Pennsylvania

I was so blessed to be able to spend the 4th of July weekend with Joel and his family in Lancaster, PA! It was so weird to be so far away-yet it only took an hour and a half to get there. Traveling on an airplane is so much easier then driving...although I had a little mix up at the airport. I got off my plane and followed the terminal out to what I thought was the arrival area. Well, I found out later that I was in the departure area. Joel called and was trying to figure out where the heck I was. I was describing where I was: "I can see a "to Delaware" sign... I'm at the end of the building"..."under US Express signs" etc. He kept telling me he was seeing all the same signs-but we couldnt find each other!! Eventually a kind police officer honked at me. Joel not only heard the honk in the phone but also where he was. Haha-the police officer told me I just had to go back in the airport and go up and over the road to the next building. For almost an hour I searched for him and he was less then 200 feet away...just on the other side of the road!

I got to meet his family and spend most of the day with them on Sunday. I was exhausted from working super early shifts at Starbucks, so we just relaxed. Monday we went hiking at a place called "Kelly's Run" (There are two words you will never hear in the same sentence). It was absolutely beautiful! I decided to pick a fight while crossing the river and we both ended up coming home just soaked. His mom just laughed at us. The weather was ridiculously hot and humid-even worse then WI-so it felt great. We did a lot of small things: visiting where he grew up, visiting his mom at the bakery she works at (she gave me a delicious shoo fly pie!) visiting his dad's work, hanging out with his friends, swimming...etc.

On the Fourth we went to the Lititz, PA carnival. Joel was looking around and was going to make fun of everyone actually wearing red/blue shirts to a fourth of july picnic...and then he looked down at what he was wearing: A red shirt. That caused me to look down at what I was wearing: a blue tshirt with white shorts. HAHA-we were a walking American flag! I had never seen as many people come together for fireworks before. The baseball fields we put our blanket on was so covered with blankets, it looked like a quilt the size of a football field! And everyone was so hard core about their fireworks. It POURED maybe 5 minutes into the fireworks. The fireworks kept going-and everyone stayed to keep watching them! It was so hard to look up and watch the fireworks while rain was hitting your eyes. Crazy!

It was a wonderful week of hanging out with Joel and his family-along with some friends from Colorado who also live in Lancaster! I got to see Andy Cakes and his family, and Allie too. It was really great to see them. I get to go back to PA in August-so it isn't goodbye for very long :o)