USA Science and Engineering Festival

We went to a HUGE science festival downtown at the Washington Convention Center. First up was an amazing laser light lesson and show put on by SPIE.

 We had 4 hours to spend at the festival and we decided to focus on the two areas that seemed most interesting to our crew: Space (NASA) and Oceanography.

 

  Virtual reality tour of the Orion mission rocket.

 Soft circuits made at the FERMI station (Gamma Ray Space Telescope)

 This year's American girl doll is an astronaut. She had a lot of cool space tools and toys.

 The kids did the NASA scavenger hunt cards. They had to go to 9 stations and talk to the reps at each one in order to get a stamp.  The reward was pass through the fast track line to try the simulator.

Travels in Lancaster

We went up to Lancaster this week to visit the Amish farms, shops, and restaurants. 

We met our friends at a tiny local diner called The White Horse Luncheonette for a delicious breakfast of plate size pancakes and a veggie omelette for me. It seemed to be a local hang out as several Amish families were eating there too. 

Then we went down the road a little way to the White Horse Dry Goods store. It was lit with propane lights and had a little of everything.  We purchased a fun board game that I had read about in some Amish books - Life on the Farm. It is a little like monopoly for farmers - the winner is the first one to buy 60 cows. 

We went to a couple of local grocery stores (Esh's discount grocery and Miller's Organic) and Esh's Hardware and Farm supplies. Esh's Hardware was selling some of the cool Amish scooters that we saw lots of people riding. 

Like this: 

(Note the source. I did not take out my camera much while I was there so as not to offend anyone).  We went to a little petting zoo next to an ice cream shop at Lapp Valley Farms.

 We visited Misty Creek Goat Dairy and I bought several lovely cheeses and homemade goat soap to try.  The counter there was unmanned! all done on an honor system with an open till so that you could make change and everything. 

 All the kids loved the goats, especially Miss L. She wants to get one asap... when our fence is ready.

 

 We finished off the day with an all you can eat buffet of delicious local fare like beets, sweet potatoes, scrapple, pies of all varieties, and plenty of soft serve ice cream.  I was worried about being able to drive home with such a full tummy without drowsing off.  We will definitely be heading back there many more times. We have a lot more places in the area that we wanted to visit.

Happy Easter 2018

 Thursday after ice skating - it was a warm day and everyone played outside all afternoon.

The church Easter egg hunt was Saturday morning. It was so cold - about 40 degrees. 

 

  We love Daddy's holiday spirit!

In the evening we had the cousins' egg hunt.

And finally this morning -- the Easter Bunny brought them some books and peeps. They already had plenty of other candy from the Easter egg hunts.

 And Miss L did not want her photo taken:

From Hubby's Phone: March

Miss L helping with the fence construction:

Brother M acting as usher/bouncer/security guard for the family movie night.

The snow while we were away in VA.

Eyes open and getting more curious about their surroundings.

Making forts in the storage shelves: