NY Fun

Here are a few random photos from our trip. 

Here is the sunset flying into Chicago on our way to NY. 

The girls had fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Mom made sure to have stories, coloring books, playdough, and new stuffed animals for the girls.

We also took a trip to a very fun grocery store called Sauders. It is owned and operated by the Mennonite. Most of the produce is locally grown and a lot of the products are "homemade" by either the Amish or Mennonite. Any kind of jam, jelly, salsa, canned good, dip, candy, and cheese were there. It was fun to browse through the store and we ended up with several things to take home.

One afternoon we randomly stopped at a dairy farm that makes their own cheese. We were able to do a cheese tasting of about 13 different cheeses. Summer also did it with us and quite liked it as well, which surprised me. Many of them were fairly strong in flavor. We also got a view of the dairy cows in their stalls. Summer was quite entranced with that.

On our first flight home we were on the plane with what looked like a Chinese tour group. Many of them were quite enamoured with our girls and took many pictures of them. At one point, one of them picked up Ellen and was super excited. I was a little nervous about it, but Anders stayed close by. Summer was also good to pose for them and all their pictures. It was pretty funny. When we were getting off the plane, I ended up ahead of Anders (because the Chinese people shoved their way off the plane) and I was tring to get the stroller set up while holding Ellen. One of them came by, offered their hand to Summer, and started walking away with her. They thought it was funny, but it freaked me out. Luckily Anders showed up right then and went and chased her down. We had a little chat about strangers after that and I think we need to have a few more. 

We sampled a little grape pie, which is apparently a New York delicacy. It wasn't that bad, but it definitely wasn't that great. I'd take just about any other kind of pie over grape pie. 

We stopped at another little (ok, this was actually quite large and more of a store) roadside stand. There were lots of fun things to see here. There were giant, beautiful pumpkins for just a few dollars, tons of gourds I've never seen, grapes, apples, and homemade goodies and crafts. This is where we got our grape pie and where Summer convinced Grandma and Grandpa to buy her a little stuffed Halloween owl. It was a pretty cute and fun stand.

Overall, we had a wonderful trip to New York. It was so fun to be able to spend time with my parents and see them working as missionaries. I was glad to be able to show Anders and Summer (Ellen didn't care) the Church history sites, and it was fun to explore some of the local sites of the area. I'm also glad we made it to and from in one piece, with no major disasters on the airplane. I did spend the last day of our trip and then our traveling home with a nasty cold (which I am still trying to get over), so those last couple of days were long. I'm just grateful it hit at the end of the trip instead of the beginning and that no one else has gotten it.