Today was officially the first day of summer vacation in our house.  I woke up to my 10 year old son asking if he could make pancakes.  Well, of course! He makes pancakes from scratch that leaves everyone looking for seconds.  Not having to scramble out the door at 7:30 a.m. and breakfast being made for ME – I could get used to this!  The reality of filling the day with 4 boys at home caught up with me quickly, however.  It will all go by too fast though, I’m afraid.  I live for the summer and I’m going to savor every single day.

I finally uploaded pictures from the weekend – a dream weekend for us, really.  My Dad (bless him) took all 3 of the older boys to the beach. They surfed (and came home with bruised faces from being tossed upside down in the waves – my Dad included), played putt putt and went to Dumsers for icecream.  Meanwhile Randy and I packed our little guy, our pup, and our bags and once again headed to our favorite antiquing destination, Adamstown, PA (blogged about it here).  There is so much to see here that I didn’t even make it to all of the antique malls.

This time around we found Crystal Springs (once known as Addams Spring), a source of pure water and frequented by locals for many years.  It is fascinating to learn that historians believed that an Indian village once stood in this vicinity.  While checking out the spring, an amazing retro truck pulled up (and what color!).  We got to talking to the nice owner about his 1958 Chevrolet Apache.  It turns out he is a trucker and saw this truck for sale while driving his route, sitting there on a farm.  He drove right by but later wondered why he had not stopped to inquire about it.  He told himself he would stop the next time if it was still there.  Sure enough, the truck was still there on his next run and he stopped to buy it.  He invited us to hop in.  It’s not every day that I get to sit behind the wheel of  1950’s classic!

What could be better than stopping for ice cream at a local favorite?  A scoop of ice-cream, chocolate shake, and a rootbeer float were enjoyed by a stream while watching the ducks.  Now speaking of food, later that night we drove over to Lancaster and had the most amazing dinner at Miller’s…. anyone heard of this smorgasbord?  We are planning a trip back to Lancaster just to go back again!

Adamstown has a few antique malls and flea markets that only open on Sunday.  The flea markets are open before 6:00 a.m.  I was determined to go this time, and we made it there not long after 7:00 – not too bad after staying up so late on Saturday night.  I found many treasures and spoke to nice vendors.  Our little guy spotted an old metal wheel barrow and had the best time wheeling it up and down the dusty rows.  Much to everyone’s amusement, he proudly filled his wheel barrow with sticks and rocks.

Let’s now jump to one of my best finds – ever.  This one was a steal.  There it was, sitting in all of it’s old leather glory on the $2.00 table.  I couldn’t believe it.  I left it right where I saw it and went to find the dealer; surely it wasn’t meant to be on that table.  The dealer seemed almost apologetic when he told me there were no pictures inside the antique CDV (carte-de-visite)/tintype album.  I couldn’t pay for my surprise find fast enough!  I have an antique album collection (I’d love to share in a future post), and this tiny treasure is one of my new favorites.  I really couldn’t believe my good fortune.

It was a lucky album day.  My husband spied this near-complete (missing one year) collection of Naval Academy Lucky Bag year books from the early 1930’s.  As a Naval Academy graduate, these treasured yearbooks always catch his eye when he happens upon them.  He truly appreciates that these pre-WWII era albums are quite rare.  We’ve found that albums this old can range in price from $75 to over $200 and he was lucky to purchase all 3 for $40.00.  The 1930’s era art found inside is remarkable.

Here is a sweet old jewelry box (yet another collection) that I found.  I filled the box with some of the earbobs and pins that I collected over the weekend.  I can’t resist the romance of flowers and rhinestones.

I’ll end this post with a couple of initial pins – one for me and one for a special friend.

Thank you for visiting, so happy you stopped by!

-Cindy