John & Mindy McCracken's blog: Our Vacation in Pictures...

This is one of our favorite photos from the trip. French Creek runs just a mile behind Mindy's mom's house and was an idyllic spot for John to take his books to study, reflect and pray as well as to take the kids for fun. The kids LOVED throwing rocks into the creek.

This is a mommy and baby snake getting some sun while intertwined. Makes ya look at snakes a little differently, eh?

Hannah got to meet her paternal grandfather (Pap) for the first time.

Paw Paw (Chinese name for maternal grandmother) holding her newest grandchildren: Elijah on the left and Hannah on the right.

3 generations: Paw Paw with Melanie and her boys: Luke (2 1/2) and Elijah (3mos) and Mindy and her three: Christopher (4), Sarah (2 1/2) and Hannah (2mos).

Mindy's uncle David and aunt Rosetta (Paw Paw's brother and sister in law) were visiting from Hong Kong. Our kids would call them "Kao Gong" and "Kam Paw" for great uncle and great aunt.

All 5 cousins together. Ok, so they may not all be looking at the camera...but at least we figured out a way to get them to stay put long enough for a photo! Here they are in birth order - clockwise starting with Christopher. What's funny is we didn't plan it that way; we just threw them down in that position for pictures and noticed it later.

Here we are at Longwood Gardens. It couldn't have been a more perfect day (weather: blue skies, in the 70s).

Sarah rode on Kao Gong's shoulders for the better part of the afternoon (and loved it, I might add!) I honestly don't know how he had the energy to do that...

Rosetta, David & Philomena (Mindy's uncle David and her mom are the oldest of 7 brothers and sisters).

John with the kids in front of the fountain gardens (we saw a couple of fabulous fountain shows).

Have you ever seen a hanging hydrangea basket?!? There were dozens of these hanging in the conservatory.

Sarah jumps at every opportunity to hold baby Hannah. Have you ever seen such deep blue hydrangeas??

...or hot pink ones??

We're thinking of adding a room like this onto our house...

Orchids...

More orchids. You could buy these for a mere $75. Hey, at least it included a pot with some dirt.

David & Rosetta in the orchid house (I cannot tell you how wonderful it smelled in there!)

Sarah sitting by the Dianthus flower bed. I planted these same kind of flowers in my flower bed in Texas and they DIDN'T look like this!

Rosetta performing Tai Chi by the lake. She's actually a Tai Chi instructor back in Hong Kong.

As you can imagine...with so many Chinese tourists in our midst, there came many, MANY photo opportunities! Sarah decided to have a little fun with this pose. That's Mindy's cousin, Andrew (whom Sarah called "Agrix"...we're still not sure why) who lives in Toronto.

Living in Texas, you're just not used to looking up and seeing a canopy of trees blocking the sky (or the "SKAH" as we say it down here).

Hannah was smiling before we came to PA, but she really started smiling, cooing and laughing responsively as well as punching and kicking her arms and legs while we were in PA.

Sarah gets a haircut. Actually, we all got our hair cut by Paw Paw (except for Hannah, of course), but we didn't feel the need to post pictures of John and Mindy's haircuts...