To catch you up

So we've been busy. We've had a couple of trips and done a lot around town.

Our (McHugh's) hard drive crashed in March and we lost over a months worth of photos and video, along with other files. Luckily our IT department (Mike) was able to recover most of the photos and video from their respective memory cards! Yay! Maybe he deserves a raise...

Going down (taken from Abby's Facebook)

At top of the incline (taken from Allison's Facebook)

As we mentioned in our previous post, we went to Johnstown, PA in the middle of March and met up with the unit there and the Raleigh unit. Unfortunately, a bunch of our pictures from that trip were not recovered, including our hike up the inclined plane and our ride down, and our trip to the Flight 93 memorial where we'd taken a group picture! We also played in the nearby park (where Ella took a lot of pictures that were recovered) and went ice skating in the evening. It was a fun weekend together.

one of Ella's many pics at the park

Abby learning to skate backwards from Johnstown leader Matt

Skates in Ella's size!

In the end, just those crazy leaders left on the ice!

Lambs

The next weekend, the last of the lambs were born at the farm and a tail-docking session was scheduled, which we had to be a part of! We watched the procedure on the first lamb, then Allison decided she was brave enough to hold the second lamb while its ear was tagged. Abby then held it for the tail-docking, which also required bravery and a firm hold. But since she has become skilled at holding down children for shots at the clinic, she handled it like a pro.

 

 

Papermaking

photo by Ella

Later that day we made plantable paper for learning and to send in our recruitment care packages. This involved tearing up paper, blending it in the blender with warm water, pressing it on a screen, pressing in seeds and dried flowers and flipping on towels to dry. Lot's of gooey fun!

Trip to Ohio

trying on clothes at the MCC Depot

Finally (if you've read this far you must really love us) we get to our recruitment trip and visit to Allison's home in Orriville, Ohio. We went to Allison's alma mater Central Christian School where we showed our picture slideshow (which had music till it went on YouTube; they disapprove of the use of copyrighted music so you'll just have to play your favorite song to go with it) and helped Kelsey from MMN with a couple of seminars on what to do after high school.

the "Freebird" (no worries, Ben did not drive)

Then we played around Allison's for the rest of the weekend. We visited the MCC Depot Thrift Store and Lehman's store in Kidron, and we rode in her uncle's souped up car called the "Freebird" to get ice cream. We also visited an Amish and Mennonite heritage center called Behault in a nearby town and got to ride in an actual Amish buggy (not at the center, but at friends of Allison's dads).

This one got stuck - none of us was driving at the time.

Steve and his friend Steve (you'd have to ask the guys
why it is that they decided to by Steve for the weekend)

And Sunday after church we rode around in the woods in a couple of old 4x4's before heading home.

All of us in front of Allison's