went down the mountain!  I was so proud!

Even when she fell, she just laughted and got right back up!  Maybe we DO have a champion skier in the family!!

She mostly just loved the novelty of playing in the snow!

What a bunch of snowbunnies!