Who would have thought

That Easterners loooooove Italian Ice. Within 4.5 miles, I can think of at least 6 places where you can order Italian Ice from a window.

Here we are at Rita's, which is quite popular. Every town has a Rita's. May I recommend the Mango Italian Ice?

Quirks of living in the Lehigh Valley

1. If you plan on getting your car washed after filling it up with gas, think again. No car washes at gas stations.

2. When merging onto a highway from an enterance ramp, be prepared to stop at a stop sign.

3. Kids swim in creeks, not lakes.

4. A very bad day is NOT horrible....it's "Haarable". The word is commonly used and never pronounced correctly.

5. Weekends are spent at the "shore" rather than the beach.

6. I have yet to find a grocery store where you bag your own groceries.

7. There is ONE target for a population of near 800,000.

8. Drivers will stop in the middle of a road (no stop sign present) to let you enter the road from a parking lot.

9. People eat hotdogs from a place called "yocco's".

10. Names of towns nearby: Trexlertown, Shnecksville, Catasaucua, Kutztown

11. Popular last names in the Lehigh Valley: Schaffer, Schermerhorn, Shoohooven, any name beginning with Van

12. A visit to the zoo means you wind up a mountain to get there and ford a creek to exit.

13. PA natives believe all bad drivers must be from Jersey. All Jersey implants think the bad drivers are the PA natives.

14. Houses put candles in all the windows. It's quite quaint and welcoming.

15. Many houses have a large metal star hanging on the front.

16. I think every town has a local "Diner", and most all restaurants are family owned, rather than a franchise.

17. No one ever takes off their shoes when they enter a home.

More to come...

Eatin' More Chikin!

It's a poor quality shot, but as you can see, our herd was welcomed like family by the Eat Mor Chikin' Cow.
In fact, you may see us in a promo sometime soon, as the Chick fil a representative had me sign a release form for the rights to our picture. We also were informed that we could win a grand prize of FREE FOOD for an entire month. Imagine that!

FREE LUNCH

Tomorrow the kids and I will dress up like a cow so that we can get a free Chicken Sandwich at Chik fil a. It's worth it.

Chloe leaves for her missions trip tomorrow morning and so I promised to document our lunch experience with photography for her. We could have gone at supper time, but when I suggested it to Roy he said, "you guys can go do that for lunch." Not sure why he doesn't want to dress up like a cow. His loss.

bad day? This can cheer you up no matter how many times you see it

Birthday Boy

Turned 11 on July 3rd. Happy Birthday!

baby counts by twos

Midnight, two, four, six....

He may be a genius, but he is wearing me out!
Benjamin has taken to waking up and needing food every 2 hours. This has been going on for about three weeks now. Could be that he is over 17 pounds and not yet 4 months. He is also biting his fist all the time and drooling....a tooth is on it's way.

At any rate, I'm not exactly finding his counting by twos quite as novel as when Audrey started doing it at 3 years old.

Perhaps it is time for Earth's Best Brown Rice baby cereal. I'm thinking I'm getting some from the store today. Or I could grind up some steak for him.