Well do ya wanna...go to Shipshewana?

Shipshewana is a town about an hour from us, in Indiana. It is beautiful. There are a lot of Amish and Mennonite people living there. As you are getting close to town, you pass by farm after farm. You also pass by horse n' buggy after horse n' buggy and horse poop pile after horse poop pile. It is so quaint, I want to live there. I asked Erik if I can be LDS and still live among these people...he thought that was a dumb question, and it is, but their lifestyle is so romantic to me. What is the difference between Amish and Mennonite? What exactly do they do, believe, not do, etc? Well, I was going to be able to answer your questions because we were going to go on a tour and learn all about them and their history...but we got a little side-tracked. Erik had asked me what I wanted to do if we went down there, and I had a few ideas, but we knew once we got there, there would be LOTS to do and see...and there was...so much so that we didn't even do what we had planned to do! But we did have lots of fun!

First we found the "Hostetler's Hudson Auto Museum" where there is the world's largest collection of Hudson products. It was so cool. We could not believe how many cars they had there! They are so old! We even saw one that was built in 1954 and it had power locks and windows! I had no idea any car had that at that time!

This is the very first Hudson ever built, in 1909.

This one was from 1911 and it was a race car! There were racing goggles on the seat.

I LOVE this windshield.

Rhys was very excited by this Fire Truck.

How cool is this mail truck!?

And the gas pump is down-right cute. It looks like a toy gas station for your son's bedroom.

A man there (Erik is his new best friend) was showing the kids how a Hudson engine runs and turned it on and let them watch the whole process. It was amazing how you could actually see each part and how they all worked together.

As in THE Doc Hudson!? As in THE Hudson Hornet!? It took him a minute to believe us because it was red and not blue.

We went into the Mercantile where there were shops and a Carousel over 100 years old! Some of the horses on it had been replaced - by an Amish boy in town that HAND CARVES them! They are amazing! Rhys loved it.

I wish I had taken a better picture of Adah's - her horse was one of the ones carved by the Amish boy.

The rest of us stuck together, but Madelyn had her eye on what horse she wanted and took off. She told me she named her Lightning.

Seth was also on one of the hand crafted horses, but would only sit side-saddle while I held him. That is until the ride was over and time to get off, suddenly he turned and straddled and did not want to leave! Even when I promised him we were going to stop at the candy shop next door and let him pick something out!

There was a store called something like "Toys for Dad" and it was all John Deere stuff and manyly things. The signs said you could sit on these but could not ride them.

Sitting made them happy enough.

We had also stopped for lunch at a highly recommended place...and were not that impressed. The most impressive thing to me was how many Amish/Mennonite women were working as waitresses there.

So we tried to run over to the place where we would do the tour we had intended to do in the first place, but when we got there, the sign said the tours take 1-2 hours! Holy Cow! We decided to make plans for another trip in the near future, and headed home. It had been a pretty full day. But there are supposed to be other tours you can take where they take you on a buggy ride out to a real working Amish farm and you get to watch them do chores, they feed you, etc. That seems a little awkward to us. "Yeah, good job with all that work, I'm just going to be fat and lazy and sit here and watch you!" What!? And yet, it sounds really interesting, I have to admit.

Also, soon they open their "farmer's market" type thing and supposedly you can find amazing produce and things there. I am looking forward to that. It was so fun there and I am excited to go back. The kids really liked it too and were very disappointed to leave.