That time of year again... First day of school!

6 days after returning home from Virginia, the girls had their first day of school. The 2010/2011 school year has begun! We have a 5th grader, 3rd grader and a big Kindergartner. Anya and Hannah will be going to the Intermediate school about a block from our house, so they will walk together this year (for the past two years Anya has walked by herself...it was hard to learn to wait for a sister...)! Cora will be at the Elementary school about a mile from our house, so she will get to ride the bus this year! She is so excited! We love all our teachers, it looks to be a great school year again!

Bumming around Charlottesville, VA

The main reason for our trip was for Dad to go to a course for work. So, during the weekday between the hours of 8am and 5pm, the girls and I were on our own. It was great not having to worry about cleaning, laundry (having lived in C-ville before, I used my old laundry mat which is awesome! You do the "poor mans drop", start your load and they finish it up for you. All you have to do is remember to pick it up!), and the mundane household tasks. We hung out at the hotel, played games, built forts, and found things to do in town. We went to a Children's discovery museum, and loved it so much we went back and took Dad with us. We found a fun little water/splash park to cool off at. We also went "booking" as my mom-law likes to call it, and scavenged for special finds in used book stores. There is so much history in that area, we saw Revolutionary and Civil war sights, and we walked around the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. This campus was Thomas Jefferson's baby, he designed it and over saw it's construction. It was neat to walk around and see the magnificence of this University campus with ode's to the colonial plantation and federalist styles. They just don't make them like they used to! The first picture you see below is of us on the Virgina Beach boardwalk...I just forgot to add it in my last post. We had a great 2 1/2 weeks in Virginia. We left feeling like there is still so much more to explore!

Virginia Beach...the Best Beach Ever!

The second weekend we were in Virginia, we went to our favorite beach ever...Virginia Beach! It is perfect for our kids, who like to wade more then body surf. The waves are gentle and the beach is shallow until well out in the ocean. While there we stayed in a cabin on the beach. It was awesome, and big enough to actually fit our whole family. There were two bedrooms and a loft. Anya got her own room, and the little girls got to go up the spiral staircase and share the loft. The boys bunked with Matt and I in their pack-n-plays. It was a neat and adventurous place to stay, The girls favorite part was the porch swing...they had more fun on that thing! We had a great time on the beach. The boys discovered sand for the first time. Jack wasn't sure, it took him awhile to really want to touch it. Hunter embraced the sand right away. He dug in and found all sorts of treasures to put in his mouth. The most memorable that we dug out of his mouth are: a huge shell, and a crab claw...Gross!!

While at the beach we also took an evening to drive over to Bush Gardens in Williamsburg. We get in Free, but it was dark so we didn't take any pictures. We only ended up spending about two hours there, but we fit in about 6 rides and we got to watch a spectacular fireworks display. Well worth the drive! It was another great weekend in Virginia!

Washington D.C.--- A Grand Summer Adventure Continuation

We spent most of our time in Virginia in Charlottesville, but we did get away on some weekend trips. The first weekend we were there we went to our Nation's capital, Washington D.C. . It was a great trip and very informative for the kids. The last time we were in D.C., Anya was 5 and Cora was "baby Cora". It was great to go again when some of our kids were older and more able to appreciate all the neat monuments and the HISTORY! The first day we let the kids pick two Smithsonian museums to tour. The picked the big ones of course, Natural History and Air and Space. They were fun to go through, especially since we had just seen the second "Night at the Museum" movie. Our second day we toured all the monuments. Much to Anya and Hannah's disappointment, we didn't get to go the top of the Washington Monument. Who knew that during the summer when it is "peak" attendance, you need to show up at 630am to start to line up for a ticket. The ticket office opens at 8am and they said they had sold out of tickets for the day by 830am. Sorry kids, the last time dad and I went to the top it was October and we had no problem getting tickets! We did a lot of other cool things though. One of the coolest was the National Archives and seeing the documents that represent the foundation of our Country. The kids all did great and had a blast. I think the highlight for them was riding the Metro or the "train". Below you can see a picture of the boys during their first Metro ride.

Good Times!

Proclamation of The Family Celebration

I just joined a give-away and looked around a blog site that I found really interesting. If any of you, readers if your out there, would like to join or check it out... here is the site:
www.beinglds.blogspot.com

Grand Summer Adventure #2 Begins

I suppose, now that we have been back for two weeks, that I should start posting about our second Grand summer Adventure. Matt had to go to Charlottesville, Virginia for business the last 2 1/2 weeks of summer. We really didn't want to spend the last days of summer without our dad, sitting around the house doing nothing much exciting ( I still haven't really gone further then 30 miles with just me and the babies...not quite ready for that one!!!) So we decided to tag along on dad's business trip. We did a lot of fun things, but mostly we hung out at the hotel and played in the pool. The kids loved this, unlimited access to a pool was like a dream come true. The boys loved the pool too, they love to get wet, splash and they even try to swim. I think they are our first kids who are not afraid of water at this age, probably because we have gone to the pool so much. We will see if the trend holds! Our adventure begun on July 13 and lasted until July 31st. It was a grand time, we love Virginia, we want to go back!