Christmas at Rose Hill Farm Book Brunch

Join us this November for a special Breakfast Brunch. Suzanne Woods Fisher has invited our book club to celebrate the Christmas Season with her. Books and Cocktails book club will be having a Christmas at Rose Hill Farm themed brunch. We will be discussing Christmas at Rose Hill Farm: An Amish Love Storyon Sunday November 23, 2014 11:00am at John Wright Restaurant in Wrightsville, PA. We will also have Amish themed trivia and will be having a drawing to win a copy of One Perfect Spring: A Novel. Also, Fisher will be making a donation to a Shepard’s Gate (a shelter for abused women and children) for 50 or more non-perishable food items we donate to our local shelter. So please bring some non-perishable food items along. You must pre-register.

The cost of the brunch is $18.95. It is a buffet brunch. It has omelets made to order, waffle station, carving station, and many other breakfast items, as well as,soup, salad, fish selection, fresh vegetable, pasta and 3 daily specialty items. Full Bar available including make your own Bloody Marys. Price of drinks is not included (Alcoholic or Non-alcoholic). You can sign up on meetup http://www.meetup.com/Books-and-Cocktails-Book-Club/events/212894572/ or send an email to PaDutchTravel@gmail.com.

About the Book:
Bess Riehl is preparing Rose Hill Farm for her Christmas wedding, but her groom isn’t who she thought it would be. Billy Lapp is far away from his Amish roots working as a rose rustler for Penn State and wants nothing to do with Stoney Ridge, his family, or Bess. And that suits Bess just fine. Why should she think twice about a man who left without a word, without any explanation? It’s time she moved on with her life, and that meant saying yes to Amos Lapp, Billy’s cousin and best friend. But as Bess and Amos’s wedding day draws near, her emotions tangle into a tight knot. She loves Amos. Yet she can’t forget Billy. When a “lost” rose is discovered at Rose Hill Farm, Billy is sent to track down its origins. Get in, identify the rose, and get out. That’s his plan. The only catch is that he’s having a hard time narrowing down the identity of the lost rose, and he can’t get those tropical blue eyes of Bess Riehl out of his mind. As the history of the lost rose is pieced together, it reminds Bess and Billy–and Amos, too–that Christmas truly is the season of miracles.

About the Author:
Suzanne Woods Fisher’s interest in the Amish began with her grandfather, W.D. Benedict, who was raised Plain in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Suzanne has a great admiration for the Plain people and believes they can provide wonderful examples to the world. In both her fiction and non-fiction books, she has an underlying theme: You don’t have to “go Amish” to incorporate many of their principles–simplicity, living with less, appreciating nature, forgiving others more readily, trusting in God–into your life. When Suzanne isn’t writing or playing tennis (badly!) or bragging to her friends about her grandbabies (so cute!), she is raising puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. To her way of thinking, you just can’t take life too seriously when a puppy is tearing through your house with someone’s underwear in its mouth. Suzanne can be found on-line at: www.suzannewoodsfisher.com.

Books and Cocktails

Join us for a new Book Club that will meet in Wrightsville, PA Once a month on Thursdays for Cocktails and book discussion at a restaurant. Each book is assigned a cocktail that is either a favorite of the character in the book, the authors themselves or is of the era. Examples of drinks are Orange Champagne Punch, Salted Caramel, Bourbon milkshake, and Gin Rickeys. We will be reading the 50 Books listed in Cocktails for Book Lovers. It has such authors as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Alice Munro, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jamaica Kincaid. The genres cover a wide range such as classics, romance, autobiographies, as well as others. You do not have to own or have read Cocktails for Book Loversin order to participate. But, it is a great book that I highly recommend. If you have already read the selection for the month you are still free to come and join in on the discussion. For those who don't drink you can always order your drink Virgin or have a tea or soda instead.

We will also be planning some additional events that will take place on the weekends. Examples are book festivals, day trips to bookshops, and author speaking engagements.

People who may be out of state and are coming to to visit Pennsylvania Dutch Country are always welcome to come and join in at any of the meetings during their time here. Just send an email to PaDutchTravel@gmail and we can get you the name of that month's book. Here are a few of the titles we will be reading.

Eva Luna: A Novel

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

David Copperfield

At the end of each meeting we will also swap books for anyone interested. This is also a great opportunity for people involved in BookCrossing. If you don't know what BookCrossing is you can see the books I've shared here. http://bookcrossing.com/referral/PaDutchTravel

We look forward to you joining us. Questions, comments , email Narnia9334@hotmail.com or to sign up go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/BooksandCocktails/ and request to join.

A New Adventure Awaits You Around Every Corner - Funky Flick

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Funkyflick Company. All opinions are 100% mine.

I found a awesome new website called Funky Flick. It is so fun to use. All you do is type in the name of a book, movie, or Wikipedia page and it will give you movie suggestions based on that information. It is great for anyone to use who likes movies. Because no matter what your particular interests are it will find you new movies to watch.

I like to travel. Whether it is locally here in PA Dutch Country or around the world. I am always on the go traveling and looking for Adventure. When I am not traveling I am usually reading a book about travel or watching movie with a travel related or adventure theme.

Here are some of the new movies I found based on my interest in the PA Dutch, travel and adventure.

• UP (2009) 1hr 29min - Comedy, Family, Action

• Outsourced (2006) 1hr 43min - Comedy, Romance, Drama

• Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D (2008) 1hr 33min - Family, Action

• 127 Hours (2011) 1hr 34min - unknown - History, Action, Drama

• Witness (1985) 45min - Romance, Thriller, Drama

And the last movie on my list is Witness. It stars Harrison Ford. You know any movie he stars in there is definitely going to be some action. It was actually filmed right here in PA Dutch Country in the towns of Strasburg, Intercourse, and Lancaster. In fact, you can take a horse and buggy ride right through the fields where the filming took place.

So head on over to Funky Flick .and find some new picks.

65th Annual Kutztown PA Dutch Folk Festival

Every year people come from all over the world to experience the sights and sounds of the PA Dutch Folk Festival. The festival ran from June 28th to July 6th. And they now have extended hours til 8pm in the evening. This unusual nine-day festival had been featured twice in National Geographic and has been called "one of the most unique festivals on the East coast" by the Washington Post. If you want to learn more about the PA Dutch Culture and see the beautiful PA Dutch Art. The Kutztown festival is the the place to be. The festival is annually in June. If you haven't experienced it. Then you really should. There is no other like it in the country.

I recently visited on Thursday. I wish I could have visited a second time this year but was unable to. I look forward to next year's festival. Below is a few photos from the festival. Including yours truly with distelfinks (PA Dutch Goldfinch art) on my skirt.

They had an operational PA Dutch summer kitchen set-up by Albany Township Historical Society. They were make PA Dutch Bot Boi (Pot Pie)with chicken for the volunteers and they were also making shoo-fly pie.

The recipes come right from this really neat cookbook I got called Folk Art and Foodways of the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Collection of Paintings, Food Lore, and Seasonal Recipes from the Allemaengel in Northern Berks County. I love books. So its hard for me to pass them up. When I saw the PA German Historical Society was there I had to stop and get another book Writing the Amish: The Worlds of John A. Hostetler (Pennsylvania German History & Culture)

Baling Hay Demonstration. A much different method then is used today on modern farms.

If you haven't been then come check it out again next year. Hope to see you there!!

PA Dutch Summer Read - A Time to Love Review

Recently I was looking for a new book to read. I read a lot of non-fiction. But its nice to take a break from that and go into a different time or place. Although I am not a romance fan per say I do like to read about the Amish. So I chose  A Time to Love (Quilts of Lancaster County, Book 1)


 I did really enjoy this. It really is a sweet love story. It tells the story of a women Jenny who was injured in war and returns to her grandmothers Amish home to heal. While she is there she see her former love. A widowed Amish man and his three children. Her two worlds are so completely different. Her "English" (what the Amish call non-Amish) world in New York City and the Amish world she shares with her grandmother. So here you have quite the dilemma. Because, as you may or may not know, the Amish set themselves apart from the English. So the worlds cannot mesh together. So.it makes for a interesting outcome.

Barbara Cameron does a great job of telling this delightful story. With Four books in the Quilts of Lancaster County Seriesit would be a great series to start over the summer.