We were visiting the family all last week and it was great! Plenty of relaxation, and plenty of good food. We were grilling out for practically every meal. Evie met some new doggies and kitties, we got some swimming in, played some card and board games, and even saw some fireworks. Everybody helped us watch Evie and did most of the food preparation, etc. so we didn’t have a whole lot to do.

There were some extra special highlights of the trips though:

We took Evie to see some buffalo on a farm by my dad’s house. It was pretty cool, there were lots of babies. Our fun was cut short, however, when someone drove by and threw firecrackers out the window at us. When they went off, they scared us (and the buffalo) half to death. I felt bad for poor Evie who doesn’t even really know what firecrackers are! The buffalo wouldn’t come back over by us after that.

We got a ton of fresh blackberries (mulberries? There seems to be some debate) picked off the vast expanse of pricker bushes lining my dad’s estate. I’m eating some now actually!

We did some more garage sale-ing and found some good buys on Evie clothes, puzzles and toys. This taught me a new fun game, which is checking the rummage sale listings in a small town newspaper to see what you can find. My all time favorite was one that listed “guns” for sale, but I appreciated many more items such as, “Plus size ladies clothes, Harley Davidson and Nascar.” After you’re done laughing at those you can flip over to the real estate section and cry at the ridiculously low prices.

Sara and I snuck out to see a movie to celebrate our anniversary. We saw Public Enemies staring Johnny Depp, which was good and entertaining but didn’t change my life or anything. This was only the second time we’ve seen a movie in the theater since Evie was born, upping our average to one a year.

On the way home we stopped at the Albanese Candy Factory. We have always wondered about it when we passed it on the highway, so we decided to go in and see what it was about. We didn’t do a tour or anything, but we still had a very enjoyable little stop! There is a huge chocolate fountain inside and an absolutely ridiculous selection of bulk candy, which I assume is made on the premises. We bought some truffles, chocolate toffee pecans and something else that Sara picked out which I can’t remember but was just as good as the other two. They also have free samples! Evie screamed about wanting more chocolate the rest of the way home. All in all, it basically reminds me of the Chocolate Castle, with more of a candy selection, but less classy.

Despite being able to relax, it was still somewhat exhausting to be away from home and everything. Exhausting enough that I literally fell asleep waiting for a traffic light to turn green when we were on the way home. Good thing I woke up Sara to keep me company shortly before that!

Finally, for all you haters out there (and those on facebook), I give you a goat on a trampoline: