Last weekend, we made the drive to Maryland to visit with a few members of Jessica’s family. We opted to stay in Pennyslvania to get to see some new places, but mostly visited in Maryland.
We drove up on Friday and found a small dairy farm that makes their own ice cream. “Barnyard” sounded like a strange flavor for a ice cream, but we tried it. Very yummy! Honestly, plain vanilla would have been amazing all on its own. Very rich! The milk was really good, too.
Chris was really excited to pet the calves. His grandfather had a farm when Chris was younger, and he misses seeing the cows in his backyard.
On Saturday, we burned some time by going to a large yard sale at a church. We picked up a few baby items and chatted about adoption. We love sharing our desire to adopt and our journey so far. We visited with Jessica’s grandmother, Granny B, at her home. Chris did some odd jobs for her. After a trip to Home Depot and lots of deduction, he finally figured out why her TV wasn’t working. She’s not a fan of photos, so no pictures this time. We’ll have to convince her the next time we see her. Jessica’s aunt and a few of her cousins also stopped by to visit. We played a few games with Jessica’s cousin, DJ. He just turned 6, and he’s so adorable. There may have been a few tickle wars. We enjoyed seeing how thoughtful and curious he was.
It was really nice to catch up and eat some pizza from Wally’s (YUM!). We tagged along with Jessica’s family members to our first quarter auction experience. If you are not familiar with the concept, it’s part bingo, part auction. It’s really fast paced but fun. We saw one of Jessica’s other grandmothers (She has 3!), Marge, at the quarter auction. It was to benefit her local firehouse.
Sunday was an adventure. We decided to take a different route home and stopped by Gettysburg. Neither of us had been there, so it was great to experience it together. We’ll have to take one of the official tours next time, but since we were headed home the same day, we did the self-guided auto tour.
Visiting Gettysburg spurred Jessica’s interest in genealogy, and she’s been back on the “hunt” for ancestors since we’ve been back home. Many people refer to their “family tree”, but adoption makes genealogy a little bit more interesting. There are many concepts for families and children to incorporate birth and adoptive families into their “trees” including one where they refer to their family as an “orchard” instead of a “tree”. We love this idea the best, and we look forward to growing our “orchard!”
We stopped at Mr. Ed’s which is one part candy shop and one part road side attraction. It’s fairly interesting. Odd outdoor décor. Croaking frogs. Giant talking elephant. You can’t miss it!
Jessica’s favorite part of the road trip (besides visiting with family) was Chris incorporating road signs into stories he made up. We can’t recreate it, but Jessica thought it was hilarious. Maybe it’ll be a new tradition?
Chris’s favorite part of the road trip was this moment we managed to catch on video. Love!
We ended our trip by picking up our pups from Chris’s parents who were gracious enough to “dogsit” Ellie and Oreo. They were really missed, and we hope we can take them along on our next trip.
Where are some fun places you’ve visited? Any suggestions for road trips or new destinations would should consider?
Recipe for Family 