Last day of Spring Break-- A busy day doing nothing.

After church today, we set off to the great state (or commonwealth) of Pennsylvania.  We burned through a whole quarter of a tank of gas on the Yaris and had adventures in Sharon, Volant and Grove City.

Sharon was an exercise in visiting a land that hasn't been updated since probably the early 60's.  We went to Reyer's, which claims to be the "World's Largest Shoe Store," when most of what they have is only for the geriatric set.  We pressed on and went to Daffin's chocolate store,  but we've been far too spoiled with Amish Country and the chocolates it has to offer.  It was mostly a Hallmark-like store with not a ton of emphasis placed on the chocolate itself.  (At least not when you enter the store.)  When we entered "Chocolate Kingdom," I couldn't stay since they pipe in fake chocolate smell and it gave me an instant headache which later bloomed into a migraine.  :(

We went onward to Volant.  They have a strip of quaint shops and we toodled in and out.  Though we didn't have a lot of luck in the stores, we did score huge bowls of ice cream for a dollar a bowl.  That was an accidental find.  Gentleman were in the river wearing their waders and flipping their fly fishing gear back and forth.  It was very calming to watch.

We still had a lot of time left, so we went to the outlet stores in Grove City.  We went in and out of the stores, chuckling that most of them had full prices on their items.  I found that K has grow out of the offerings at Children's Place, but we did find a wonderful glasses case that she LOVES.  We visited the kid's Nike store and found a pair of tennis shoes for her.  Kiddo has been rolling with the Keen hikers that I bought and though they are wonderful, summer is coming (I think sometime it will show up) and she was longing for shoes a little less hike-ish.  I told her $20 was the goal, and we found her shoes for $21.97.  I did visit the Le Creuset outlet and lovingly touched a covered casserole.  I thought of Rachael all the while and even relayed the dropped dish story to the gentleman and told him how she went straight away to replace it.  My husband was in the background like a drug dealer saying, "Honey, you need that.  Treat yourself.  Come on.  You should get it.  You would love it.  It's not like you wouldn't use it . . . "  He really did mean it in a two-fold kind of way.  He knows that I don't buy myself things and would love the gorgeousness of that plum dish.  He also figures that he could use it as ammunition the next time he wants to buy something and I tell him no.  I would use the dish, but as I told him-- would I use it enough to defend its purchase?  No.  I have casserole dishes.  No, they aren't as swanky. I do have a cast iron Paula Deen lidded casserole that I bought a few years ago that I have used maybe once.  I couldn't defend it and I didn't buy it.  I'll live through Rachael and her continual usage instead.  It was nice to hold one in my hand, though.  We continued to press on.  He was trying to get me to go into Ann Taylor.  I love Ann Taylor clothes, but I score mine at the thrift nearly new for rock bottom prices.  I told him that there is no way that there was anything in there that we could afford.  We hopped into Merrell and neither one of us found anything.  In the end, it was only K who scored at the outlets, but we spent less than $30.00 and I found that to be successful.

We didn't buy meals out.  Hubs packed us lunch and only K and I had ice cream in Volant.

We went bargain basement with our trip.  We didn't really do anything.  It was 72 degrees and the warmth was delightful to feel.  Bugs are waking up.  (You should look at the windshield.)  Pollen is beginning to fly.  (You should look at how much is stuck to an otherwise black car.)  It was a nice way to usher in spring on K's last day of break.