The Best Of PA

A chilled breeze, a grey sky, crisp yellow leaves dangling from the branches of oak trees, a camping spot.  This is place for us to set up tents and pull out the dutch ovens.  Tents rise from the ground, food is prepared and topped with hot coals, the weather becomes frosty. And darkness covers the grey, twinkling stars from above, a crescent moon, wanes high in the air.  The smell of  sausage and cheese and warm pumpkin pie waft into our noses.  We pray and devour the best sausage lasagna with yellow tomatoe sauce we have ever ingested.  This is bits of heaven, good food, lovely friends, a cool dark sky, family.  Hot cocoa is poured into styrofoam cups, conversation fills the site, there is laughter, singing, smiling. A cool grey morning greets us the next day.  We form pancakes with blueberries over a grill and drown them in maple syrup.  Elly and Eli...

We are such LUCKY DUCKS!!  Yes, we may not go on too many exotic vacations...unless camping is considered exotic.  But...we do lots of local things that are soo fun, like enjoying shows at the Zoellner Center, FREE movie days, and getting Season Passes at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom.  Saturday, that's where we were....at Dorney, checking out the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit.   We hang with my dear friend Janelle and her little boy at Dorney, were cool like that.  It was fun peruzzing the trails, checking out the ginormous dinosuars wag their tails, move thier claws and roar with ferociousness .  Ellyanna (yes the four and a half year old) was the scared one.  She clung to my pant legs for the first ten minutes as we approached the largest dinos.  Eventually she figured out that indeed they were not real, despite their sheer size. We can only stay as long as the ki...

I suppose we don't need a real Cooper reunion.  We average about once a month seeing one another.  We just wish the Campbells could join us more often-Danny's sister and brother in law.  Anywho, Memorial weekend was the perfect time to have a lil get together, which is exactly what we did.  So I guess I like to number things so you know exactly what we did, so here goes: 1) Everyone had fun playing on the swings sets, checking out Danny's pretty garden, and chowing down on pulled pork sandwhiches.  We also ate fresh salad from the garden, chips, sausage stew and soda.  2) After lunch a trip to Lost River Caverns was in order.  It was fun going down into the cool deep cave, especially on such a hot day! 3) Like we need another reason to eat-off the to Rita's Italian Ice we went!  Followed by a trip home to laze around for a bit and chat.  4) Eating time Again!  It wa...

We had a super Saturday in Philadelphia.  We spent exactly $104.00 including tolls, food and parking- but not including gas.  Anyways for our lil family of four that is a steal of a deal.  Wanna know what fun we had-here you are! 1) Checked out Independance Hall and other historical sites such as Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin's printing press.  All FREE!!  I love free tours! 2) Had Cheesteaks from one of those sidewalk stands. Ate on some pretty benches in the historical sections. 3) Went to Smith Park-the kids loved it!  It's free, with awesome playgrounds, a covered bridge slide with burlap sacks you sit on.  Also there is a mansion there filled with toys.  The basment is a little car track for the kiddies- they had a blast!! 4) Went to Reading Terminal Market.  This was fun.  It's like a giant inside farmers market, with all sorts of vendors.  It was fun, very much like the Quakertown Marke...

Elly even got to wear lip gloss, blush and eye shadow                  We all would love to take our kids to a real live broadway show right?  I mean how awesome would that be?  But of course fancy shows such as these costs some big moolah, so in the meantime....while we patiently wait to make those millions, there are cheaper, more creative suggestions.  Yes there are other avenues, such as the crazy "Wiggles" and "Yo Gabba Gabba" shows, but at 65 bucks a pop, I'm thinking not, besides they are soo  weird.  I'd much rather enjoy a classic like a middles school performance of "Beauty and the Beast."            As you can guess by now, we got to see such a show last Friday.  I have a little sister who just happens to be 17 years my younger-oh I feel so old-and she just happened to play the french maid aka the feather duster in h...

Our family loves to visit Cabelas, and we should because we visit pretty often.  It's in between our home and the Cooper grandparents.  Sometimes we meet up there and check out the sites-it's like a museum....a FREE museum!!  We usually buy something, like treats or eat at the buffet they have there, or Danny buys bullets for his guns (Danny does competitive shooting for sport)  But mostly we just walk about and enjoy the scenery.  The kids love looking at the BIG fishies and animals.  Danny is usually busy salivating in the gun section.  I am busy drooling wherever there is food, the candy shop, the buffet, the check out stands where they sell goodies-edible goodies....I love food.  But we always have a good time, and really it's the perfect break between a long trip to Grandmas house.  What's not to love.  You can check it out at exit 29 going west bound on route 78.  I be...