Happy Mother's Day to all my DIS mom friends. I hope you had some great family and relaxation time today!
I thought I'd do a life and Disney update since I have been such a total slacker!(Well disney will have to wait since I am getting sleepy and just accidentally lost all the pictures I had inserted. here I go again!)
First life: when I last posted I was getting ready for our first camping trip of the season. That changed styles a lot when Joe, driving our RV, experienced a tire blow out on a very busy high way doing about 70 MPH. I was not with him - he was heading up alone to get set up, and I was finishing packing before getting Katie from school & meeting him & our friends at the campgrounds. eerrr that did not work so well!
The camper was driveable to get home but there was no way Joe was going to drive it an hour and a half to a campground, plus there were some wires hanging down, and we still don't know what they are for. Keeping it short, he stayed home for the weekend, doing a fair amount of thanking God that the camper didn't roll & he didn't get killed. I am glossing it over but it was a very very scary situation.
Katie and I borrowed my sister's tent (yes, I went from a cushy rv to at tent!) and headed up to the campground to meet up with our friends for the weekend (hey we already paid for the site!). It rained on Friday, till well into the night. Our friends were kind enough to let Katie and I bunk in their trailer. WHEW. otherwise we would have slept in my mini van-- there was no way I was pitching a tent in the dark AND rain!!
Our friends' daughter's birthday was a few days prior, so we all sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes for a treat (I don't have permission to post Natalie's picture so i will have to blur her out).
Saturday turned out lovely, and after pitching our tent & hanging out lounging around for the morning, we piled into our friends' truck and headed into Lititz, about a 15 minute drive from our campsite. Lititz is a very pretty old town in Lancaster county. It had some action during the Civil War (but not any major battle that I know of) and is home to Wilbur's chocolates, Sturgis Pretzels, and the original seat of the Moravian Church in Pennsylvania.
Wilbur chocolate factory and museum smelled soooo good. Like Hershey park used to. The smell of chocolate was everywhere. We entered what was a combined store and museum. there were quite a few displays of antique chocolate molds, cans, chocolate making tools along with lots of chocolate items for sale.
My little ham is always happy to pose with a hat or a prop
Before we went inside, I told Katie that she would be leaving with one small item. that's it. She picked a small tub of chocolate hand cream ($3)(which has been sitting on the end table since we got home!) and I caved and let her get a small pillow pack of chocolates (75 cents). Setting her expectations at the beginning helped so that we could look around and enjoy the displays with out the constant nagging. There were also people behind a window actually making chocolate. Don't know why I didn't snap a photo of them, but I did take quite a few with my phone. (Don't ask why I lugged my camera to the campground and then left it there when we went into town!DOH)
There were lots of cute shops with gifts, local crafts, jewelry, clothing, candy. WE browsed around a little, and these little guys caught my eye:
The cinco de mayo band:
Since we were missing our big bear, we visited with this one:
We toured the original site of Sturgis Pretzels, the first hard pretzels in the United States.
and learned all about the history of pretzels and how to make one:
We soon headed back to the truck and on our way back to the campground. but not with out stopping at the Mt Hope Winery. LOVE that place
I didn't take photos but I did leave with a few bottles of wine!
We headed back to cook dinner on the fire, hang out, let the girls play while we chatted and enjoyed a few adult beverages by the campfire. It was not the same without Joe but it was a nice evening by the fire.
The next day we packed up in a light mist - we were hoping to beat any sort of serious rain. Breaking up camp in the rain is so not fun, especially with a tent!
All packed up and ready to go
but wait!!! my batter is dead!
yup! apparently all of my in and out of my minivan ( all our groceries, paper products, etc were in there) killed the battery. sigh. ok got that jumped and off we were. So typical for the first camping trip of the season! LOL
more Dis tomorrow, my eyes are drifting shut here!
Honestly, Friday snuck up on me somehow and I was running around trying to get her outfit together. Of course DH asks me an hour before to wash his shirt,plus Caitlin wanted her hair staightened. Then, my washer decided to start gushing water out of the front and I had huge puddles of water in my basement. Okay, now I don't feel too bad about no pictures.
, danced two dances by standing on top of daddy's feet. 
how much does he love her to let her do that? 
SO tipping for mousekeeping: do you tip at a higher rate? Honestly, during our first two trips, I didn't know that it was customary to leave a tip every day, we just did one on check out day. For our last trip. I learned that the typical tip is $1 per person per day - so it would be $3 a day. (I have to say that this daily tip did NOT do us any favors as we had only one towel animal the whole week and that was the mickey head on check in day) so is $3 a cheap tip? an insulting tip? normal? should we up the amount because of club level, or wait and see what sort of service we are actually getting? I spent a LOT of years in food services, so appreciate that tips are a sign of good service - but that said, we are not Rockefellers, or Scrooge McDuck.
as Joe and I are discussing where my cloth wine bottle bag is, Katie chimes in about her health class 
and their discussion on what alchohol does to the body. she says "So you guys gotta stop".
and tossing them back every single day all day long. oh boy. 
(shocking I know) 
don't expect to see me on the boards for a few days (unless they have wi fi and I can pick up DIS
for how many days?????? Something like 30? My tip is about 5 weeks away now. Coming up fast!
I know my DD would probably get jealous if I did it with her and ticked if I did it without, so I'd be in a no-win situation. 
There are just so many little things that add up to one awesome trip when you stay onsite.
sometimes food does not like you as much as you like it. So probably not the best choice when we were planning on hitting park after dinner.
