A Day Well Spent

Three weeks ago, we took the chance as "walk ins" to get our fingerprints for immigration done. It was risky, but well, a trip to Lancaster beats a trip to Philly ANY DAY! We had several 'field tripish' things we could do as well, in case we had to wait, or worst case...get rejected all together.

Well, God never ceases to amaze me. Quite frankly, I should probably be used to that now, but I'm not, and I hope I never grow so apathetic not to stand in awe and amazement of His might hand.

It was my hubby's day off, so we headed over to York, where the fingerprinting station was. Upon entering we saw this sign. "Prison, keep out." Well....ya think?! We didn't go into prison for fingerprints, though we did capitalize on that quite teachable moment for the kids.

Upon entering the fingerprinting farm house,(See? Lancaster county is the best!) we were greeted by nice, and happy people, and there wasn't a soul in the waiting room. Surely, I thought, we must be in the wrong place. A government facility with kind people, ready and willing to help?

The kind man had us fill out some quick paperwork, then we were all ushered back for our prints. The print lady was very nice. They double checked our prints to ensure their quality, and also let the kids have theirs done for the fun of it. Both were excited to know about Evan, and wished us well. Even now, as I think about that day, I'm still in shock. I have a friend who recently became a US citizen, and that is not how her experience went at all. These people were friendly as could be and thrilled to help us though we were walk ins.

So, after we were done, we used our Olive Garden gift certificate and went for soup salad and bread sticks. After we rolled out, we gave the kids a choice: go to a dairy farm to feed calves, in York or the pretzel factory in intercourse. They chose the dairy farm, and what a great choice they made. Not only did we get in on a GREAT tour, but we were able to pet and play with 16 or so baby calves ranging from several days old to a few weeks. We watched them milk the cows, and were given a tour of the milk bottling facility as well as their refrigerator. We then went back out and got to feed the calves. It was so fun, and free. One of the owners of the farm recently adopted a 4 year old little girl from Ethiopia. Anyone local reading this...the name of the farm is Perrydell Farms, in York, PA.

We had so much fun as a family, but did feel a tinge incomplete without Evan. Soon it won't be that way though!