Our travels this month took us to Cooperstown, New York, “The Home of Baseball”. Our goal, of course, to play baseball!

To start our adventure, we packed up and drove 10 hours to this quaint and amazing little town. I never imagined New York could be so green! Cooperstown is truly beautiful, and it’s also in the middle of NOWHERE. After getting the whole family settled in our vacation home, it came time to drop off our first player (Ty). Things didn’t go as smoothly as planned there! To get into the barracks we waited in traffic for THREE HOURS, leaving only five minutes for our last hugs and kisses.

Once we dropped off Ty, we ventured downtown and checked out the cute shops and restaurants. It was a boutique paradise, and all of the restaurants had cute, baseball inspired names such as DoubleDay Cafe, Hey Getcha Hot Dog, Mickey’s Place and Hard Ball Cafe. We even found a distillery that sells Glimmerglass Branded Vodka (named after a local state park) in a baseball shaped bottle, as well as a non-GMO cinnamon whiskey called Spitball. Awesome! The shops were also 100% focused on baseball with shirts that read “My son hit a Home Run in Cooperstown” and “My son hit a Grand Slam in Cooperstown”! Fortunately for us, members of the Ty fan club, we were able to purchase BOTH!

Along with Ty’s Grand Slam and Home Run, he made the whole family proud with a strong showing on the Pitchers Mound, and every base that he played.

As we neared the end of our baseball inspired vacation, we were so excited when our team made it to the Championship game in Little Majors Stadium. What an amazing accomplishment! The boys fought hard, but ultimately they came up short. There were a lot of tears and sad faces, but after a few days Ty came around!

Since our team finished 2nd Place and went 11-1, we didn’t have a lot of breaks! That said, we did make time for one grand Yelton family excursion. Before arriving in Cooperstown, I researched the area to find that the oldest covered bridge in the United States is located just seven miles from downtown. It’s called the Hyde Hall Covered Bridge and is nestled in Glimmerglass State Park. Entrance to the park cost $7, and it was worth every cent. If you ever find yourself in the area, this is a MUST DO!!

Overall, we’re so glad that we made the trip to Cooperstown. If you ever have the opportunity to take your son or daughter, don’t let this pass you by! Even if your kids are grown, but you love baseball, you could still spend three to four days in this quaint little town and have a blast.

We’ve had a lot of great family adventures lately, and as a mom, I just love to see how much fun the boys have. When we left Cooperstown we also headed to Niagara Falls. Stay tuned for a future blog on that trip! In the meantime, I hope you’re all enjoying your summer so far!

I hope everyone had an amazing (and safe) Fourth of July weekend! If you drove down Shulze Drive at all, you may have noticed that Yelton Fine Jewelers was closed. While it’s always a hard decision to leave our customers behind, we sure appreciated the time away as a family. It just doesn’t happen enough with our busy summer schedules.

To celebrate our freedom, and soak up our time together, we made our way to our vacation home on Hidden Valley Lake (psst, visitors always welcome). Along with the usual food, games, and fireworks we also had some time to indulge in our hobbies. Ty and Mark snuck away to play baseball resulting in some shiny new trophies, while Trent and I took our new paddle boards for a spin. So much fun, here’s a glimpse …

To all of our customers, thank you again for allowing this opportunity to escape as a family. I hope your holiday weekend was just as relaxing, free, and full of laughs. See you all soon!