I'm BACK!!!!!

You know you missed me. And I did not die, I was in Pennsylvania. I resent being left off of Miranda's List Of People Who Still Post because of this. SO, to make it up to you people, I will write a Loooooooong Wiiiiiiiiiinding post telling everything you ever wanted to know (and maybe some stuff you didn't) about my vacation. Because I enjoy this.

Right. So I was in Beack Lake, PA, this really tiny place that pretty much consists of a Volunteer Fire Department (which is big and green), a post office, 3 resort/inn/cottage type places, a cafe, a salon, and a fun park. And that's it. I love beach lake :o) I've been going there every year since I was about six. Usually we go up there with this big group of people, including a few friends from pre-school and their families, one of them (Joey)'s mom's boss and her family, Joey's mom's boss's sister and her family, Joey's mom's boss's sister's best friend from high school and her family, and a bunch of friends from other families. And we do this big "Fear factor" competition, organized by one of the moms, and 1st prize is $50, and we compete in like 10 events or something like that, which include physical things (an obstacle course, standing on one foot, holding your breath under water), gross things (eating wierd/icky foods like duck tongue, frog, pig brains, and cold veggie burgers; and fishing in a bucket of wierd, soupy stuff for different animal's body parts) and really random things (like seeing who can swish listerine around in their mouth for the longest and who can stand on top of an inner tube in the lake for the longest). And it's fun. BUT, this year my dad couldn't take off on the week that the rest of the group was going, so we didn't do all that. INSTEAD:

Sunday we drove out there. It's about a 3 hour drive; Beach lake is in northeast PA, only like a 1/2 hour away from the New York border. We stopped in this little town called Milford for lunch, because it's tradition. Nothing else much happened. We went to Walmart for food.

Monday we mostly just relaxed. I went on a paddle boat with Lilly. Went swimming. Played ping-pong. Had a campfire and roasted s'mores.

Tuesday we went horesback riding (also tradition). Went on an hour long ride through the woods and stuff. My horse this year was Timmy. Timmy was a mostly good horse, he would go wherever I told him to, unless it wasn't an actual path or it was a really roundabout path. but whatever. I had fun.

Wednesday we went hiking in the woods near the Delaware river up to this *really* cool ledge that is up way high and overlooks the river and the hills that surround it. Very pretty. It was about two miles there and two miles back.

Thursday...now THIS is a good story. We were in a TRAIN WRECK. No joke. Ok, so it wasn't exactly a wreck. See, we took this train ride from Honesdale (a town near Beach lake) to Hawley (another town near beach lake), and back. It was a perfectly nice touristy little train ride. On the way there, three of the four cars on the train were filled up with seniors on a sponsored tour. Luckily, they got off in Hawley. On the way back, Lilly noticed sparks outside her window. In fact, one of them even flew in her window and singed her shirt. My dad alerted the train staff. A few minutes later, the train stopped. Everyone looks out the window to see what's wrong...and there are five or six *brushfires* started by the sparks. One of the conductors put them out with a fire extinguisher, and after about twenty minutes, they started the train again. Well, that didn't last long. About three minutes later, the train again comes to a halt. The engine was SMOKING. We had to evacuate the train, and walk down the tracks until we came close enough to a road that the fire department could get to the tracks. There were 31 passengers, including like 10 small children and a bunch of seniors. We had to crowd onto 2 pickup trucks that took us to the road, where a schoolbus took us back to the train station. There were fire trucks and ambulences and reporters...the story made headine news the next day. Alydaar, I think that may beat your cow stampede story.

Also on thursday, my aunt and uncle and my cousins Harry, Jack, and Annie came to stay with us at the cottages where we were staying for a few days. Harry is 6, Jack is 5, Annie is 2. They loved it there (it was their first time). They stayed until saturday.

Friday we mostly just hung out. I played with my cousins a lot. Went swimming. Played ping-pong. Had a campfire and made smores. etc.

Saturday was my moms birthday. My aunt & uncle left, and the fear factor people arrived. It was fun to see them all again. My family had lunch in a little town called Narrowsburg.

Sunday (today) we packed and left and drove home. Stopped at a dairy Queen in New Jersey (because it's tradition). Now we're going to have Chinese food as soon as I finish writing this post. So, as tigger would say, TTFN (ta-ta for now).