Eighth stop

As much as I treasured every minute with my brother and his family in Pennsylvania, all four of us were ready for an adventure of our own. 

The last time we traveled to PA, we ended our stay on New Year's Eve in New York City. This time, we headed to Washington D.C. Both boys were at the prime age to take it all in and actually remember it.  Juan is taking US History this semester, and David will take it next year, so touring the capital could not have come at a better time for them academically. 

Thanks to a special gift from my parents, we decided to splurge on ourselves and order tickets for the tour bus. Despite the frigid temps, we bundled up and braved the cold so we could sit on the upper level of the double-decker bus. The tour stopped just long enough at each sight so we could stand up and get a picture, and the tour guide was nice enough to take pictures of us on the bus. :)

We really had a great time, and we stopped at the Starbucks in Union Stations to help us warm up a bit before heading to the hotel that night. 

Next stop: The day tour

Seventh stop

These pics are actually a mix of all 3 days that we spent with Jon, but I'm lumping them into one single category, a day with my brother. 

When he started his own business, Kloppmann Architects, several years ago, he sent us a couple of these cool mugs and t-shirts to go with them. Of course, my brother would choose this mug out of his cupboard to serve me the fancy coffee he made for me after dinner. 

We enjoyed exploring a chunk of the land that he and his wife purchased a few years ago to build their house on. 

I loved seeing how well they got along with their cousins that they had never met before. (Actually, David met Shawnee, Jack, and Ethan, but that was when Ethan had just turned two. We celebrated Ethan's tenth birthday on this particular visit.)

These two absolutely adored Juan. 

Ethan's birthday dinner

The last time David and Shawnee were together until now

Still can't believe we're both over 40. I moved away from him when I was only 15 years old and then moved even farther from him in my twenties. 

Most of the Kloppmann cousins together in this pic. Just missing two (plus the Texas Kloppmann cousins).

You can't go to Lancaster County without taking your teenage boys to Intercourse for the day. Lol.

I kept taking selfies with my brother, and we made it a joke that it would be another decade before we saw each other again. I sure hope not!

I took a lot more pictures of the whole family, but out of respect for their privacy, I only posted a few. I'm sure Jill is probably already going crazy for the few I posted with their temporary rental house (and lots of outdated wallpaper and decor) in them. 

Sixth stop

Wednesday morning we took our time getting up before hitting the little town of Ephrata, PA, where I was born and spent the first 15 1/2 years of my life.  The boys truly were not very thrilled to go, but I found it important for them to know more about me and my history. Especially since I spent as much time in Ephrata as Juan spent in Bogota, Colombia. 

First we drove by the last house we lived in, a house we had built when I was 5 years old, so it's pretty much the only house I have memories of. It used to be a light blue, but now it's white. They changed the front porch area and added a room on the back where we had a backyard patio. The little trees my dad planted have all grown super tall, but I couldn't believe that the swingset my dad had built out of telephone poles over 30 years ago is still standing today.  I'm sure it seems a lot smaller now, though, surrounded by such big trees. 

Ephrata is situated right in the heart of Lancaster Country, a rich farming/Amish community. We lived in a neighborhood, but we'd go for long walks or ride our bikes often down this specific country road (Zooksmille Road) to one of our favorite landmarks. 

This beautiful covered bridge sat about a mile or so from our house. 

Now you can even read about the history of the bridge when you visit.

We also drove into town to drive by my old church, Grace Fellowship Church, where most of my childhood memories are preserved. My dad pastored this church for 16 years before we moved to Indiana. 

We visited a little Colombian restaurant that a fellow adoptive parent of a child from Colombia told me about. We ordered some empanadas to take back to Jonathan and his family so they could get a little taste of Colombia. We obviously had a little fun with some picture props while there, too.

We also drove by the first house I lived in (the old church parsonage), the second house I lived in (the street where 5-year-old me got hit by a car), and a few other places I frequented as a child/young teenager). Ephrata brought back a lot of memories, especially since the landscape hasn't changed much at all in the last 25 years due to its conservative, small-town culture. 

After visiting Ephrata, we headed out closer to my brother's place, but not without stopping for lunch to make sure my niece, Shawnee, was doing a good job at work. :) She made us some really good pizzas, and she sat and ate Colombian empanadas with us while we ate our pizza. 

We also stopped at my old high school on Horseshoe Lane when we found out how close it was to our hotel. Honestly, I couldn't find anything that had changed. Driving up to it brought memories back of certain classes, where the bus dropped me off, and the cross-country course I used to run with my brother, Matt, with the Coed Cross Country team my sophomore year. 

I loved taking this trip down memory lane, and I found Lancaster County to still be just as beautiful as I remembered it, if not more (because some things in life just can't be appreciated fully until we're older).

Speaking of things you don't fully appreciate till you're older, I think spending a day with your sibling definitely falls into that category. 

Next stop: a day with my big brother and his family.