Masonic Memorial

We live about 7 miles from the George Washington Masonic Memorial. It's been on our list of places to see before we leave. Since Marilyn was here this weekend, we decided to try it out!
Ethan had his last basketball class yesterday. (He starts it again in two weeks) Don't worry, Mommy watched him play!!!
After class we drove over to the Memorial.
There were lots of statues and pictures of Washington.
I think we got a picture at each one!
Right before this picture was taken, Nate stuck his finger up Washington's nose. And monkey see, monkey do....

Luray Caverns

The HIGHLIGHT of our trip was to Luray Caverns.
The caverns were seriously breathtaking!!!!! These are stalactites on top and a pool of water underneath making a mirror image on bottom. It was the best optical illusion I have ever seen. The picture does not do it justice.
This place was so kid friendly. We were able to take the stroller everywhere. They also provided headphones with codes for each stop. They had a code for adults and a code for kids. The boys LOVED listening for the clues to find different things.
This was the Christmas tree!
I don't know what was more fun....looking at the cavern or the boy's faces!!
Ethan took a photo of us! Nice!!!
I took this one! ha!
Nate and I had to share a headphone b/c Lincoln was admitted for free and so he didn't get a headphone. Nate was just as cute! This place was truly awesome!
Ethan walked around pretty much independently. I only had to tell him a few times to slow down and look at everything.
The four of us were so bummed when the hour tour was over!

Appalachian Trail

Once it warmed up a bit on our drive, we stopped to take a little hike on the Appalachian Trail.
These guys were not excited to stop their movie on the DVD player at first.
BUT, almost immediately as we got onto the trail, Daddy found this tree and decided to climb it. The little guys were right behind him.
Of course, one climb was not good enough. They had to keep climbing, and climbing, and climbing!They had so much fun.
We started back up the trail, but every tree we saw on the ground Lincoln wanted to climb it.
Luckily, Nate had another great idea. He told the boys to look for really good walking sticks.

We ended up walking about an hour. It was gorgeous!!! It was also all up hill, so we warmed up quickly and really enjoyed the walk.
You've gotta love the self-timer on the camera!!!

Skyline Drive

We made it to God's country, for sure! We started our day off taking a drive down Skyline drive.
The views were amazing! I think that we missed the "peak" by a few days or so, but the colors were still great!
Skyline drive has 75 lookout spots. You literally drive your car up and this is what you get to see! The best part is that you don't have to get out of your car.....which is good because it was COLD this morning (35 degrees).
We waited a few hours before we got out to take a few pictures. We took a little hike, too. I will share those photos tomorrow.
GORGEOUS!

Mountain Vernon Trail

We decided to try out a little bike riding as a family, yesterday. Our neighborhood, and even road for that matter, is mainly hills. So, we put the bikes in the truck and drove over to the Mount Vernon trail. When Ethan called Memaw later that day, he called it the Mountain Vernon trail!
It is a heavily populated trail. There are joggers, and bikers, roller bladers, and walkers.
Ethan took the lead and that poor fella pedaled like crazy!!!! He only stopped 10-20 times for water! ha!!! He stops with NO warning. I almost crashed twice! ha!
At one of our water stops, we ran into our friends the Kelleys. They rode all the way down to Mount Vernon, which was a 10 mile trip. We made it two miles, which I thought was fantastic!!!

Vacation part 1

We started day one of vacation in Williamsburg. We went to Busch Gardens last year and loved it! So, we went made it our first day stop. The Hills are on vacation with us this year. The "boys" are having a great time together.
This guy was seriously occupied on the way down to Williamsburg and to the North Carolina with his Nintendo DS. He is already addicted to his games.
The girls took the little boys back for naps and the big boys stayed and rode the big rides. This was one of Nate's favorites! ha!
This was my favorite picture of the day! Everyone around us was talking about how cute the little boy on the ride was! Adorable!!
We made it to North Carolina today! We can't wait to hit the beach tomorrow!

Fire Truck Works

We saw Fireworks on July 1st at Busch Gardens. Lincoln started calling them Fire Truck Works. He talked about them non-stop. On the 4th he was sooo excited he didn't nap. He fell asleep in the stroller 45 minutes before the show started. Nate, Ethan, and I panicked and had to wake him up. He would have been devastated if he had missed them. He watched them all and made it home before he fell back asleep. He's still talking about those Fire Truck Works.

Colonial Williamsburg

Our final stop on our vacation was at Colonial Williamsburg. The day was a hot one and I think we all were worn out from our previous fun filled days. In retrospect, this was not the best idea for two kiddos under four (especially after the beach and amusement park)The boys were excellent. I only had to lock them up once.
We walked up the street, went in a couple buildings, ate lunch, and called it a day. We were exhausted. We decided that this place was going to be a zoo for fireworks, so we decided to drive back to Busch gardens and watch from the parking lot there. We went to dinner and started out for ice cream when we stumbled into Colonial Williamsburg again. We found a great parking spot by the road and a huge field to watch the fireworks. We debated and finally decided to stay here and ditch our decision to go back to Busch Gardens.
Since we had two hours to kill until the fireworks, we walked into town and people watched.
These were some serious firework observers. I wish there was some way to capture how great our seats were and how close to the road we were. Those crazy people in the crowds missed out on the best seats!!!
This was the BEST vacation ever! We are all happy to be home, but bummed our vacation is over!

Virginia Beach-Day two

The excitement that started the day before carried over into day two. Lincoln decided to wake the hotel up at 6:15 by saying, "beach wet" over and over and over! We actually made it out to the beach about 10:30. The digging started and everyone (except Mommy) seemed to get buried.Nate and I got the boys into the water today. We held both of them and headed out to the waves. I was the wimp and headed back in with Link. They were so strong I thought I was going to fall over with him. He was enjoying himself so much that he started yelling, "No Mommy go back." Ethan was even squealing with delight.
Our next ploy to skip the nighttime sandy beach ordeal was to take them to the little amusement park up the boardwalk which was cunningly avoided the night before.
Poor Daddy crunched his legs up for the dizzing rides. He was such the trooper.
We ended the night with one more family photo. This time a nice gentleman volunteered to take our photo and I didn't have to edit it one bit. He was very funny and pretended to run off with our camera. I might have believed him if he wasn't laughing the whole time!