Amish!

First, we started our day off with an authentic Philly Cheese Steak! There is a guy who makes them from his little trailer thingy that he has parked on the sidewalk on Market Street there in Philly. His English isn't very good, but he sure knows how to make a Philly Cheese Steak!

We then headed out to Ronks, which is where you can find lots of Amish. They were everywhere! It was really neat to see them walking down the side of the road, pushing themselves down the road on their little scooters, plowing the fields with their team of horses, and riding in their buggies. Thayne was really excited about this vacation, especially since it's the first one he's had since we've been out here! He printed off information about the Amish so that we had a little bit of a better understanding of them. Married men grow beards, but NO mustaches are ever worn by the Amish men. Married women wear white bonnets, whereas single women wear black bonnets. The wheels on their plows and buggies are made of metal, not rubber. In the summertime, men wear straw hats and felt ones in the winter. All of them wear plain clothing so as to not create statuses. They speak old Pennsylvania Dutch (a dialect of German). It's not until the go to their ONE ROOM SCHOOL that they learn English. They do not use electricity as it makes them feel like electricity would connect them to the world and all of its temptations. They do, however, accept modern medicine and make use of it when necessary.

Should you ever need to run to Wal-Mart here in the Lancaster area, be sure to make room for the buggies!

Ha ha! They even have parking stalls for the buggies. I'm talking little barn-like parking stalls for the horses to stand in while they run inside a store or enjoy a day at the park.

Krystal and girls sitting in a miniature of Thomas the Train!ALL ABOARD!!! This was my first train ride (and the girls' first train ride, too)! We rode aboard the Strasburg. We sat in the Dining Car so that we could enjoy a nice little lunch as we rode through Amish country! It was unbelievably fun! They would ring the bell (ding ding ding) and blow the whistle (toot toot)! The girls had a blast reaching out and grabbing food off our plates and attempting to shove it into their mouths before we could stop them. Everyone was going wild over our girls; they thought they were soooo cute!
If you know my husband, then you know that he could not resist going to Intercourse once he learned there was a town named that. Naturally, he wanted a picture in front of the sign. On the side of the road, there was a stand with Amish selling jams and pies. We bought strawberry jam and a little pie that looked like and tasted like an Oreo cookie. We stopped at an Amish store and bought souvenirs. Thayne wanted shirts that had the town name, "Intercourse" on it, so we grabbed some shirts for us. We had two rottweiler shirts made for the girls to resemble Diesel. Diesel! Diesel! Diesel! I miss my little love boat!!! We also grabbed copies of the Declaration of Independence, Amendments, and Presidents. We grabbed some magnets because we are in need of them. The Amish dolls that we got for the girls have no faces because the Amish do not believe in letting children play with dolls that have faces. They feel it goes against not having graven images, likeness, or idols. Oh, the tiny license plates we actually bought from the Strasburg Railroad souvenir store. Thayne just wanted to take one picture of all our souvenirs.