"We're Here"!!

Oh, it was priceless. You should have seen the girls faces and heard the laughter in the van.

From the top: Mom, my Aunt Kathy, Sophie, Alena their cousin Sarah and myself load up the van and head to the Pocono mountains in search of the Great Wolf Lodge (http://poconos.greatwolflodge.com/) a couple of weeks ago.

Aunt Kathy had printed directions from Mapquest and I had the GPS. As we get pretty close BOTH sets of directions tell us to take this VERY sharp right turn off of a main road. Make the turn and there is a very old gate that is open with a sign that is so faded that you can't read it anymore. "Must be in these woods ahead somewhere. After all it is in the Pocono Mountains!" I thought to myself as Mom and Aunt Kathy were saying "It CAN'T be in here!"

The directions lead us on VERY narrow and winding roads until we reached the summit!! I am not kidding, we were headed down the steepest narrow hill and I thought my Aunt was going to die. She said, "You're not going to go down there are you?" I said "That's what the directions say. It must be down there and after all, we're in MOM'S van. "!! LOL

We reached the bottom of the hill, my GPS friend said turn left and the little victory flag appeared on the screen and she said "ARRIVED AT DESTINATION."

I was CRACKING UP inside as I put the van in park and said to the kids with a straight face "We're here. Which one do you want to stay in?". Sophia looked out the window and said "Mommy, can we just go home?"!!

We were facing a small circle of four old camping trailers. One camper's occupants were outside, so I rolled down the window to see if they were familiar with the Great Wolf Lodge. A woman started walking toward us and I believe she had as many teeth as the baby that the other woman was holding! She was also being followed by a black lab, a chocolate lab and a yellow lab!! (all soaking wet from the "crick" that ran behind the camper!!

Well, low and behold (!) she had never heard of the place, but "Wait, her husband might know."

He comes from behind the camper turning off his CHAINSAW with his bare belly. I swear the whole seen was like straight out of a movie! After the nice man gave us directions, my Aunt teased him that he was almost stuck with us for a couple of nights. He replied, "Well, it is pretty nice campin' here."!! LOL Too funny!!!

We thanked him, and were on our way. (Although Aunt Kathy wouldn't let me go back UP the hill that we came down!)

In the end the Great Wolf Lodge was AWESOME!!! We all had so much fun. The waterpark is incredible and us adults had as much fun as the kids! Sarah and Sophie had a blast with Magiquest too. Miss Alena marched around the kiddie pool like she owned the place and she loved the kiddie slides!

We will definitely be returning for some more fun.

Love to all and enjoy what's left of summer!

Jenni

Yearly Excursion!

Denise and I set off for our yearly excursion to Ohio. It's different every time and we always have a blast. We learn lots whether we attend classes or not. : )

(Which this year, we did!!)
We were on a tighter "budget" than usual, so that made for some interesting times! I tried my damnedest to win a stinking Tuscan dinner and she sat around forever to get the chance to play "Corn Hole" with a Longaberger weaver in order to get a Wordworks cutting board, didn't happen & didn't happen!!

We also seemed to miss the free cake after the "Cake Walk" that we didn't even catch a glimpse of.

We didn't win a single giveaway in the Nation Wide Arena (practically pulled a muscle to get the Bee Boys attention for a free t-shirt!!) and the only reason I scored a Longaberger Family Signing card was because someone in the company store gave one to me!

It seems I am the first person to tour the Longaberger "Handles" Department, TWICE. You see, no one wants to tour that building even ONCE. The poor guys beg you to get off the bus when it pulls up. I made Denise get off to take the tour because I felt bad for them and we have done everything else numerous times. We take the tour and there is a game at the end. If you win, you leave with a HUGE Longaberger handle. I'm not kidding, it's huge. It fits the street basket, it's engraved and I think it's nice. Well, Denise walked out with a handle and yours truly DID NOT. Like the only child that I am, I rode that bus right back to the Handles Department, got off the bus and the guys thought they were having heat stroke!! I explained to them that I was back, I was making my best friend miserable and I wasn't leaving without a handle!! They were shocked that I was willing to take the entire tour AGAIN and they were cracking up! The second time through, I got to use some of the machinery used in making the handles, that was cool and where they have you sign your name on a wall, they had me take an orange marker and write "X 2" next to my name. Too funny. In the end, I "played" the game (they totally let me cheat!) and I left with a cool huge solid maple handle!! Denise and I then continued to attract A LOT of attention for the rest of the day, carrying around these handles and having to explain how we acquired them!! It was interesting getting them home on an airplane and mine will soon be proudly displayed on top of my china cabinet with a nice berry vine. : )

We had LOTS of laughs, stayed in the best hotels, ate the most awesome Belgian waffles in the WORLD, totally used our free drinks cards each night, had lunch in Popeye's including "One Bites" for desert, once again had our yearly picture taken in front of the "big basket" in Dresden and THANK GOD for Rice Krispy Treats!!!

Looking forward to sharing "what's new" with everyone at our Open House and of course, looking forward to next year!!

Jenni

Cousins

Miss Lily came and spent the weekend with us and the girls had a great time together. There was lots of "girl" talk, especially at night. They enjoyed staying up a "little" late, eating popcorn, watching movies and chatting/giggling away.

Lily claims that I was trying to kill her with our evening walks! She's a character! We got to watch the blue heron for a while one night. Other than that, we had some good times at Orange County Park, did lots of swimming and barbecuing! Looking forward to you spending some more time with us, Lil!

With Love,

Aunt Jenni

Starting Over...

On a sad note, we lost all of our koi fish last week. We ended up with a rare parasite after purchasing two new fish. Fred took one of the fish for an injection and treated the water as advised, but in the end we lost all six of our big koi and eleven babies. We are pretty heart sick to say the least!

Fred buried all of the fish, shocked the water and then completely drained the pond and wet vac'd all of the rocks. It is now refilled and cycling. Thanks to everyone that helped out!!

Other than that, everything has been great! We spent five days camping in Connecticut over July 4th and really enjoyed ourselves. We had a great time swimming and we ate at our favorite two spots- Dave's and Fishtale's!

Alena got to go on her first Merry-go-round at Fishtale's. Too cute!

Lily will be joining us for some Perna craziness this weekend-we can't wait to have her.

Denise and I will be spending a few days in Ohio at the end of the month for our Longaberger Bee and then Mom, myself, the girls, Aunt Kathy and Sarah will be heading to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos for a couple of days in August. Sophia is SO excited about that adventure!!!

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer!

Love to all,

Jenni