Although I lived in Pennsylvania for 8ish years, and have driven through amish country, I had never gone to their shops or "restaurants"... until this trip. We drove out and passed a few amish buggies before arriving at a very cozy house (heating + lighting provided by propane tanks).
We walked in the room to see the longest table I have ever seen. (OK maybe it was a few put together... but it was still impressive).
The food was old-fashioned home-cooking and pretty good...[Michael wasn't impressed]... although I have to say my favorite part of the meal was at dessert time when they brought around cold home-canned peaches. I think the twins ate a whole bottle by themselves.
Michael and Julie always do the weirdest poses when they're in pictures together. I have this photo in our wedding album (my surprise to Michael for Christmas this year!!) where he's dipping her and you wonder for a second who the bride is. Weirdos.
I opted for the "classic pose:"
TRADITIONS:
Tradition #1: A Visit from Santa Clause
Every year, my mom has someone dress up as Santa Clause and come to the house on Christmas Eve to deliver one present. Sometimes it's one of the missionaries, sometimes it's a parent, or a neighbor. In this case, it was the oldest son of our family friend. Kind of skinny and half asian, but we don't discriminate at our house.
Tradition #2: Going out to the shooting range.
This is one of the things Michael looks forward to the most every year. My dad loads up clay pigeons and shotgun shells and we go out to the country to live up our hick-origins.
Annika and Chase stayed in the car, so I don't have any photos of them here. Although both of the twins got out, Clare kept saying "scared, scared!" everytime someone would shoot. So I have more pictures of a happy Calli than Claire, but once Claire warmed up, they enjoyed playing in the snow together:
Tradition #3: Drive Jenny crazy by taking family pictures.
You'd think it was the little kids that drove me crazy, right? No... it was the Manwaring woman gene of bossy people who all have an opinion. (I didn't inherit it so I don't know what it's like).
I'm not a big fan of photos indoors, and our group is getting pretty large, but I'm glad that we got a few good ones:
We got back to Seattle the Monday after Christmas and I think I was depressed for the whole week because I missed everyone already. Michael kept making fun of me because I think in the span of three days, I baked everything my mom does (coconut bread, zucchini bread, frycakes x2, etc.).
I feel really blessed to have such a loving family and that everyone gets along. Not sure how we ended up so lucky. My mom says it's because of my dad. I'm pretty sure she's got something to do with it too.
Hope you all had a great Christmas and I'm starting on my New Years Goal of one polaroid pic of Mike and I a day!
2 comments:
You have such a great family. Fun to hear about your traditions and see the new additions. Those twins are cute stuff! FYI - you can send me baked goods anytime you like.
Thank you, Girl! That just made my lonely afternoon lots less lonely (Dad is at the Farm Show). I am moping the kitchen, finally, after all of our festivities -- how gwoss!
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