A Birthday and our Vacation

Last Sunday our baby-girl turned seven years old! I was so excited to give her the baby doll we had bought her and her smile made my day. She has wanted a Bitty baby for a few years now and was overjoyed to get to open one up on her birthday morning. I also made her a cute diaper bag for the doll, and the dress she has on in the picture as birthday gifts.

After church, we went to lunch with my parents. The kids all had free certificates from VBS to use and we all had a nice time. Still later in the day, our neighbors came over for cake and ice-cream with us before I got busy packing up for our vacation which was to begin early the next morning.

Happy Birthday Rachael! You bring so much joy to this home. I love that you love pink, and dresses, and babies of all kinds, and braids, and Little House, and your brothers, and pigs (cause they are pink of course), and Daddy and Mommy and most of all Jesus!! May you grow more and more into the image of Christ.

This year we vacationed near Knoebels park, which is kind of in the middle of no-where PA. It was a two hour ride for us, but the kids were excited and it went well. On Monday we arrived, ate the picnic lunch I had made and went to the pool and water slide park. The baby area was wonderful! I spent most of the time in there with the little ones while Joel and the bigger boys did the water slides.

The next day we went back to do all the rides in the amusement park area. Again I packed a picnic lunch, and what is great about this park is that you don't pay to get in but for each ride. We spent for a family of eight, what one admission and parking would be to Sesame Place.

Favorite rides:

Nathanael: Sloosh and bumper cars (all of us, except the two little guys got on this giant log flume. We were soaking wet for our ride back to the hotel, but we all had a fun time)

Jeremiah: bumper cars and little motor boats

Rachael: Tilt a Whirl (I got on with her and couldn't decide if I loved, or hated it)

Benny: Bumper Cars with Daddy and Log flume (Benny was really brave and was excited to go on a few bigger kid rides in addition to the little kid ones that he enjoyed with Eli)

Elijah: Airplanes

Asher: little army jeep with Rachael

After a night of swimming and take out pizza at our hotel, we packed up on Wednesday and stopped at a French-Indian War era fort and then the Pioneer Coal Tunnel on the way home. That was interesting, even though I hate tunnels. It was really chilly in there, but again, the kids all enjoyed it, and I get to count it as school!!! So we sure missed vacationing at the beach, but we had a nice time together at Knoebels instead. The baby did so well and was happy even though he spent the majority of the day on Tuesday sitting in the stroller.