Summer Vacation: Part 2

We made a few stops along the way home from Virginia Beach. The first was at Yorktown, VA. We love being so close to all these places you've read about in the History books. Dane and I wanted to brush up on the details of the Revolution, so a couple weeks before our vacation, we watched a 5-part series called The Revolution from the History Channel. It was great and we highly recommend it! We got to see how the soldiers lived, how they cooked, what their medicines looked like, etc. It was neat. The only thing we missed was the cannon. We heard it when we first arrived, but shortly thereafter, it started raining, so they had it all covered up with a tarp. :( Too bad! These were the sizes of the soldier's tents:

This is an officer's tent - notably larger:

These were the doctor's supplies/medicines: (it makes me so grateful for modern medicine!)

This was where they cooked for ALL the soldiers: (notice there are several cooking areas around this big dug-out)

And these were the typical daily rations of food. Jacey and Janae did not find them very appetizing!

There was a kids room where they could dress up in the old clothing. The girls looked stunning! :) Eric was in the background pretending to be a car "ummmmmm, ummmmm, Vrummmmmmm!" Didn't get a picture of that one, but hopefully you can picture it in your mind.

The next stop was Jamestown.

The fort was pretty small, but included a church as seen in the second one.

They made repicas of the 3 ships that first arrived at Jamestown. We boarded the biggest one (lwhich really isn't all that big). They actually sail these replicas once a year to commemorate the Jamestown landing.

Here are pictures of the Powhatan village. Jacey and Janae were more excited about this one because "Pocahontas lived there." We checked out some books at the library and they learned about Pocahontas, the Powhatan indians, John Smith, etc. They especially liked the Indian homes (I forgot the specific name for them).

They had lots of furs draped over their beds and hanging on walls. The big bear fur made Jacey and Janae a little bit scared. ;)

They would make boats by burning out the middle of a big tree that they cut down.

A typical corn grinder.

After all of this, the rain picked up again, so we decided to call it a day and drive back home. It was great to get out, and fun to see all these wonderful places.

Summer Vacation: Part 1

Howdy folks! It's been a while, in fact, I didn't post anything the whole summer! School starts tomorrow, so I decided to try to get a few photos up of our fun summer memories... Summer vacation: We made a short trip to Virginia Beach. It was F . U . N ! The girls keep asking to go back to Viriginia Beach for our next summer vacation. The first thing we did was stop at Gravelly Point. It's a great place to have a picnic and watch planes take off and land from Reagan National airport. The planes flew right above us. It was fun, and LOUD!

The first thing we did when we got to Virginia Beach was go walk along the shoreline. It was a little chilly, but beautiful!

Shortly after taking these pictures, Jacey tripped and fell into the water. It was shockingly cold! :) We went back to our hotel to get dried off and de-sanded. One of the highlights of the beach was going for a walk on the board walk at night. We got cute pictures of each of the kids on their favorite color fish...

The girls loved swimming at the indoor pool (the ocean was a bit too cold for them) :)

Eric wasn't so sure about the whole beach experience. The first time we plopped him down in the sand, he just stood there, and cried...

But after about 30 minutes, he decided it wasn't so bad after all!

Jacey spent much of her time building sand castles and decorating them with things she found on the beach.

Janae spent most of her time with this -

This is the watering can she bought with her own money. She ran back and forth, back and forth, back and forth from the ocean to where they were building their castles. She ran that distance dozens, and dozens of times. She LOVED that watering can!

This is Daddy's big sand castle -

One evening, the girls found our camera and had some fun with it (one of the walls in our hotel room was a huge mirror, which explains the pictures). Silly girls! :)

And this is a picture of me out on the balcony with my little buddy.

Some of the other highlights included seeing dolphins out in the ocean (I couldn't get a good picture of it), listening to Little House on the Prarie as we were driving in the car, and enjoying the AMAZING sunrises/sunsets from our balcony!

So beautiful!!!

New Family Pic!

Okay, I'm not feeling guilty any more! :) We took this picture at Yorktown underneath a beautiful cherry blossom tree. Love it!

Family Pic

Every time I look at our blog, I feel guilty about the family picture: we're missing one family member - and we have been for over a year! So to make myself not feel guilty I removed our old family picture. This in turn motivates me to get a new one taken and uploaded very soon! :) Be looking for a new family picture within the next two weeks!

Spring has Sprung...early!

It's not officially spring, but the trees have decided to blossom none-the-less. We enjoyed a beautiful outing to the park yesterday. Here are a few pictures of the kids and trees. Can I just say I love spring on the east coast!

Another Birthday!

Here are some picture of Janae's birthday. It was so much fun! We had a ladybug theme birthday party, so you'll see all the "manlybugs" and "ladybugs" dancing, having cake, and having lots of fun!













Even though the party was all about ladybugs, Janae still REALLY wanted a fish tank birthday cake (from a Henry and Mudge book). So, that's why there are chocolate ladybug cupcakes, and a white fish tank cake. :)