Now and Then

I know you’ve been hearing a lot about this lately, but I’m trying to soak up and enjoy Pennsylvania as much as I can. I’m guessing this is the most amount of time I’ll be able to spend here in a very long time. Also, it’s been interesting to see what’s the same and what isn’t compared to 10 years ago when I was a permanent resident. So this entry is probably going to be incredibly boring for anyone who doesn’t have Ellsworth somewhere in their name, or who hasn’t lived in Marietta or Lancaster for 10+ years. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, I’m guessing you’ll be bored if you force yourself to read this. Or you could skim it and be slightly amused by what a country bumpkin I am.

Changed: Donegal Place. For those of you who don’t know, this is the dead end street I grew up on. A brick row of houses, surrounded by jungle-like, let your childhood imagination run wild, forest. The houses don’t look that different, it’s what’s across the street that has changed. Our old ruins and forts are actually well groomed. Brick walls aren’t covered in graffiti, there are no old tires laying around ready to give your short legs a boost up a tree, and the trails are mulched. It’s actually pretty nice. But it’s definitely different. The target audience is more like old couples that would like to go on strolls, as opposed to jungle children who would like to run wild. The Loner is even getting totally restored! I’ll take pictures.

Unchanged: The Food. Lebonon bologna, hamloaf, scrapple, shoofly pie, whoopie pie, red beat eggs, chow chow, funnel cake… They’re all still here in all their glory. Anthony’s fully embracing PA’s obsession with pretzels. So far we’ve had caramel pretzels, a sandwich with a pretzel bun, peanut butter filled chocolate covered pretzels, a pretzel dog, a pretzel the size of both of our heads put together, and now I just need to serve pretzels as an ice cream topper. Mmm.

I actually had normal scrapple for the first time ever the other day. It wasn’t anything like the deliciousness Mom makes every Christmas. I wouldn’t say it was absolutely disgusting, but I definitely wouldn’t say it was pleasant. It was the flavor of sausage but the texture of corn meal. Weird. On a sweeter note, Wilbur buds are still better than Hershey kisses.

Changed: Racial diversity. It’s about time. It’s nice to see that Marietta doesn’t seem quite as monochromatic as it used to be.

Unchanged: The weather. Still hot hazy and humid.

Changed: 441. It’s lined with townhouses, that apparently aren’t selling very quickly. There’s also a Disney world sized church that Ant calls the “Mega corn field Church.” The farmland next to Sheetz is up for sale as commercial space. :(

Unchanged: Marietta Day. I got a pair of cute, red shoes for $1. And as we were sorting through 50 cent baby clothes, we gathered four items and tried to pay two bucks. The guy smiled and said, “Eh, make it a dollar.” We told him he was a hard bargain.

There was a pretty good band playing, made up of kids maybe in their late teens. It was surprisingly folksy and simultaneously great music. We later overheard them telling friends they’d be playing at the Chameleon this weekend. Happy.

Unchanged: Mrs. Madsen…coolest high school art teacher ever. I saw her on Marietta day, she says hi to all of you Ellsworth girls out there. I don’t know if you know this, but all I had to do was mention my heritage as an Ellsworth and she exempted me from Intro to art.

Changed: No Marietta still doesn’t have it’s own grocery store, or traffic lights on its main (market) street, but it does have it’s own theatre company. It’s called the Susquehanna Stage Co., and it’s run by Jim Johnson the director of my high school musicals. It makes me happy. Also Unchanged: Nichole (one of my best friends from elementary, middle and high school), is playing in many of their productions, as she should.

Unchanged: Kindness. I strapped on Ira, and headed on a 3 mile walk with Anthony to go pick up our car from the shop. 3 miles isn’t particularly long for us, but we started getting nervous after the 1st mile when the grey skies turned black, and drizzle turned into GOLF BALL sized hail! This all happened rather quickly, so we turned around and sprinted, while dodging huge marbles from the sky. Anthony cried out “I’ve been hit,” as I continued to cover Ira’s head, and made it to the cover of Herr’s Market just as I was hit on the head. It mostly hurt my pride though. We and everyone in the market watched with awe. The ground was covered in white, and the hail falling made explosive splashes in puddles. We stalled for some time and finally picked up the offer of a persistent Samaritan who insisted on driving us to the auto shop. The storm had pretty much passed by then, but we weren’t sure if there would be another surprise attack or not. So nice. I still need to make her some brownies or something.

Changed: Park City. The Mall in Lancaster, not the city of Anthony’s origin. This caused for only slight confusion in the beginning of our relationship. Anyway, Park City looks so modern. They’ve somehow afforded a mega face lift since I’ve been there last…6 years ago? We were checking out phone deals there. Let us know if you have any suggestion on phones or phone companies you absolutely love.

Unchanged: Roots. Ant gave a great update on what this farmer’s market is like. If you haven’t been there for 10 or 15 years, it’s exactly the same. When we went to the Intercourse Amish/Mennonite Visitor’s Center, Anthony asked our Amish friend Sam, something about Roots. Sam didn’t know what we were talking about until it registered. “Oh, you mean ruts.” I apparently forgot how to really pronounce it.

Unchanged: The landmark donkey is still there. That’s right. Here in Lancaster county we don’t remember the names of roads, we instead give direction that sound something like this. “Turn left at the golf ball house, you’ll know it when you see it. Go straight for a while and then turn left at the donkey. This particular donkey (the one on Colebrook road next to the tree that swallowed the sign), has been there FOREVER! I thought he actually died because his little grazing area has been vacant for a while, but then Anthony discovered that he’s looking extremely old and hangs out in the back by his little shed. How will we give direction when he dies?

Unchanged: Lancaster 2nd Ward. There are loads of new faces, but the staples are still there: The Shaffers, Williamsons, Gubbins, Resslers, Merrises, Calverts, Herberts…and for not much longer the Pickets.

That was extremely long, but let me know if there’s something you’d like an update on that I didn’t cover. Love you!
Sharon

New born to Infant

So, I don't know when it happened, but Ira is defiantly no longer in the New Born category. Looking at him you can't help but notice how big he is getting. I thought I'd through a quick update out on him here are the highlights:

• He is a wonderful sport on all of our adventures we've been going on around here.
• He has been struggling to overcome his first diaper rash/ possible yeast infection. We're hoping it goes away soon.
• He loves mirrors! 
• He really likes making noises with his tongue on his lips, you know the spiting kind of noises.
• He rolled over from his stomach to his back for the first time

We're learning to get sleep when we can

We are reading to him more, he seems to like it

Our little narcissist

Roots Country Market

Sharon has always been telling me stories about this country market auction called Roots. It happens every Tuesday and is huge. All the Amish, Mennonites, and other farmers in the area bring their goods together and have a huge farmers market. There is a livestock auction where hens, chickens, etc are auctioned off and there is a produce/other goods auction. Beside the auctions there is a typical farmer market. There are buildings with stands where you can find many different goods from food to crafts. Some of the booths have been occupied by the same families for generations. It is a pretty neat experience with good prices for excellent produce and the like.

Sharon took me to the Pretzel Shop where she remembers getting pretzels as a little girl. Did I mention I love pretzels? Check out this huge pretzel they sold. We shared it for Lunch and Dinner.

Amish Country

Yesterday we headed out to Amish Country. We started the day out at Miller's all you can eat buffet. They had great food. We stopped by their quilt shop, which was amazing. I think my mom would have loved it, no I know she would. You had to wear gloves to handle any of the merchandise. All the quilts were hand stitched with complicated patterns.

After that we headed out on a loop through Paradise (Like in Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" song)

Sign me up

Intercourse (yes, that is the name of the town)

and Bird In Hand (yet another odd Amish town name).

We took a lot of back country roads and saw a bunch of farms with the Amish out plowing with their horses and their laundry hanging to dry. We also passed a bunch of horse drawn buggies. Why don't I have pictures? Well, since Mozambique I've been wrestling with taking pictures of other people's life styles as a tourist. How would you feel if people from all over the world came to stare at you like you were in a zoo and take pictures of you doing your everyday work, often times without your permission? What's so entertaining about it? It was also hard to find a place to pull over on the road to pull out a camera. It was nice to just drive through the community and experience it.
We also ran into a guy in the Intercourse visitor's center that was Amish and we talked for a long time, mostly about religion and the motivations and ideals that lead the Amish to live the way they do. He was old order Amish growing up, but recently left to be with what he called the, "Fellowship", which is a group of Amish that use cars and things. It was interesting that his motivations for leaving the Old Order were on the basis of his born again view of Christ and his atonement, not because of the lifestyle or strict use of technologies.

Wilbur Chocolate Company

We usually go to Hershey Chocolate World, but Sharon decided to show me a smaller chocolate operation, Wilbur Chocolate Co. They are famous around here for the Wilbur Bud, a Hershey Kiss type of chocolate treat. We talked with one of the chocolate workers in the 'tour' for about 45min. I personally liked it a little more than the Hershey experience, although Hershey is probably more appropriate for little children.

This place made me want to become a chocolatier and open a little confection store some day. I didn't really take pictures inside so we just have this family hoody picture outside. 

We had to stop at this cute diner across the street to try their traditional mixed fountain drinks. They were good. The owners were this cute old couple that used to come to the diner when they were little.

Catch Up

I've been doing a lot of catch up lately, but not enough keeping up on the blog. We got a new camera and I started taking a ton more pictures. I decided before things got too out of hand I needed to organize all our past photos. This morning I finished labeling and organizing our photos from the last seven years. I wanted to post a bunch, but it would be out of control. I have neglected the blog while focusing on this project, so I need to catch up. Enjoy the pictures of our adventures over the last few weeks.

 Conference weekend was spent in Niagara Falls, New York with the Romero's (Sharon's sisters' family). We had fun going on walks/hikes and exploring the area. This is a picture of Sharon and her sister on a hike by the river and a picture of Ira when we were at Lake Ontario.

After Niagara we headed south to Washington DC and were able to catch the Cherry Blossoms. They were beautiful. We got some fun family pictures.

The weather in Pittsburgh was nice and we were able to make it out to a Pirates (Baseball) game. It was a good game too, we won it at the very end of the game. We had Ira dressed up in his Pirate uniform we got.

At the end of April our apartment contract was up and so, sadly, we have left Pittsburgh. We've kept to the right of the country and have migrated East to Marietta for the month of May. Sharon's parents are letting us use their place while we wait for what's next.

We've been having fun here, I'll post more on that next.