Living Our Dream

Company!

Berlin, OH - Events of Saturday, August 27 to Monday, August 29, 2016

It's been a little longer than usual since our last post. That's because we didn't do much last week except run a few errands. We hung around the rig much of the time where Paul worked on a couple of small projects and we also did a little cleaning out and reorganizing.

This week, however, we have company. On Saturday, Lora, J. Michael and Lydia pulled into the site behind us at Scenic Hills. As usual, we watched Lydia while they got set up.

Poppy playing with Lydia while Lora and J. Michael set up

As soon as they finished setting up and had lunch, we all decided to head out to the Holmes County Flea Market, which is just down the road from the RV park. The Holmes County Flea Market is one of two flea markets in the area. Both are indoors and both sell mostly new merchandise. Lydia got into the swing right away by trying out a kid-sized shopping cart for sale at one of the booths that sold toys and games.

Lydia trying out a shopping cart that was just her size

Lydia also had fun test driving a rocking horse. It was one of three different ones she tried.

Lydia testing a rocking horse at the flea market

After the flea market, we headed back to Scenic Hills where we enjoyed a delicious dinner of Greek stuffed peppers Margery had whipped up. She also made a low carb chocolate cake in the crock pot. Rather than wheat flower, low carb desserts are made from things like coconut flower and almond flower. The cake, which was rich and moist, was more like a brownie. It was delicious topped with whipped cream.

On Sunday, we all just hung out at Scenic Hills. The weather has been very hot lately, so Lora and J. Michael got Lydia a sprinkler at the flea market the day before. They hooked it up on Sunday afternoon, and Lydia enjoyed running through it.

Grammy watching Lydia run through the sprinkler

Another pass through the sprinkler

Later in the afternoon, a thunderstorm with strong winds popped up. Our weather station recorded a wind gust of 47 mph. Fortunately, aside from delaying our dinner of grilled steaks, there was no damage. Even with a dinner that was later than planned, we still had time to go to the local Dairy Queen in town afterward. The Dairy Queen, which opened last year, is one of the few places in the area that is open on Sundays.

On Monday, we hung around Scenic Hills again for another day of relaxation. Lydia, who had gone without a nap for two days in a row, took a nice, long one on Monday. On Tuesday, we were out and about again. We'll tell you what we did in our next post.

Planet Bounce

Berlin, OH - Events of Thursday, August 11, 2016

At the end of our last post, we told you we had a trip planned to another planet. The name of that planet is Planet Bounce.

Well, okay. It's not really another planet. Planet Bounce is the name of a children's attraction in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, (located just a little south of Pittsburgh) that is filled with bounce houses for kids to play in. We thought it would be fun to take Lydia, so we drove to Pittsburgh on Thursday morning then headed to Planet Bounce with Lydia and Lora. We got an early start because, while they have longer hours on weekends, they are only open from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The cost is $10 per child. Adults are free. Parents are permitted into the bounce houses with their kids.

When we first arrived, Lydia, who doesn't adapt quickly to new things, was a bit overwhelmed. There were dozens of yelling kids running around, and there was the constant, loud hum of all the blowers that were keeping the bonce houses inflated. We had a hard time deciding what to try first.

The girls all looking bewildered trying to decide what to do first

After watching some of the other kids play for a few minutes, Lora and Lydia decided to try the smallest of three inflatable slides. That sounded like a good choice because Lydia likes slides; but with this one, the kids have to climb through several narrow openings to get to the top of the slide. Lora went in with Lydia to help her through.

Lora helping Lydia through a tight squeeze

Lydia was a afraid of the small openings, especially with the whole thing shaking constantly from all the other kids moving around inside. When Lora lifted her through the opening in the photo above, Lydia was all by herself on the other side of the barrier and started to cry. Lora pulled Lydia back and lifted her out over the side to Margery before climbing back out the entrance herself.

The biggest slide had a ramp that went straight to the top and that wasn't in a confined area, so they decided to try that one next. Lora helped Lydia to the top.

Lora and Lydia going up the big slide

Lydia liked the ride down, but she wasn't ready to try it again because, although the the ramp is not in a confined space, it is very steep and it jiggles a lot when the other kids are moving around. Not only that, but some of the bigger kids insisted on trying to push past Lora and Lydia on the way up making things even more uncertain for Lydia.

Just as Paul was starting to think taking Lydia to Planet Bounce might not have been such a good idea because she was still a little too young, we found a small room off the main room that was a lot more quiet and that had some foam blocks that the kids can stack and crawl on and under. Lydia quickly started feeling more at ease.

Lydia climbing on the blocks

Lydia climbing through the blocks

Lydia emerging from the tunnel under one of the blocks

The small room also had a wall maze with space aliens, rocket ships and comets. It was cute because it kept with the "planet" theme. Poppy and Lydia played with it for a while.

Lydia and Poppy playing with the rocket ships and space aliens (Oh, to be able to squat like that!)

When Lydia started losing interest in the things in the small room, we all headed back out to the main room where Lora and Grammy took Lydia into a plain bounce house that had no slides and no obstacles. It was just a rather large, inflated space with nylon mesh sides where kids can jump around. Lydia had trouble keeping her balance when the other kids were bouncing and was a little afraid at first, so Lora held her hands and jumped with her. As Lydia started getting used to having everything around her move and shake, she started having fun.

After Lydia got used to being in confined spaces by climbing under the blocks in the smaller room, and after she got used to having everything moving and shaking around her in the plain bounce house, she was ready to try the slides again. She still needed help getting to the top of the big slide and through the mazes and tight squeezes in the smaller ones, but she loved them all - especially the tall slide.

Lora and Lydia on the big slide

Poor Lora got really tired from all the climbing, lifting and jumping she had to do to help Lydia, but we were happy to see Lydia get used to all the new experiences and eventually start enjoying herself. We didn't know the bounce houses would require so much adult assistance for smaller kids like Lydia or we would have waited until next year to try it. By 12:30, Lora was worn out and we were all hungry, so we headed back to the house for lunch.

After Lydia's nap, we headed to the Texas Roadhouse in nearby Bridgeville to meet J. Michael after work for dinner. J. Michael had gotten a coupon for a free appetizer, so we all shared an order of Rattlesnake Bites, which are deep-fried cheese and jalapeño balls. They were outstanding.

Texas Roadhouse has 8 or 10 early bird specials for $8.99 before 6 p.m., so that's what we all had. J. Michael had grilled chicken, and the rest of us had 6-oz sirloin steaks. Everything was yummy!

After dinner, we said our good-byes and headed back to the rig in Ohio.

Shoenbrunn Village

Berlin, OH - Events of Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Schoenbrunn Village is the partially reconstructed site of the first American settlement in the Ohio Territory. It is located in New Philadelphia only about 40 minutes from Berlin. Since we pass the exit for Schoenbrunn our way to and from Pittsburgh, we have always been curious about it so we headed to Schoenbrunn last Tuesday to check it out.

Paul heading up the sidewalk toward the visitor center at Schoenbrunn Village

Admission to Schoenbrunn Village is $7 for adults ($5 for seniors). The 11-minute video in the visitor center gives excellent background information. Schoenbrunn was founded in 1772 by missionaries of the Moravian Church. Moravia was a country that was located in the present-day Czech Republic. The Moravian Church began as the Hussite Movement (followers of John Huss) in Bohemia in the early 1400s. Like Martin Luther and others who followed, John Huss disagreed with some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church and eventually broke away from it.

The Moravian Church sent out missionaries to many places in the world such as Greenland, Africa, the Caribbean, South America and North America. In 1741, they established Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as a mission to minister to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians.

When tensions between the colonists and Britain increased in the early 1770s, the Moravians, who were pacifists, decided to locate a mission in what they hoped would be a more peaceful area farther west. Their goal was to minister to the Indians who had previously moved west as a result of the increasing population in the east. A group led by David Zeisberger ended up in the Ohio Territory near a spring in the Tuscarawas River Valley. They gave the place the name "Schoenbrunn," which is German for "beautiful spring."

The settlement grew to 60 buildings with 300 inhabitants consisting of both Indians and Moravian missionaries and their families. Although the Moravians originally established the mission at Schoenbrunn to escape tensions between the colonists and Britain, the Revolutionary War eventually caught up to them and put them in danger. Schoenbrunn was abandoned in 1777, and the inhabitants moved to an area near what is today Coshocton, Ohio.

When Zeisberger and his followers left Schoenbrunn, they burned the church so it could not be desecrated, and the remaining buildings were eventually reclaimed by nature. Then in the early 1920s, a Moravian minister from nearby Dover, Ohio, sought to memorialize Schoenbrunn. He located the site through research of the Moravian archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After an archaeological investigation and more research using diaries of David Zeisberger and others, the first log cabin and the school were reconstructed in 1927. Today, in additional to the visitor center, there are 16 reconstructed buildings including David Zeisberger's cabin, the meeting house (church), several white settlers' cabins and several Indian cabins.

After watching the video, we visited the small museum in the Visitor Center where there are artifacts from the late 1700s that represent the types of things the settlers at Schoenbrunn might have had. There are also a few shards of pottery and glass as well as fragments of tools, knives, spoons, locks and hinges that were actually found at the Schoenbrunn site during the archaeological dig.

Margery checking out some of the artifacts in the museum

Moravian mission settlements were usually laid out in the shape of a cross, but local topography prevented that. Therefore, Schoenbrunn was laid out in the shape of a letter "T" with the meeting house at the center. The visitor center is at one end of the top bar of the "T."

View from the visitor center toward the "T" intersection

Meeting house (left)

Interior of the meeting house

Another view down the street

The Indian cabins were made of round logs, while the settlers had cabins with logs that had been hewn into a square shape.

Indian cabin with round logs (left) and settler's cabin with hewn logs (right)

Supplies were sent to Schoenbrunn from Bethlehem or they were bought from fur traders out of Pittsburgh. The settlers brought a few animals with them, and they also hunted and fished. They grew corn, squash, beans and other vegetables.

Garden areas

There are sometimes people dressed in period costume at Schoenbrunn demonstrating various crafts. Since the people doing the demonstrations are volunteers, their schedules are somewhat hit-or-miss and there is no published schedule. When the demonstrations do happen, they most likely take place on weekends or during special events.

Candle-making equipment set up in one of the cabins

The cabins were modest, and the interiors were fairly spartan and utilitarian. The one in the photo below is one of the fancier ones with a wooden floor and whitewashed interior walls.

Interior of one of the cabins

Utilitarian shelving

The wooden floors were hand-hewn and would have been hard enough to keep clean, but some cabins had dirt floors. Ugh!

Interior of a cabin with a dirt floor

Zeisberger didn't want to interfere with the Indians' way of life - he just wanted to teach them about Christ. Therefore, the Moravians' ministry to Native Americans was unique because the Lenape were taught in their own language. Zeisberger studied Native American dialects as a young man so he was able to develop a spelling book of the Delaware language even though no written form of their language had previously existed. A dictionary, hymn books and even sermons were translated into the Delaware language.

The school was the second largest building in Schoenbrunn after the meeting house. It stood in an important spot across the street from the meeting house.

Inside the schoolhouse

We also walked to the cemetery at the far end of the street at the base of the "T." The original wooden crosses are long gone and have been replaced by flat, carved sandstone markers placed there in the late 1920s when the village was first being rebuilt. Much of the lettering on the soft sandstone has either weathered away or is filled with lichen and moss making the inscriptions difficult to read, but a plaque at the cemetery lists all the names of the deceased as well as all of the inscriptions. The bodies are buried in groups according to their age and marital status rather than by families. Older, married men are in one section; and young, unmarried men are in another. The same is true for the women. Children are in a completely different area.

Schoenbrunn isn't a major attraction by any means. In fact, if you aren't interested in history you will probably find it boring because many of the buildings are so similar inside and out. However, for those of us who are interested in history, it isn't always about what we see - it's about what we learn. We had no idea Schoenbrunn was the first American settlement west of Pennsylvania. It was also interesting to learn about the Moravians and about their world-wide ministry.

We were also excited to be able to tie together the Moravians in Schoenbrunn with the Moravians in North Carolina that we encountered back in 2007 when we visited Old Salem while touring NASCAR country northeast of Charlotte. The Moravians in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, established Old Salem in 1766 as a craft and trade center for two other Moravian settlements in the area. Click here to read about our 2007 stop in Old Salem.

When we left Schoenbrunn, it was after 2 p.m. El Pueblito Mexican Restaurant, where we stopped several weeks ago after visiting Dennison Depot, was only minutes away in Uhrichsville and was on our way back to Scenic Hills. (Imagine that!) Since we liked El
Pueblito and since we were hungry, we stopped for lupper again. Margery had a shredded beef chimichanga dinner ($10) with rice, and Paul had a pick-two lunch special ($6) with a chili relleno, a shredded chicken burrito, rice and refried beans. Everything was delish!.

Paul with his "pick two" lunch special

After lupper, we headed back to Scenic Hills to relax for the evening. Next on the schedule was a trip to another planet. Stay tuned.

Berlin, OH - Events of August 3, 2016

August 3rd was our 48th wedding anniversary. We took a day trip to Cleveland to visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden to celebrate. We took somewhat of a cross-country route much of the way rather than taking the interstate so we were able to enjoy more rural scenery.

Amish farmer raking hay north of Berlin on the way to Cleveland

The Cleveland Botanical Garden is a 10-acre garden that was founded in 1930. It is located a little less than 2 hours from Berlin on the eastern side of Cleveland next to Case Western University. Admission is $11 per person, and there is a $6 fee for parking.

We paid our admission and headed into the garden. Right outside the Visitor Center is a pond with a fountain and water lilies.

Waterlilies in the pond outside the Visitor Center

Cleveland Botanical Garden has numerous areas such as a Japanese garden, a woodland garden, a hosta garden, a rose garden and an idea garden with designs that could be adapted to your own back yard. Unfortunately, the only map available is the size of a half-sheet of paper, and numbers identifying the features on the map were so small we couldn't read them. As a result, we didn't always know the specific names of the areas we were seeing as we walked the garden paths. Therefore, rather than describe our tour of the garden area by area, we'll just show you the highlights of some of the things we saw.

Shady garden area with reflecting pool

Patio with container gardens

Another container garden collection

Hillside garden with waterfall

Colorful border of annuals

Waterfall beside a patio

Garden area set off by dramatic stone arches

Elegant pillars flanking the entrance to another garden area

Mixed annual-perennial border lining a brick walkway

View of container plants framed by an archway of evergreens

The Hershey Children's Garden has lots of things that appeal to kids of all ages. There is a splash fountain, kid-sized structures to explore, a maze, a pond with goldfish and a tree house. There are also lots of daily children's activities.

Gate into the Children's Garden

The Hershey Children's Garden was one of the first such gardens in the country when it opened in 1999. The garden was designed with direct input from children, and a tree house topped their wish list. It is the centerpiece of the children's garden.

Tree house in the Children's Garden

View of the Children's garden from the tree house

While in the Children's Garden, Paul got in touch with his inner child and pretended to ride a bronze frog like a bucking bronco.

Paul pretending to ride a bronze frog - Yee-ha!

In addition to the children's garden, there are also interactive activities for kids in the woodland garden. There were several groups of kids at the garden the day we were there from day care centers and/or day camps taking advantage of all the fun features for kids.

Cleveland Botanical Garden has the largest herb garden we have seen anywhere. There are different sections with medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, aromatic herbs, and herbs for dying fabrics with a total of over 3,500 plants.

Herb garden

On our way out of the garden, we stopped at the 18,000-square foot Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse that is attached to the Visitor Center. The glasshouse is divided into two sections - one featuring the spiny dessert of Madagascar and the other featuring a Costa Rican rain forest where you can walk through the jungle and watch hundreds of butterflies flitting about. There is a daily butterfly release at 2 p.m.

Butterflies in the rain forest side of the glasshouse

Butterflies weren't the only insects in the garden. There was a tree branch with a column of ants marching along carrying bits of leaves.

Ants carrying bits of leaves along a tree branch

We enjoyed our visit to Cleveland Botanical Garden. The photo below shows just a few of the many flowers we saw.

Some of the many flowers that were in bloom

Since it was our anniversary, since we had recently gotten a $10 discount coupon for Bahama Breeze that was going to expire soon, and since there was a Bahama Breeze on the eastern side of Cleveland not too far out of our way, we stopped there for lupper on our way back to Scenic Hills.

We had Firecracker Shrimp as an appetizer. Margery had almond encrusted talapia, and Paul had chicken with cilantro crema. We shared a Chocolate Island for dessert.

About to dig into our Chocolate Island dessert

With our bellies full, we headed back to Berlin for an evening of TV.

Another Family Birthday Celebration

Events of Sunday, July 31, 2016

On Sunday, July 31, we made yet another trip to Pittsburgh for a pool party at J. Michael's brother's house to celebrate J. Michael's birthday. It was our third trip to Pittsburgh in a little over a week.

Shortly after we arrived at Lora and J. Michael's house, we piled into their car and headed to the party. Lydia, who first went swimming in a big pool when Lora and J. Michael were on vacation back in June, talked about going swimming the whole way there. When we arrived, Lora, J. Michael and Lydia all got their suits on right away and headed for the pool.

Lydia and J. Michael in the pool

Margery also brought her suit and got into the water.

Lydia and Margery in the pool

Lydia likes to jump into the water and have Daddy catch her.

Catch me, Daddy!

It was a nice, warm, sunny day, so we all hung around the pool until late in the afternoon. J. Michael's brother smoked some delicious brisket for dinner, and everyone brought a side dish. Everything was delish, and we ate way too much.

After dinner, we gathered in the family room for J. Michael to open gifts. Since J. Michael likes the animated "Minion" movies, his sister-in-law got a bunch of Minion glasses and passed them out.

Margery wearing Minion glasses

J. Michael got special glasses shaped like birthday cakes with candles on top. He donned them while he was opening gifts.

J. Michael with his silly birthday glasses

Lydia helping Daddy open gifts

Instead of birthday cake, J. Michael's mom baked cherry pies. After the opening of gifts, we all gathered to sing "Happy Birthday" and enjoy a piece of pie.

J. Michael, Lora and Lydia during the singing of "Happy Birthday"

Lydia, who didn't have a nap that day and who spent all afternoon splashing around in the pool, did an excellent job of exercising great patience with all the adult conversation that took place through dinner, gifts and pie. However, just about the time we finished our pie, she let it be known she was ready to head home. Needless to say, she fell asleep within minutes of starting the car.

Since we knew the party would last into the evening, we again stayed overnight at Lora and J. Michael's house. In the morning, we said our "good-byes" and headed back to Ohio.