Amish Country Adventures

Our trip to Amish Country was really just a step back into my childhood for me, and it was fantastic!  Since Antoine had never been I decided to take him to all the places I used to go to with my parents, places I had mentioned to him many times.  The first on the list was Ashery Country Store, a bulk food store where you can stock up on herbs, spices, and candy and the prices are great.  Seriously, most of the time it's about half the price of what you'd pay for that item in the grocery store.

We got a variety of spices/herbs and even some of our favorite candies! 

Next up on the list was Lehman's, a hardware/home goods store that looks like an old-timey store inside with just the best variety of goods imaginable. 

I think our favorite section of Lehman's was the sodas.  They had a incredible selection of all different types of sodas, including root beer, birch beer, cream soda and, my favorite, ginger ale.  They even had a couple of crazy ones, like bacon soda, peanut butter and jelly soda, and corn on the cob soda...which we weren't up to trying.

 Naturally I made Antoine try on hats and pose for me, because I'm mean.  And he's adorable!

The entire place is filled with vintage equipment and decorations that just make this place even more awesome!  We had a blast just walking around and admiring everything.

After Lehman's, we made our way to Heini's Cheese Chalet for some cheese.  For my family, no trip to Amish Country was complete without a trip to Heini's!  Cheese-love runs in the family; it's in my genes!

  One of the great things about Heini's, besides the fact that they make all their cheese in-house using Amish milk and you can watch them through a giant glass window (and take tours), is they offer samples of nearly every cheese they sell.  It's A LOT of samples.  You stand in a line and go through a little maze of cheese samples.  It's glorious and, in the end, extremely difficult to decide which cheeses you should take home.  Also, their prices are extremely fair!  But sadly, like most places in Amish Country, they are closed on Sunday...so don't try going then.

After checking into our bed and breakfast (more on that later), we headed north to the Amish Door.  Growing up, the Amish Door was always our preferred lunch/dinner spot.  It's comfort food at its finest and their bakery is amazing.  We both got what they're known for, broasted chicken.  It's like fried chicken except it's cooked in a pressure fryer so it's in the oil about half the time as regular fried chicken.  This makes the chicken incredibly moist and delicious without being greasy!  Pair it up with some homemade mashed potatoes and stuffing and you're one happy camper, I promise!

We were too full from all the broasted chicken and mashed potatoes to have dessert there, so we decided to hit up the bakery after our meal.  I had my heart set on peanut butter cream pie, because it's amazing....but they were out!!!  It was almost 8pm and they were about to close.  My heart sank.  But then the nice girl behind the bakery counter offered to whip one up for us if we didn't mind waiting a couple minutes!  Umm, YES PLEASE!!  So, after a couple minutes we had our peanut butter pie in hand and were heading pack to our B&B.  A couple hours later I had to cut into it and have a slice because it was just calling out my name.  Mmmm, so good!

The following morning, since it was Sunday, almost every place in Amish Country was closed...except for one, Guggisberg Cheese.  And it happened to be right down the road from our B&B.  And, obviously we needed more cheese, even after Heini's.  

 I had never been to Guggisberg growing up, but the outside was adorable and I loved their collection of cuckoo clocks (bottom left closeup is one of my favorites!).  They only had a couple samples of cheese and the interior was kind of small, but it was still great that they were one of the only places open on Sunday.  And the place was filled with people stopping in on their way home.

We spotted some horses across the street so decided to cross and say "hi".  Then we saw a little family of goats.

 This guy definitely wanted me to take his picture!

Not sure why his/her tongue is hanging out, but this is one of the very few shots I got where the other one wasn't hitting him in the face with his tail.

I think Antoine really enjoyed every single place we went and I think his birthday in Amish Country was a big success!  

*Sorry to disappoint anyone expecting pictures of Amish buggies and whatnot.  Personally it never crossed my mind to take any, and in fact it has always been a subconscious reaction to put my camera down when they are around.  Growing up we lived by many rural Amish and I know how sensitive they are about this and I would never want to offend anyone.