September Insanity!

September just may take the cake this year...and not just because my birthday falls within it.

We started the month with a much overdue trip to...

Lancaster is in Pennsylvania, in case you're from any other state and didn't know that.  I was so excited, I had to buy these in Michigan to eat on the way.

Coming home is waking up for church and finding that your Mom chose to wear the hemp necklace and beads you made her when you were 13.

Good old Chickies Rock.

Lots of positive changes have been made around here since our last visit.

The trail following the Susquehanna has been impoved and is getting much more usage.

And this bridge is brand new!  When I was a kid, we'd have to climb up a steep hill and walk the railroad tracks if we wanted to keep walking the trail along the Susquehanna.

 Huge amounts of underbrush have been removed from the ruins across the street from Donegal Place, the street I grew up on.  And some of the "ruins" don't look so ancient anymore, with new roofs and doors.  This use to be one of our main forts.

I wondered if I should really be telling the boys my friends and I use to climb up the side of these walls and balance around the top for hours.

The boat dock.

I still have dreams about these places.

This place use to be boarded up, and cracking all over.  It was the old office for the pig iron foundries, now renovated.  The brick row I grew up on in the background, were the workers quarters.

When I was a kid, I use to die of curiosity to know what was inside. It was like a locked box, and also because one of the neighbor boys pried off a corner of boarded window and the only recognizable shape we could make out resembled a vampire coffin.

Not too shabby!  Now it's a little history sight being maintained by a group called Rivertownes.  My Dad's a member as well as a member of the Marietta Restoration Associates, so he's totally on the in.

 Reunion with some church pals.

Heather and Kyle Conger

Chris and Camille Gubbins

It rained on our picnic, which was a dream come true for the kids.

Camille, Lindsay and I.  Such amazing friends.

 The Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair!

Sir Anthony is rocking my Dad's "pioneer shirt." :)

I haven't been here since I was about 14, and it's grown a ton, and is just as theatrical and engaging as I remember.  Every actor and actress so passionately playing their part was really fun to see, unless you were Ira, in which case you would have reacted with terror. And then he started spotting dragons and it was over. 

Root's Farmer's Market

This is probably one of my favorite places in the whole state of Pennsylvania. It's a farmer's market, flee market, auction of live produce and extremely random goods, Amish business place, and source of incredible woopie pies all wrapped up in one.

Ira's sharing face.

My Mom and Dad are the coolest.  

Here they're teaching Anthony how they team cut my Mom's hair.

Here's Anthony's first job on my hair after their lesson.

Mom teaching us how to can jam.

Success.  After getting back to MI, we made some rasperry jam and applesauce as well.

My little cherubs waiting for lunch at the Tomato Pie Cafe.

 Wilbur's Chocolate Factory. 

Unlike Hershey, Lititz still smells like chocolate.

 All you can eat at Shady Maple and Eliot's response to Ira's donut sunday.

Some more favorite people!  Mike and Marie Bradshaw, my pseudo uncle and aunt.

Stevie (Nolt) Blankenship and Nichole (Best) Witman, some of my first friends.  Kindred spirits. :)

My only birthday wish was to go to Hershey park, kid free.  

It was everything I had hoped it would be.

I haven't been to a theme park for 14 years.  It was good to be back. 

...except that hour and a half when they stopped all coasters due to "the weather."  There was a lightning storm 15 miles away.

Birthday dinner with the fam, and amaaaazing cheesecake.

And I was lucky enough that my cousin Marie was passing through PA the same day.  She's working on same beautiful art these days.

My parent's default pose for photos is apparently American Gothic.

I LOVE them!

On the way home we routed through Penn State to visit some Quinn cousins. 

Anthony and Sterling.

Rachel and the kiddos.

 The very next day was Ira's first day of Preschool.

A couple weeks later, I subbed for a parent who couldn't make it to preschool to assist on the condition that I could bring Eliot.  And I had to post these, because he was in heaven!  All the adults kept laughing at how much he fit right in...with the tiny exception that his language is still about a year behind where it should be.

Trip to the Toledo Zoo.

Random other bits of life.

Raspberry picking.

Ira explaining the facts of life.

Anthony digging a giant whole in our yard with the neighborhood kids.

Detroit

We were lucky enough to have my cousin and uncle come stay with us while they worked on an art show for the Mid Atlantic Printmakers Conference in Detroit.

Me and cousin Jay Wallace.  His show was beautiful and profound, contrasting Detroit's grand past with some of it's current deterioration.

It was a lively night in Detroit, so we dragged the kids around way past their bedtime so we could hit the a sort of art crawl called Delectricity.  So fun.  This city has some very cool things going for it.

My sweet Uncle Don.