Honey, I'm Home and I Had a Great Trip!

I've just returned home from a trip to Indiana - my nephew, Michael, was married in Fort Wayne on the 3rd, and instead of rushing there and back in two or three days, we made a mini-vacation out of it. Our main destination was the Amish / Mennonite area of northern Indiana. We visited places like Shipshewana, Indiana, and took the Heritage Tour and the Quilt Garden Tour through Amish country.  For now, I'm just going to post a few raw photos of the highlights of the trip. I got some very cute photos of my nieces and nephews and the bride and groom at the wedding - I will post those in a  different article. Enjoy!

I took this photo just down the road from my dad's farm in southern Minnesota the night before we left for Indiana.

We stopped for dinner at Balltown, Iowa, and this is the view that greeted us, looking towards the Mississippi River.

We spent the night in Mount Carroll, Illinois, and this was one of the fun decorations at our B&B.

We stopped at the Indiana Dunes to see Lake Michigan and do a bit of beach combing.

The Chicago skyline in the distance.

One of our favorite quilt gardens along the Heritage Trail in Amish country.

We had at traditional Amish dinner at Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, IN.

You could even eat inside an Amish buggy!

The parlor at the Murphy Guest House, where we stayed, in Bristol, IN.

Ann, our hostess, surprised us with a delightful welcome tray.

Breakfast was wonderful, too!

We learned to love the sound of the horses and buggies clip-clopping down the roads.

These horses were waiting outside the Rise and Roll.

I spotted many "rainbows" along the way - this one at Yoder's General Store.

This quilt garden was especially beautiful.

So were these real quilts!

Fabric can be so enticing...

I thought of Marianne R. when I saw these mushrooms in Shipshewana.

My husband and Mom and Dad at our next B&B - the Country Victorian B&B in Middlebury, IN.

We found these quilts down a quaint country lane.

The  Old bag Factory was in Goshen.

This quilt garden was very colorful.

Each garden was accompanied by a chart describing the pattern.

This was my favorite mural!

We saw a round barn in Nappanee.

There were signs of harvest everywhere.

More murals on the side of a barbershop in Nappanee.

On Friday night we headed down to Fort Wayne for the rehearsal and dinner with my family.

The church were they were married, Immanueal Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, was beautiful inside and out.

Beautiful mums, compliments of Hybels, a plant wholesaler in Michigan my sister-in-law works for, decorated the church.

On the way home, we stopped to see the chapel at Valparaiso, where Michael and Abby went to college.

We arrived back in Iowa a little before midnight... it's good to be home, and so nice to sleep in our own beds....

Hope you enjoyed our little vacation!