What I Did on Summer Vacation

Whew!  Vacations can be exhausting!  From my neurotic cleaning frenzy I go into before I leave to packing for six people (Steve's on his own), I am more than happy to get in the car to escape the madness.  Our trip this year was a little different than our normal trips to the beach because we were doing a couple of different things.  This created a preparedness I'd never had experienced before.  Three hotels which I wasn't sure of the accommodations and camping for four nights!  Surprisingly, it all fit in our tiny little Honda Odyssey and we were able to scoot away right on time.

That is, after we caught our ever-running puppy.  Rotten dog!

Anyway, our first trek was to Penn State.  My husband has a hobby of collection pint glasses from colleges.  It seemed absolutely imperative to get one from the place he went to Grad School, so off we went.  Coincidentally, it was at the half-way mark to our second stop and only about a 3 1/2 hour drive.  The boys were excited about going to see the stadium and having some legendary ice cream at the Creamery.

The kids on top of the Nittany Lion.  It was fun to show them around some of our old stomping grounds when Steve was at Penn State.

Some pics of the kids eating the delicious ice cream.  You can see the sizes of the ice cream made for some serious tummy aches later.

At Penn State we went on a tour of Beaver Stadium, went to a great athletic museum at the stadium, ate at the Corner Room and walked around Beaver Ave. for a while.  Coveted pint glass - check!

Later in the day, we went to Penns Caves.  We were looking forward to hanging out in the cooler caves after fighting the heat all day.  The kids really loved the boat ride through the caverns and learning about stalactites and stalagmites.  It was a great activity for all the kids.

After a yummy pizza dinner at Faccia Luna, we finally made it to the hotel.

Let me just tell you about the trouble of finding a hotel when you have five children...  Forget about trying to function in the small space with so many people, crawling all over them to avoid stepping on their heads or their accoutrements.  Ugh!  The highlight was Luke trying to procrastinate falling asleep and looking for any excuse to stay awake.  He's pestering his sister, singing songs, going through drawers and finds the Bible.  He says, "Look it's my favorite book!"  The boy's delirious...or a priest in the making.

I'll just say the hotel at Penn State left us all a little cranky the next day for our drive to...

CANADA!

Thankfully adrenaline pushed us through our grumpy snits and we made it across the border.

Part 2 - Stay Tuned!