The Great Frederick Fair

In true Ladner fashion, we were home from our "Hurrication" for two whole days before we hit the road again!  This time we headed to Frederick, MD for the "Great Frederick Fair."  Our friends Pelican 212 were performing at the fair with Darcy Lynne, so we had to go see them!   We also found out that Saturday night performers were Matthew West and Jordan Feliz and HAD to get tickets to those performances. too.  (Jordan Feliz is Andrew's favorite and Matthew West is one of mine!). 

With I-95 traffic we made it JUST in time to say hello to the band before the show.  The girls had to love on August.

 Kids enjoyed the show!

 It was another great performance! We had just enough time to go backstage after the show to say goodbye while they packed up.  They had to head out that night to get to their next show.  

 On Saturday, the kids enjoyed some rides at the fair. Andrew even rode the mechanical bull!

 This was one of the largest fairs I think I have ever been to.  It truly is an agricultural fair.  There were barns and barns FULL of livestock.  It was incredible.  We saw LOTS of farm animals, but the piglets were by far my favorite!

 The Starship 3000 ended up being Andrew's favorite ride.  I lost count of how many times he rode this thing!

Matthew West!!!! 

 Kids loved singing along to all the songs.

 Jordan Feliz!!

We had a blast at the Great Frederick Fair!  And even though our friends won't be back for the 2019 season, we might just have to go to back anyway!  (I hear Mercy Me will be there!)

Hurri-cation

We got home from Disney late Sunday night.  On Monday, the Hurricane Florence track was headed toward coastal Virginia.  There were mandatory evacuations for flood zone A (that's us) starting on Tuesday morning.  Florence looked big and bad and we had just moved here, not knowing how our flood zone house would handle a hurricane, so we raised our furniture off the ground, put some sand bags in front of the garage door, packed up the RV, and headed to PA!  (As we learned, the VA evacuations were a little premature as NC took the brunt of the storm, but better safe than sorry.).

We took refuge about an hour outside of Hershey, PA.  We found a quaint little campground to spend the next few days.  

The town was charming as well.  I mean, just look at this LIBRARY!

 If you know me, you know how I feel about chocolate, so of course we had to go the Hershey store/museum/plant.

 We watched an interactive 3D movie.  They kept using our kids as characters in the story.  Andrew and Aubrey got a kick out of that.

 Next, we went to Palateer training...we are now expert chocolate tasters!

 It was pretty interesting to identify certain flavors in the different types of chocolates.  Some of the ingredients might surprise you!

 Next, Andrew and I participated in the "make your own candy bar" experience.  He was very excited to see the machines and learn how candy bars are made.

 After we made the bars, we were able to design our own wrappers.

 There was even a "ride" to explain the chocolate making experience.  All along the line we learned some interesting facts about the Hershey family and how it all started.  

 Such fun!  And as luck would have it, the Hershey RV show was going on that weekend.  For all you non-RV people, the Hershey RV show is the LARGEST RV show in the USA! (No, we're not in the market for another RV, but we absolutely love going to shows.  Just think of it as dream building. )

When we got back to the RV park on Saturday afternoon, we witnessed a first for me....an RV park wedding, complete with "ride up" golf cart seating.  I think I've seen it all!

In the crazy, busy, hectic of everyday life, we were grateful for this unexpected adventure and for some quality family time.  I love our little family so much and treasure each and every moment we get to spend together making new memories!

We were very fortunate that the hurricane didn't hit our area.  I think it barely even rained while we were gone.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of NC, especially our friends in Swansboro.    They have a lot of clean up in the days ahead.

Disney/ Rock the Universe

We left our house in a post-move disaster to head down to Disney World.  We drove the RV down and spent the fist night in the Jacksonville, FL driveway of our good friends, the Fetzners.  We were stationed in FL with them and haven't seen them in about 5 years.  They're renting this great house on the water, so we got to do some fishing and boating while we visited. 

Andrew's catch

Little boat ride

 August wasn't too sure about the boat and was probably the reason we cut the ride short!

 We had to say our goodbyes pretty early that morning, but it was great catching up!

 A couple of hours later, we made it to the Happiest Place on Earth.  We set up the camper at Fort Wilderness for my brother-in-law's family.  (Luckily Drew's parents drove our truck to Orlando, so we are finally reunited with our second vehicle.).  

 After checking in to our hotel, we headed to Disney Springs for a little food and virtual reality fun!

(Stroller brigade)

 Drew, Andrew, our nephew Alex, and I all participated in the VOID...a Star Wars virtual reality experience.  It was amazing!  This is what I looked like. :)

 Day 1: Magic Kingdom

 The baby LOVES the "horsies"

 This was the only time we had all the grandbabies together, so we had to take a picture...even though August was sleeping through most of them.  Look...getting a perfect picture of 7 kids is nearly impossible.  We'll take what we can get.

 Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party:  (I really should download some of the Photo Pass pictures.  They're way better than my cell phone!)

 Aubrey LOVES the princesses.  (This is actually her THIRD picture with Ariel TODAY)

Day 2: EPCOT

 Day 3: Animal Kingdom

Day 4: Blizzard Beach

 (I hardly took any pics)

 Day 5:  Hollywood Studios

 Friday and Saturday night we went to Universal for their Christian concert series, Rock the Universe. (We planned this trip nearly a year ago, thinking that we would attend Disney's Night of Joy, but they cancelled it after about 35 years. BOOOOO!  Lucky for us, Universal had theirs the same weekend.)

LAUREN DAIGLE!!!  She is Aubrey's favorite and it blessed my heart to see how excited she was when she came on stage.  And she was singing at the top of her lungs!  (Drew has video. I should add that later.)

 Toby Mac was the headliner Friday night.  Great show!  August slept through most of it with his big headphones on.

And that wrapped up another fun filed trip to Disney.  We can't wait to go back in DECEMBER with our good friends!