Another year of upholding the promise to take the girls to PA at least once a year. This year we held out until December instead of going at my favorite time to go in October. Good thing we didn't make it as we originally planned since they had a blizzard about that time. I feel like an old lady when I truly want to talk about the weather. The bad thing about Jacksonville is that there are very few places that we can fly to directly. This time I actually was able to book us a direct flight to Philadelphia which we almost missed. By almost missed I literally mean that we checked in with our bags with 36 minutes before flight time and that was after valet parking. Being timely is not our strength these days.
First stop was in Media for our Crowley reunion. We are very lucky that Grant has great cousins who also have great families. We spent the afternoon getting to know Meredith who is expecting a little Crowley and our first play date with Austin. Tori and Scott have a brand new beautiful house, Ryan and Adelaide had time to play again and Uncle Mike and Aunt Chris were as sweet as always.
One stop down, a bunch to go which means off to Topton and East Greenville. We spent Sunday at New Gosh (church), breakfast with Nana and an afternoon at Premise Maid (yummm). Though I have lived away from PA for a long time I do still consider New Gosh to be my church. It helps that we can always run into family no matter which service we make it to. Penelope got to meet Nana Adam for the first time and Adelaide was able to perfect her Nana face (when A was a baby Nana taught her to make the silliest little face you have seen).
After our afternoon with the Adam side of the family it was extremely important to get to one of Grant's favorite parts of the trip - Premise Maid. How could anything be better than chocolate anything and everything, blow figurines for A, hedgehog hats on babies, milkshakes and a quick read with Santa. Adelaide wouldn't leave the Mickey alone which was outside and it was cold that day nor could she not touch every piece of chocolate in sight.
After our Premise Maid sugar high we were back to Topton. Within our few days in Topton we ate our favorite pizza at Tonys, saw most of our family and we took a little field trip to Crayola. Adelaide had a great time at Crayola, we did a bunch of crafts and lost our hedgehog hats just in time for our trip to Johnstown where it snowed - sigh.
Another day - another stop for SNOW. No, I don't think you could pay me enough to move to the north where snow is normal, but when you are driving through the mountains and the fresh snow starts falling it is a beautiful sight. Both girl were asleep in the backseat when we were about 30 minutes outside of Johnstown when I just couldn't take it anymore. Yep, I made Grant pull over, wake up the girls and grab the camera. This was trip marked Penelope's first plane ride, trip to PA and experience with snow. Let me through out there that she really didn't care for it and went right back to sleep. Oh well, hopefully she likes her first experience with sand a little more. Johnstown happenings - new dogs, polka, dominos and our only night in a hotel for the week.
Our final stop before boarding a plane back home to FL (yes, we were on time for that flight) was in Pittsburgh. Good Italian food, walking around Bloomfield and a few trips up Grandmas stair chair and Adelaide was in love. We did go out to dinner one night to a place that is going to be on Restaurant Impossible in February, we weren't there for the taping so don't bother looking for us or you will be a little disappointed. Oh and we can't forget our visit to Donatellis (think opposite of anything you have experienced at Publix).
On our way home - safe, sound and completely exhausted. There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed after house hopping for a week.
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