Day Nine: Meeting up with old friends

Today we took a trip to Lancaster County, Pennslyvania. It is well known for the Amish community. This was also the area that made the news a couple of years ago, when the man went into the school house and killed several students. We met up with an old roommate of Mat's from college. Gary and his wife Chantel and children traveled from Maryland to meet us for lunch.

We ate lunch at a family style restaurant (http://www.goodnplenty.com/). It was amazing food and so much of it! We all literally waddled out the door. It was wonderful, and it just kept coming!

We had a great time visiting, in the last ten years, we have seen them twice. We followed them through the country side and enjoyed the sites. I loved the clean farms that they had. It was beautiful country. The horse drawn buggies were fun to see driving down the road, and then the small children that were dressed in simple and cute clothes, complete with hats and bonnets. I wonder how I would do living in a time like that?

On the way back to Philadelphia, we spend a good part of the trip on the phone trying to figure out how we were going to make it home. We were able to use my brother David's buddy passes on the way out. But due to Spring Break and the airlines weekend ban on buddy passes, and my brother changing jobs, we were stranded for an undetermined amount of time. But not to fear, we used more family connections and Mat's brother Scot was very generous and let us use some of his numerous flight miles to get home. As much as he travels I am sure that he has a few extra. Thank you Scot, for being very generous and allowing us to return home with very little expense involved.

We ended the day by going to dinner with Kenya and her son Jamir. We went to a Chinese buffet, one of Kenya's favorites. She brought her four year old son with her. He was really quiet for awhile, but soon Mat had him laughing and having a good time. At this point, Jamir does not realize that he is a big brother to this adorable baby boy. Hopefully later on in life Kenya will tell him and there will be no hard feelings. This picture was adorable with the three of them together. Kenya held Isaac the entire time, fed him, and yes, changed his clothes twice, since he kept peeing through everything. The picture was taken during one of those naked times.

We then went across the parking lot to Walmart and bought a black baby doll. Kenya probably thought I was a bit weird, wanting a doll for a baby, but black baby dolls are rather hard to find here in Utah. (More to come about the doll.) She wanted to pay for the doll, which we let her do. We walked out to the car and Kenya buckled Isaac in, kissed him on the forehead and turned and we parted ways. To say it was a bit heart breaking is a bit of an understatement. We were glad that she had Jamir with her to keep her busy. We are so grateful for Kenya and her generosity. She is a wonderful person and we hope to keep in contact with her in the years to come.