I wrote this post a long time ago...

There are times when I really love trips where somebody drives and I can get something done. Sooo, back in October, we went to Pennsylvania for a quick weekend visit. I hate that they are always short but I enjoy the moments so much. So here is what I typed in on car rides to and from until my 'puter battery gave out or my eyes got too tired of squinting.
Pennsylvania – October 2008

Beca – before going – “I’m going to be in the Halloween Kaprade!”, “Grandma is going to tell me something and Grandpa is going to say Go ask your grandmother”, “I told you you could do it Oma!” when mom got a DVD going in her car.

On the way there - “Quick, we have to get there before Grandma goes to sleep”, “You have ear pads too Oma!” “We both have ear pads!” (headphones)

I escaped work by going in obscenely early and skipping lunch. Had to finish packing with Zoe running around and doing the freaked out poodle thing so by the time I walked out the door, her ears stank. Lovely. At least the next person she would see is Steve – I bet he got a double punch of Zoe paws and she’s just the right height!

We got on the road fairly quickly, with a stop at the gas station. She was watching her Jane movie (Peter Pan 2: Return to Neveland) with her headphones on which she likes to hold on with both hands and elbows pointed out. Beca fell asleep with the headphones on just before we got onto I-95 and stayed that way until we got towards Richmond! On 295 at the big bridge, Beca got freaked out because she couldn’t see the road.

Stopped off 295 at a McDonalds and Beca really did not like the bathroom and really wanted to go on the playground. She shoveled her chicken nuggets which meant she had way too much in her mouth and it actually took her longer to eat than if she had just taken real bites of it. Her reward for 3 chicken nuggets and some French fries and all of her chocolate milk was that she got to go on the playground. Turns out she didn’t really like it – it was dark and scary – a weird maze and she decided part way in to turn around and come back. So she came back to the table (which was not attached to the kids area) for some McFlurry with M’n’M’s courtesy Mommy’s October addiction with McDonalds for Monopoly tags. I think I like playing online because I never get to play it anymore. I should probably just stop it but it’s always nice to lose weight during November right before Christmas Cookies arrive because I gained some in October.

Back on the road, I get to work on the computer because Oma sits in the back with Beca. They watched the Halloween sing-a-long. Twice. Then we convinced them to watch Sleeping Beauty with their “ear pads” on so we could listen to the Country stations on the satellite and check the DC traffic/weather. I love Satellite radio! Lucky for us, most of the traffic nastiness was in the south-bound lanes. For those that don’t drive in DC, it is the worst place to drive. There’s going to be construction somewhere and a bridge is always down to one lane! And PA falls into one of those areas where they have two seasons – winter and construction. But they block off like 6-8 miles at a time for a 500 foot span. And it’s been blocked off since we were up in June. Weird. Beca had a fit about something and when we laughed at her 3 year old logic, she yelled at us to stop laughing at her. She also panicked on the back roads because it was dark and scary. We told her it was a rollercoaster and she put her hands up and said “whee. Be careful , ok?” We arrived around 11:30pm at Grandma’s – she was up watching the Red Sox play Tampa Bay. It was at least 12:30pm before Beca got to sleep. And 6am Friday, she was up needing to go potty. I got her to lay down a little longer and then she got up when she started hearing others (Oman and Pop-pop). We had a slow start to the morning but Mammy came up with Grandpa. Beca did not want to wear jeans but eventually agreed to it along with a Trick or Treat shirt. We piled in the van for the Bowmansville trio special – Uncle Henry’s, Country Maid and Kings. Uncle Henry’s is a Mennonite farm that has a bit of a factory for pretzels. Thee women all work in the factory, bagging pretzels coming out of an oven at 625 degrees. I figured out last time that you could get 5 soft pretzels for a dollar and they are so yummy. You can also buy bags of broken pieces – we got a bag of regular but the special of the day was 2 bags of darks which is what my dad gets. Beca likes them too. The funny thing is that they even have a website for their pretzels and really nicely printed store bags for their pretzels. Every time we go, it seems there are more women in there. Sometimes even the little girls are helping. The second stop is the Country Maid bakery for doughnuts and sticky buns. Their doughnuts aren’t fried but they are good. There’s different creams – my favorite is the regular cream. Mom’s too. Dad likes the chocolate so ofcourse Beca does too. They had pumpkin right now. They also had cheese sticky buns and raisin sticky buns. It’s soooo good. Last stop is Kings – they have a lot of bulk made items including Penna Dutch pastas. It’s so much cheaper than grocery store pastas. Thy also have bulk candies and Beca got butterfly gummies. This is also where we pick up ring baloney and cheeses. Beca likes ring baloney like a good Penna Dutch girl!

Grandma made yummy soup for lunch. Mine never turns out that good. I also had a headache – little sleep over the past week and my jaw was taking the stress. So I took a nap while Pop-pop took Beca to the little park – she went on the little horses, the slide, the swings, the teeter-totter (the still exist somewhere!), and then went for a long walk by the pond where the geese, ducks and swans are. They continued up the path past the golf course and watched some golfers for a while before hiking back the path that goes behind my grandparents’ house. She was almost ready to fall asleep but picked the one clothing item no one could find – her princess nightgown which I had put in her car bag just in case we needed it later in the evening. It was all a ploy to keep herself awake. So when I got up from my nap, Dad wanted to go to the outlets to look for sneakers. We took Beca (now in a pumpkin dress) and she was asleep before we got half way there. She slept an hour and a half while shoe shopping, party supplies shopping, tasty cake shopping, and more party supplies shopping. When we got her out at Grandma’s she said “why aren’t we going shopping?” Luckily, Missy and Sara showed up soon after with Noah and David. David is adorable and he hides his eyes behind his sweet chubby baby hands every time I say hi to him. He also grins – a lot. They headed out to have dinner with their other grandmother and we ate with Grandma, Grandpa and Mammy. Grandma made a really good shepherd’s pie as well as ham, pasta, and other yummies! My head was a little better and the food was really good. Maybe it’s just better when you aren’t the one cooking. Aunt Lynn had stopped for a bit and had taken Mammy home but she had forgotten her food in the fridge and she was worried about it so much that right before we left to go into Boyertown, Aunt Lynn called asking about Mammy’s food! Hehehe! Luckily, we were on our way in and already had it packed in the car. After dropping off the potato salad and leftovers and a doughnut, Mom, Dad, Beca and I went to Denise and troy’s (Dad’s brother) – Beca loves to play with Rachel and Andrew but she was already tired and wallowed a lot. Joanne (Dad’s sister) also brought Dayna and Blake over. Couldn't these three be sisters?!?!? We had fun chatting for a while and just visiting. Beca finally got her princess nightgown (reward for going potty) and then we had to drive back. She did not fall asleep this time. So bedtime was a little difficult and I finally just let her sleep with me. Didn’t take 3 minutes for her to fall asleep finally. Oh well – she hardly moved until morning when we both started coughing (after I got up at 5am to close the window). I like fall but to go from 85 degrees to 60 and not even 40 at night is just crazy.

Breakfast was pretty quick so we could get ready for the main reason we drove to PA. Beca didn’t want to wear pants again but I finally convinced her to wear a Halloween tee shirts and polka dot pants. The tougher struggle was getting her to wear her chucks but she was fine with it once they were on. And then we had to struggle in Dollar Tree regarding a pair of broken fairy wings – 50 cents eventually but a lot of screaming too. We also left with purple princess hair, a fairy skirt and an orange “Ta-ree-ra” (tiara). Grumble, grumble. She was out of sorts off and on for a while. We had a great party for Grandpop and got a good picture of the family that was there. Beca and Noah had fun on the swing at my Uncle Glenn and Aunt Dawn’s house and they have all kinds of room in their new house. The basement is pretty much an open room still – they’ve got a TV cabinet, large table, office chair and two camp chairs. Looks more like a interrogation room than anything but Noah and Beca had plenty of room to run! And they ran a lot. Lunch was turkey, stuffing, pastas, and bread. There was a lot of food and it was good. Beca and Noah had their own table and they did pretty good. They ate because Aunt Dawn told them there was cake. And there was cake and it was good. We celebrated number 75 for Grandpop – or “Foxy G” as my cousin Kat is allowed to call him. He got a pile of presents, some more useful than others. Aunt Dawn had buckets and fun foam Halloween shapes – funny pumpkins, bats, etc. And the kids ran around again, this time with Pop-pop and Uncle Glenn chasing them around after we sent the kids down because they were bugging us upstairs and we were half-heartedly watching college football games, some more heartedly than others.

Hoping the children would nap in the car, we left for Aunt Lynn’s. Beca did not nap but Aunt Lynn offered us the opportunity to take Mammy back to her house. No sooner did we pull out of Mammy’s driveway than she was asleep. Then I did a dumb thing and tried to carry her into Lynn’s house. Big mistake. She saw the cats in Lynn’s room and woke up. So Miss Wendy Whiner came out until Kat and Sara volunteered to take the kids down to watch a movie. Whew! Until David woke up and didn’t know where he was and nobody was there to tell him it was ok. Suddenly everyone else started showing up and it was time to hit the parade. We hadn’t gotten the kids dinner but oh well. Beca got tights, leggings, 2 pairs of socks, Red Sparkle shoes that were a size too big, a long sleeved tee and a turtleneck under her Minnie Mouse dress. It was much colder than what we have been used to over the past few weeks. Noah was an elephant which proved very amusing throughout the entire parade as either Democrat or Republican floats and campaigners went past. One float had a Donkey roasting an elephant. David was all cozy warm as Mickey Mouse. The parade was a lot of fun and Beca really enjoyed the music. She did not like the horn honking from the big trucks. She was intrigued by the twirlers, especially the ones that had the fire on their batons. The tiny girls were cute because they had glow slicks on theirs! Neither of the kids liked the hearse that blew fire out of two pipes on the hood – they both hid. Beca under a hat and Noah into his Auntie. The highlight for Beca was Aunt Dee, Rachel and Andrew coming by and giving her candy! She really got into getting candy but Max and some other boys that encroached on our space kept getting in front of her. Lucky for her someone dropped a big pile right where she could get it and with two fistfuls of candy, she came back to me and said “I got all the candy, Mommy!” We’re so proud. About 2/3 of the way through, she said “I’m done. I want to go to Aunt Lynn’s and get something to eat.” So we left early but since the remainder of the floats and groups were on our way, we pretty much saw everything else by walking past it. Beca kept asking “where is the rest of my family?” Beca had a blast, got ¾ of her bucket full of candy and for a week Beca has been saying “remember when we went to Aunt Lynn’s Halloween Parade?”. the ride home was long but all the girls got a nap in. All in all a good weekend!!