Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Good The Bad and the Three Year Old



My Daughter, Erin, and I decided to take a mini trip after our road trip to Arkansas was canceled due to the flooding of the Mississippi River.  We went to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one of our favorite places to go when it's not tourist season.  It is Amish country and we have been visiting there for the past 20 years.  Usually it's just a day trip but there's so much to do that we decided to make it four days.  It was not our best trip!


Now don't get me wrong.  It wasn't our worst trip or even a bad trip.  Just not the best!  I forgot what it's like traveling with a three year old who is still in the terrible twos stage.  You know what I mean...temper tantrums, short attention span, temper tantrums, sleep schedule off, temper tantrums!!  And it didn't help that her mama was coming down with a cold either!


We realized by the end of the first day that we weren't going to be able to do everything we wanted to.  So we narrowed it down to a couple of things and tried to enjoy the rest of our time there.  One of our favorite things we did was visit Cafe Chocolate of Lititz.  We had a Dark Chocolate Crepe filled with mascapone cheese, fresh strawberries and dark chocolate truffle ganache, served with strawberries, fresh cream and a dark chocolate drizzle! It was to die for and I don't even like dark chocolate!!


Doesn't it look good? And to wash it down we had a Chocolate Strawberry Lush. It was like drinking chocolate covered strawberries!


We sat outside in the tiny garden and Shylee even helped pick the bluebells that the owner set on our table.


The hotel we stayed at had a playground, a duck pond and a swimming pool, so Shylee got to have some fun too!
These are some of my favorite photos from the trip.







It was nice to go away but it was nice to come home! I think it will just be day trips with Shylee for a couple more years!
Do you have any traveling stories with a 
toddler or preschooler?

Please share!!!

10 comments:

  1. I love Amish Country!!!

    Lovely photos Annette..as always.

    Shylee is such a cupie doll

    Janet xox

    ReplyDelete
  2. How beautiful!! All that chocolate looks delicious too! Glad you were still able to enjoy yourselves despite the "terrible threes" :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gorgeous pictures! I've always wanted to go to Amish camp and live in their lovely world for a bit. Perhaps raise a barn. Unfortunately, they were not so keen on my idea.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would love to go there some day
    ghmm there is an ocean between lol
    I love your pictures !
    and thank you for sharing the story

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well one thing is for certain, you were well fed during your visit in Amish country. The chocolate crepe looks divine !!!

    Someday little Shylee will be a better traveling companion but right now she is just an absolutely adorable and completely normal little 3 year old girl with the face of an angel ... oh if only Michael Angelo could have painted a picture of that precious face. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your photos are so lovely, the scenery as well as your little doll! As for Shylee... it's hard to be little!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love your post. I am about an hour from Lancaster and we go all the time. But,I totally hear you about traveling with a 3-year old. We took Bella to the beach one day and she just melted completely down and the whole day was blah. Good thing they are so cute.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great shoots :) I mostly like those from the Cafe Chocolate and the tulips. After all there is nothing better than to enjoy new places and taste such amazing chocolate creations.

    Greetings holiday apartment london

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love the "Drop Zone" sign! Ha! And Shylee, as always, is beautiful ... and surely a handful, I have no doubt. Only because Bubby is the same age, the same handful.

    I have no stories of travels with toddlers because we were too poor to do any overnight traveling when the girls were young. And there have been no travels with Bubby ... yet. I hope there will be eventually, but of course, he'll be older.

    Enjoy your weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hey Annette, YAY! I can comment again, finally worked it out :)

    I am so glad you were able to enjoy your trip by focusing on what was important to all :)

    Oh I have a few horror stories about traveling with kids but the worst by far was when as young parents we foolishly thought we could fly to England from Seattle on the red eye with a JUST 3 year old.

    If you have flown anywhere on a red eye you know that EVRYONE on the plane expects to go to sleep as soon as they are at altitude and the lights are dimmed on the plane.

    In coming over tired 3 year old and #@4% @#%^^&

    and that was the language of the people who couldn't get to sleep because of our overtired 3 year old, sceaming!!! Let alone ours!!!

    Love the photos :)

    Have a lovely Monday T. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment.