Independence Day 2011

We had such a great 4th of July!  Josh and I decided to go to one of our favorite places in Ohio...Amish country!  We have been down there several times; yet every time we go, it's a completely different experience and this time was no different.  We decided that we wanted to go on a tour and learn more about the Amish.  It was really good; I feel like I understand them a lot more and found it interesting that some of their believes are very similar to my own.  It was just a great time.   

Our tour included two houses, a barn and a school.  Neither the houses nor the school are used today except for the tours.  It was just so interesting to learn about their believes and lifestyles.  This community is actually the largest Amish community in the world!  There are about 80,000 (I think that's the right number) in the area. 

Believe it or not, some of the Amish still cook on stoves similar to this one:

The grounds there are so well taken care of.  It's just beautiful.

One of the houses was built back in 1866 by the man who first settled in the area and it still in pretty good condition.

They had TONS of animals there: Cats, dogs, ducks, horses, mules, pigs, etc, etc...I'm not really into cats but this kitten was just too cute and I loved this picture:

Like I said, this part of the country is just absolutely beautiful!

Our tour also included a ride on one of these...

For some odd reason, I have also wanted to have a buggy ride.  Now the buggy ride was nothing extravagant, just a loop around this little circle trail, but I still enjoyed it :)  The Amish guy that drove us around, even took our picture for us:

After the tour, we went to a few other shops and stores.  We were a little disappointed that quite a few shops were closed for the holiday, but we still had a good time in the stores we did go to. 

This was inside a store called Wendell August.  You may have heard of them before, they aren't really Amish, but have AMAZING metal engravings.  In fact, I almost bought this tree topper for $50!!!  It's a good thing I was able to talk myself out of it.  I still may buy it; but I'm gonna have to save up for a little bit.  The store was amazing though!  Inside the store, and probably the only Amish thing in the whole store, was this buggy.  This is actually the largest buggy in the world.  I wish I could remember the dimensions of it, but I don't.  It was HUGE though.

That night, I dragged Josh along with me to go see fireworks.  We really didn't want to get into the big crowd so we park about a mile away and then walked a few blocks down to watch.  It was still an amazing show.  However, not a great spot for taking pictures as you will see the big telephone pole in the middle of the pictures :)  Oh well....we were able to get home before most people were probably able to get to their cars...well worth it to me this year.

Happy Independence Day!