amish acres

Max was home for the day on Friday, Bethany was winding down her summer break, and I had a few hours between work shifts -- what better to do with our time than head to the Amish Acres Festival in nearby Nappanee? We checked out plenty of homemade crafts and furniture, had an extraordinarily overpriced lunch under a crowded tent with hundreds of strangers crammed in cheek-by-jowl, and I spent ten minutes I wish I could forget trying to encourage Max to use the port-a-potty. On the way out, we were looking for some kind of toy to get for the boys, and we ran across a booth with handcrafted name puzzles by a guy named Dave. What caught my eye to go in there in the first place was that one of the display puzzles was a "Max" puzzle. Upon closer inspection, there was also a "Liam" puzzle already made and for sale. I thought that was pretty amazing. I remember being a kid and looking at key chains or coffee mugs or those goofy license-plate things proclaiming this to be "So-and-So's Room," and I don't think we EVER found a "Bethany" one and a "Holli" one (or even a "Holly") at the same time! So of course, the boys are now the proud new owners (thanks, Aunt Bethany!) of puzzles with their names. The only semi-disappointment was that I looked all around the booth, hoping to find a puzzle already made with one of the boy names we like, a sign from above that we're supposed to pick that name. (Can you imagine me trying to explain that one to Mike? "Honey, look, they had a 'Beauregard' and I bought it. There's no turning back now!") But no such luck.

Before we left Amish country, we stopped at Rentown Variety Store, which has an interesting mix of Amish-produced meats, cheeses, and breads ... and random non-Amish things (everything from pop tarts to pizza cutters) ... all kind of mixed up together. I found it far more interesting than the Amish Acres Festival, and lucky for us, it's open all year round. I think Mike will enjoy shopping there, too, once we exhaust the 20 pounds of cheese and the apple butter that I bought this time!