Good news first.

The good news is that the kids and I had an adventure filled day. We drove to Pennsylvania to go to the Herr's factory tour. We were ridiculously early, so we ate lunch in Oxford. We had tons of time, so as we headed to the tour in Nottingham for our 1:00 tour, we were very relaxed. Then on the only road to take, we were hindered by traffic. So we were actually late to our tour. Thank goodness for cell phones. We were able to call the factory, and they put us in the 1:20 tour. We had a lot of fun with it - free samples of hot, fresh chips that had been whole potatoes just 6 minutes before - and a chance to learn a lot about the company and its products.

Then, our guest had wanted to see Amish country, so we set off for Lancaster. We ended up in downtown Lancaster, although we really wanted to be in a more tourist driven area.
After some failed attempts due to construction detours that our GPS was unable to account for, we decided to head home.

It turned out to be beneficial. On the way home, we drove right through Amish country and saw many Amish people and buggies and farms. It was really neat and such a great adventure even with a few missteps.

So that was the good news of the day. The not-so-good news was that my mom became quite ill this morning and is spending the night in the hospital for observation. My dear friend, Shannon, took me to the hospital, and we visited her. She seemed much better than she was this morning, but she still wasn't quite herself. They haven't determined an exact cause, but they're expecting a reaction to a new medicine that she started yesterday.