Falling in love with Jesse

With this movie, my secret crush on Jesse James began. You have to know that it gave me a secret thrill to actually visit the farm and house he grew up in.

Celebrating like it's 1799!

Turning 13, Amish Style!

On the night before Ashley's birthday, we rolled into this bustling little town:

Jamesport, Missouri. Population 505.

We could hear the brisk clip-clop of fast running horses pulling little black compact buggies. Every now and then we caught a glimpse of their occupants: young girls riding shoeless, a young boy and his sister, a teenager taking his "jalopy" out for a spin, a father bringing his boys into town for business, and an elderly woman on her way to visit a friend.

(I like to think that this is a teen's buggy, we saw it hitched to a post with a bunch of other buggies and they all had different designs on their reflector.)

On Ashley's birthday,

she woke up to breakfast in bed,

(cinnamon roll from the Gingrich Old Dutch Bakery)

a wonderful present of playing with this cute little kitten,

some happy birthday phone calls,

and then we went shopping!

(Madi with her "Mormon quilt" and Ashley with her Amish quilt)

When I asked Ashley what she would like for her birthday, she started by saying the normal answers such as "clothes," "a phone," "an Itouch," but then she surprised me by saying that what she'd really like was an Amish quilt. We had fun looking at the many different hand-quilted and detailed quilts at an Amish store in Jamesport.

Happy 13th Birthday, Ashley! It was really fun to celebrate it in a old-fashioned way.