The Byrdhouse: Ohio Series #4- Baby Byrd Meets the Amish

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ohio Series #4- Baby Byrd Meets the Amish

Thursday, Day 2 of our trip:

After the green jacket photo shoot, and a Ohio breakfast consisting of chocolate gravy and biscuits (yes, it is as good as it sounds), we drove over to Mohican State Park to walk one of the trails.

On the way, Pawpaw wanted to stop and get some jalapeno peppers for JC so we stopped at the Possum Run Greenhouse (Mom, you would have LOVED this place.) They had every kind of plant, flower, garden-do-hickie you could think of.

Pawpaw got his peppers (Bryce was asleep through all of this) and we headed towards Mohican.

We were going to eat lunch so we unpacked the food and set up at a picnic table along the river.

The entire area near and around Bellville is Amish country. When we pulled in to the park, there were several horse, drawn buggies parked along the road with Amish everywhere!

You would have thought I saw Brad Pitt...I don't know why but I (and Mike a little too) am completely obsessed with the Amish culture and people (only when I go to Ohio though....)

So of course I had my camera out and ready to snap BUT, out of respect we had to sniper-photo shoot them.

There were Amish girls and their horses behind us so I would stand up like Mike was going to take a picture of me and then Mike would aim 10 feet above my head or around me to get the picture of all of them (like their not human or something...geesh.) Very obvious I'm sure.

That explains the 20 shots of half of my head in some of the pictures with the Amish kids in the background.

They are probably used to people taking pictures or gawking but I thought we could try and show some respect by not going up to them and acting like a 12 year old school girl who just spotted one of the Jonas brothers or Hannah Montana, screaming and crying and saying "oh my God, oh my God" over and over again.

Bryce could careless about the plain dresses they wore or how the men were sitting separate from the women. He just wanted to see the horses.

We ate, snapped pictures (of our child too not just the Amish kids),

"why do you take so many photos of me?!?!"

took a few on and of the covered bridge,

and then started on the trail.

Bryce rode in the stroller all the way down the trail. It warmed up so we rolled up his sleeves and jeans. Mike would throw a stone into the river and Bryce would laugh and smile when it made a splash...the bigger the splash, the bigger the smile.

Then Bryce wanted to have a go at it. We gave Bryce a stone and wheeled him up to the edge of the bank and at the same time Bryce would throw his stone, Mike would throw a larger one (we knew Bryce-man's throw just might not make it so we wanted to guarantee him a splash.)

He loved it. Big smiles. And "More, more, more please."

On the way back we freed him from the stroller and put on his monkey backpack (leash) and let him walk back. It's a good thing we waited to let him out until we were much closer to the beginning of the trail...he takes forever!! He always wants to walk in the opposite direction that everyone else is going. Rebel.

I spotted a ginormous toad (that Mike tried to catch...ain't happenin'), Mike and tried to walk across a tree that had fallen over the river (yes, I almost fell in on the way back...), and Bryce took his sweet little time collecting sticks and pointing out every flower and blade of grass he passed.