Williamsburg Weekend

  
We headed off with the youngest three to Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown this weekend. Tori has a summer job and Julia just didn't want to go...hate it when they get to that age. Alei comes and stays at our house with the dogs and the teens when we leave, my sister takes care of Buddy, the garage cat, and our friends down the road take care of all the barn animals. Life isn't as simple for us as most the campers around us that bring their two kids and one dog!

The historic places just opened two weeks ago and like everywhere in Virginia, we have to wear masks inside any building.

Buffalo Wild Wings did let us take them off to eat...
 

It was as hot as we feared, but never rained on us like the forecast said it was going to. We walked miles the first day in Williamsburg.

The in-character workers are so impressive.

Governors Palace

The Palace gardens were gorgeous -

The first horse, Michael, didn't want anyone to pet him, but he allowed Selah to a bit; she is amazing with all animals!
 

The pool was nice to return to after hot days touring - 
 

We tortured ourselves in the hot sun playing mini-golf; I lost to JD by one point, the closest I've ever come to beating him. Maybe one day! 

 The second day we did Jamestown - it wasn't near the walking as Williamsburg, so was better for the second day. 

The Susan constant - 

  
I did also crank out a few school assignments poolside -
 

A Few More Pictures - Home Version

 I totally failed getting adequate pictures at Wolf Lodge. We were actually accompanied by two sisters from church and Aunt Deb, who helped keep little people from getting lost or drowning - I don't even have one picture to prove they were there. It was tough to have the camera around a bunch of wet kids and we weren't able to really watch it, so it spent most of the time in the room.

Here's my pictures of Bella and Selah's first water play experience. They had a blast. On the way, they asked if "water slides in America or Ethiopia?" As if we were all just driving to Ethiopia; they must not remember how long that flight home was.

 Julia is a crazy, pool loving girl. You can barely keep up with her and she rides everything!

 

Here was our pool side lunch where we were happy to find a tiny table with three chairs. It was crowded!

 

Before We Lose Power

 While our area of the country is still recovering from the earthquake, Hurricane Irene is heading towards us. Our planned  6-7 hour trip home yesterday took 12 hours since we had to stop for hurricane supplies on top of our planned stop at Hershey's Chocolate World. This morning has been a bit stressful getting ready, but I'm taking this moment to focus on the lake. The house we rented in NJ was straight across from a lake that we spent a few days swimming and boating at. 


My five youngest in their "lake shoes." They have worn them all summer, in and out of the water. 

 We had the use of two canoes and a kayak. I think it's the first time my little guys had been out in a boat.

 The swimming area had a diving board - 

A couple of platforms that you had to swim to - 

And most importantly sand, which the kids played in for hours.

And as a bonus, they had a small playground - 

My kids decided that they liked the lake even more than the beach. A good time was had by all. 


Now I'm returning to hurricane preparations. I'll be back when we have power.

NYC - Round Two

We put in a very long second day in NY, with even more walking than the first. The kids did great; I really wish I knew how many miles we walked. We started by getting off the train at 9th street and walking to and  around Times Square, which is something like 50th street. After most of the day in that area, we walked a further 20 or so blocks to Central Park.

The kids enjoyed meeting the police on horse-back. 

We were also able to meet a few celebrities - 

 The kids got a free water bottle by being videoed for a kid's water campaign. 

 We visited several kid friendly locations. We spent way too long in Toys R Us, but they had such a great time. Elijah even got to meet Spiderman, which is something he actually requested on the drive up, (but I opted to not pay $20 for the picture that they take.) They also rode the ferris wheel  and visited with the huge robotic dinosaur. 

We took a stroll through Central Park at the end of the day. The tough part of the trip was our walk back, our "cheap, quick" dinner at McDonalds and our difficulty in finding the correct train (it was the New Jersey Path, not the regular Subway.) Both Elijah and Julia were asleep in the strollers much of the trip back, but we had to carry them, the strollers and all the bags on and off the trains. One of the trains was so packed that I couldn't even reach a pole to hold on, we were just holding on the kids and trying to not fall over. We left McDonalds at 9:00 p.m. and reached our van at almost mid-night; quite the adventure!

Today is supposed to be our last day at the lake, but it is really storming, so it may end up being an indoor day. We do have to clean the house and pack up for our journey home tomorrow.


Our biggest blessing is that we seem to not have suffered too much in the earthquake that hit very near our home (and Alei) while we are away. Alei was at work during the quake and it took several hours before we were able to reach her. Our home seems to not have any damage. We are due for a hurricane to hit this weekend also, so we are going to buying some supplies on our way home. 

I'm Beached Out!

We lived by the beach for nine years before moving to the area we live now; I think I've spent more hours at the beach this summer than those nine years combined! We just spent another few days at the beach, only because JD had to work there, so we went along. We also still have good friends in the area, so my motivation was visiting with them as well as hitting the beach.

The reality is that while we had a lot of fun moments, it was tough to be there without JD hour after hour with seven kiddos. Gabriel and Alei stayed home because of work and school, so I was a bit overwhelmed at times. The worst is usually when Julia hits her high-pitch scream and it's incredibly difficult to calm her down. Elijah has also taken up high-pitch screaming just for fun, so I exert a lot of energy just keeping the two of them from screaming in the hotel and at the pool!


We did have a wonderful time visiting with two long-loved families from our days of living there and my friend, Wendy, blessed us with tons from her mega-garden that we are eating and freezing. We did cut short our last planned visit due to our AC at home leaking in the basement and me straining my back lifting the cooler. I'm OK now as long as I don't look down, lean down or lift anything or anybody. It could be worse, but not fun never the less.

Here's a few beach shots -

Elijah and I had a hundred conversations about the King Neptune statue that went like this:

Elijah - "MOOOOMMMM (grabbing my chin and turning my face so I'm staring right into his eyes) - THAT?"

Me - That's King Neptune

Elijah - "I scared, BAD Neptune, BAD!"

Me - Don't be scared. He's just a big rock.

Elijah - "I scared, BAD Neptune, BAD rock"

Then we'd play for two minutes and repeat the above.........He did like the blue slides, however, when the sand wasn't too hot - like at 9:00 p.m.

One of our trips to the beach, Julia found a few friends and they spent hours gathering little sand crabs. They must have had 100 in the bucket. The one little girl would get mad at Elijah anytime he came near the bucket. I saw the little girl's parents eye-brows shoot up when Julia announced that Elijah was her brother. I always find it humorous to watch people's reactions to my very African and very blond children. (You've got to entertain yourself somehow so many hours at the beach!)

There's my little screamer. She is a cutie and she loves, loves, loves the water.

Oh, the sand. It doesn't matter what precautions I take, we seem to eat and sleep in sand for a week after a trip to the beach. The one day after I outside showered off all the kids and boogie-boards, I turned around and Julia was rolling around in the sand. Amazing.....

Here's Elijah soaking up some rays. He broke his sun-glasses, so he wanted to wear mine!

All in all, the kids had a great time and I survived. I may need a little vacation to re-cover from my "vacation" but that generally is part of my normal life.

I have some okra to freeze (never mind, I've never even eaten it - Wendy told me how to freeze it for stew this winter.)

The Carolinas Border

There is a really nice rest-stop at the Welcome Center of North Carolina, bordering South Carolina, that hosted some fun, tame wild-life. There were at least 20 turtles that came out of the water in hopes of being fed some bread.

There was also a pair of Canadian geese that had four fuzzy, darling babies. Although the Momma would hiss a bit, they all ate of the kid's hands.

I'd love to have a pond like this!

Once I walked over to Elijah, he kindly informed me that he wasn't drowning - good news!

We are home and I have tons to do. I am going to try to get back to school tomorrow; it's going to be hard since it really feels like summer now that we've been on vacation!