" The Rest of the Story"

Now that the craziness of the Christmas Season is over, I must rewind and tell you "the rest of the story" about our fantastic trip between Thanksgiving and Christmas! When we left NYC on Wednesday, December 3rd, and said our " Goodbyes for now" to Amy, Corin, Evan and Pressley, we travelled to Philly to pick up our dear friends, Russ and Susie, at the airport there. They flew from Atlanta( their home now is in Dublin, GA)to join us on the 2nd leg of our trip. They were former BBC members whose friendship became even more special when we all lived in Jacksonville, FL in the '80's. After meeting up in Philly, we drove to Lancaster, PA to visit the beautiful, quaint, Amish country. I had read virtually all of Beverly Lewis' books about the Amish and had yearned to see for myself the location of those wonderful stories of faith, family and the "simple life". We were able to meet several Amish women, see their beautiful farms, observe Amish children at their small schoolhouse, read the inscriptions on the toombstones at one of their cemeteries and see their "plain clothes" hanging on the clothesline at one farmhouse. It was fascinating to all of us. We also were able to attend two moving Christmas shows
there in Lancaster. The story of Christmas truly came alive for each of us and set the tone for a glorious Christmas season.
Next we went to Hershey, PA and experienced the process of making Hershey products such as Hershey Kisses! That was fun and, of course, we had to sample lots of chocolate. After 3 nights in Amish country, we then travelled down to Charlottesville, VA to visit Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. Just as we arrived there, it began to snow, so it was a beautiful visit!
The last evening of our trip was spent with another special couple, Elaine and Jack.
Elaine and her late husband, Doug, were close friends also in Jacksonville. While we were there, Doug was killed while jogging not far from our house. Elaine has been through a lot, but we were so blessed to see that she now has another wonderful man to share her life. It was a sweet evening.
We feel so grateful to have had this great trip, but it was made especially sweet to have been able to share it with dear family and friends.