Strawberry Festival 2010!

Saturday, June 26th
Bright and early, after a long week in Pennsylvania, we piled in the van and headed up north to Maine to a Strawberry Festival! As we were driving through the town, looking for a parking place, the kids were excited to see Uncle Jeff directing traffic. We parked and then met Shaun's sister Nicole and her little ones at the yummy and fun Strawberry Festival! Memere, Jim and and our nephew Alex showed up after and we had a great time! It was quite warm, but we sat in the shade and enjoyed yummy food like Strawberry Shortcake, water, cotton candy, snow cones, french fries, Strawberry Cheesecake and fried dough! It was a great little festival!

After sweating all day, we then went over to Aunt Amanda & Uncle Miles house. There the kids swam, we enjoyed some pizza, visited with family, played with cousins and swam some more!

The kids were in the pool until almost 9pm! They were exhausted--but had a great time!!! :)
Check out this future swim instructor....
He did a great job helping Bryce gain some confidence in the pool! Way to go Christopher & Bryce too!! :)

What a fun weekend! :)

Post #2 : Lake Wallenpaupack

On Tuesday, June 22nd, we got back in the van and headed back over to Hawley, Pennsylvania for the rest of our week at Lake Wallenpaupack. We had lunch and then we headed over to Holley Ross Pottery in LaAnna, PA. It's a fun little pottery shop that I like to visit each year we are in Pennsylvania. I really fell in love with the hunter green Fiesta dinnerware round casserole dish that I bought last year and had to get another---actually two! I got another hunter green one and a black one! I love to use them for casseroles, but I actually used it to melt my candy when I made candy lolly pops for the Cub Scout Blue & Gold in March! I also bought Shaun another large round pizza stone and another rectangle pizza stone for cooking cookies. (I bought one last year, but I wanted another!!)



Even though it was raining a bit when we left, we ventured out to the Holley Ross Park. It is a beautiful spot! I don't have many pics from this time because as I mentioned, it was raining, but we had to go out there! Why you ask? There was a geocache there!!! :) So we quickly hiked the path to the coordinates, grabbed it, logged it and dashed to the car! :)





Wednesday, June 23rd

Today we went to a local zoo called Claws 'n' Paws. It's a small little zoo, but the kids always love visiting it when we come.











This year Anneli fell in love with a little Pygmy Goat. She's been talking about this little goat since we went to the zoo!!

Hmmm....I wonder if Christopher is allergic to goats..... j/k

Sorry Anneli--there is NO chance you will be getting a pygmy goat anytime soon!!!

We also did a little geocaching and visited the Wallenpaupack Environmental Learning Center. While there, we learned a lot about the lake and the many animals in the area. Not sure if the kids will want to geocache anymore since poisonous snakes are prevalent in this area...

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Every night we would spend some time by the lake visiting with the ducks, watching boats in the water, looking for fish, skipping rocks, putting our feet in the water etc. Here are a few pictures of us hanging out by the lake.

Anneli likes to take pictures of EVERYTHING around her--whether you want your picture taken or not......

More, "fun by the lake" pictures...

Thursday, June 24th

Today explored two game land fields as we found two geocaches. Then we took a little ride to Callies Pretzel Factory. I have no pictures, but the kids love this place because here you can see how pretzels are made and then you can buy all kinds of pretzels! We love the soft pretzels! Christopher & Anneli got soft pretzels that were shaped like a dollar sign ($). They were

Friday, June 25th

Today we headed back home to CT. Ready for a weekend of rest before we headed back to Hawley on Monday...

Do you think we rested???? Stay tuned...

Wordless Wednesday

Lake Wallenpaupack

We've been going to Lake Wallenpaupack at the end of June, for probably five years or so. Lake Wallenpaupack is in Hawley, Pennsylvania, about 2.5 hours from our home in CT. It is a man made lake built for hydroelectric power. It is 13 miles long and has 52 miles of shoreline. It's a great place to vacation for a week....or two, as the case was this year...

FRIDAY, JUNE 18th
We still had one more day of school, but we decided to head to Hawley for the weekend and then come back home on Monday for Funday Monday--the last day of school. It worked out nicely because Christopher had an allergist appointment Monday too--which is another post all in itself! So we braved the Friday traffic on 84 and got there Friday evening just in time to watch the beautiful sunset over the lake. (Wordless Wednesday pic for July 7th)

We arrived at the condo Friday evening...

We walked to our quiet special little spot on the lake...

We sat and watched some men fishing....

We also threw in some rocks...
SATURDAY, JUNE 19th
Today we did some geocaching, of course! We love to Geocache!!! :) Here are pictures of the kids and some TB's or Travel Bugs that they found!We found some great places as we followed the coordinates!

Here is one example...

We followed a narrow little road, over a little bridge and found the most beautiful waterfalls--and a geocache of course!

We drove around a lot in the van searching out great spots to explore, hike and geocache. Here is a picture of Anneli in her carseat as she rode in the van...

Here are some pictures of Pepere (my dad), Anneli and Christopher being silly with her hat & mask as we rode.

What a great Pepere!!

As I said above, we hiked a lot as we followed the corrdinates on our GPS to Geocache locations. The parks and gameland areas in Pennsylvania are gorgeous! We saw some beautiful spots like this mother deer and her baby, and found some interesting finds... Sorry!! The kids thought it was pretty cool!

Anneli was tired out after all the adventures as we drove back to our condo that afternoon/evening.

Luckily, she was rested up for our next adventure at the pool by the lake.

SUNDAY, JUNE 20th (Father's Day!!)

Today we jumped in the van with Memere and Pepere and headed to Kitattinny Canoes for a super fun Father's Day adventure. We went rafting down the Delaware River! It was fun, adventurous and relaxing! The Delaware River is beautiful! We saw eagles soaring above us, and watched two fawns frolicing on the side of the river as their mother watched them as we floated down the river... What a great day! :)

YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR PICTURES OF OUR RAFTING. I USED A DISPOSABLE WATER CAMERA, AND I STILL NEED TO GET IT DEVELOPED. I LOVE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY!!!!! :)

We returned home that evening so Christopher could attend his last day of school on Monday! :) But wait!! The fun continues...

School's Out for the SUMMER!!!

I know school has been out for two weeks, and I haven't posted a single post, but we've been super busy around here! We took off for our annual Lake Wallenpaupack vacation--which we extended to two weeks instead of one! We finally got home yesterday!!

The last day of school was Monday, June 21st. It's hard to believe that I now have a 3rd grader and a Kindergartener! It's crazy how time just flies right by. How can I be that old!?! Oh well, it doesn't bother me, I love watching them grow up. Right now I'm listening to Christopher read to Anneli---I love that!! :)

They both had a great year--Christopher in 2nd grade, and Anneli in Preschool. They both will miss their teachers, but are excited to move on in the fall. However, we are not wishing the summer away! We are looking forward to reading, swimming, camps, the beach, reading, museums, reading, traveling, spending time together, and did I say reading!? :)

Stay tuned for pictures from our Annual Lake Wallenpaupack Vacation in posts to follow. It may take me awhile to post, please be patient, we were and still are super busy!! :)