Williamsburg Day 1

This morning we made breakfast, did all our laundry and took showers and we took our time so it was about 11:30 by the time we got out to Williamsburg.

Today was the first day it has rained on us the whole trip. We have been blessed with amazing happy sunny weather. It only rained a few minutes and then went back to being sunny again.

Our first tour was of the governor's palace. Our tour guide was very kind and gentle in his manner. His costume/character was very cool and it really seemed to fit him well. He didn't just talk about the different interesting things in the house. He talked all about what was going on in the time period and told it like a story, which he was a part of. That was my favorite tour of the day.

Next we toured the house of wealthy gentleman of the time. This tour guide was not dressed in costume. She was a very entertaining speaker. She had certain expressions and ways of putting things that was kinda funny. The family who lived in the house had an interesting story and the house was very pretty. Apparently bright colors were very fashionable in that time period. That was fun to see.

We looked in a couple shops after that but by then we it was almost time for the shows in the big town area. There were people in costume just talking about politics and other things to each other and everyone else. When the actual shows started they still had some interaction with the crowd and were just speaking to us like we were the general public. They even had a public trial where they almost tarred and feathered somebody. Then there were drummers and flute players and they recruited some of the crowd to join the army and they read the Declaration of Independence and fired guns and cannons... It was all very exciting and fun. The cannon especially impressive. When it fired it made a huge smoke ring that didn't disperse until it hit the trees.

After that we toured the capital building where there would be councils, laws made, and trials held in the courtroom.

We're back at the campground for the night. It was thundering and lightning-ing just a few minutes ago. Tomorrow we'll go back to Williamsburg and see some of the many things we missed today.

Jamestown

This morning mom woke up at 6:30 and started driving us to Williamsburg. We got there around 10am. Mom took a nap while Drew and I threw a frisbee around in the parking lot.

Drew bought this frisbee in Niagara Falls. I don't really like hard frisbees generally (because I pretty much stink at throwing them) but this one is really nice. It's not too heavy so it flies far without too much effort, and when you catch it it doesn't hurt your fingers.

The tour guide at Jamestown was so pleasant to listen to. He had a very conversational style that didn't sound forced at all and he brought meaning and morals into the story in such a non threatening way. It was really impressive. I wish we could have toured more of the town with him. There was a museum that we went through with a lot of details about how the people in Jamestown lived and their relations with the Indians and such. It was all very interesting, although we were somewhat tired and didn't take in all the details in.

It was relaxing to just walk on dirt path and hear birds and see squirrels and turtles and interesting bugs. I liked the city to visit, but I definitely prefer being in the middle of trees and grass. (I really wanted to climb a tree, there were so many good ones)

Speaking of bugs....While we were walking through the museum I felt a bug crawling way up pant leg. I got him really fast but then I didn't know what to do with him. I had it pinched through my pants. Any way I went with the situation was going to be unpleasant. It must have been a beetle because it crunched. And then it wouldn't fall down it just stayed there. It was kinda gross and I felt silly trying to deal with it looking natural. (I didn't look too natural)

The time went by really fast. When we got back to the RV we had dinner and then we went and saw Iron Man 3. It was a very fun day. :)

Tonight we are plugged in and hooked up :) Hopefully mommy will sleep well tonight.

Drew was our photographer today (except for one by mom)... I'll try and take more tomorrow.

May 5th a post by Carla

We were in Baltimore on Sunday, the kids slept in. I on the other hand was up with the light and sounds of the day. I waited a while before texting Shannon Bull. We'd arrived at her house the night before, Drew had plugged us into her electricity and it looked rather funny to me to follow our extension cord from several parking spots away from us to her front door.
Church didn't start till 11 am and we were only minutes away, giving Shannon and I plenty of time to visit.
Church was really wonderful, the kids and I talked about the sermon later in the day, it had ministered to us all.
Cheri Lang and her kids were at church too. The Bulls and Langs moved from Southern Oregon to Baltimore 8 and 13 years ago. It is an incredible blessing to still have these friendships. We all had lunch together and then all the kids but Tess played at the Langs house. Shannon, Tess and I were going to do girl stuff all day but ended up napping.....what a treat!

Drew, Tess and I couldn't stand it any more... we were only 2 hours from Tait at Patrick Henry College who had just proposed to Amy Kucks!
We arrived as many were finding out the two are engaged. It was fun to see the students run and hug them, or pile up on Tait.
There are no words to express the feelings it is to hold a person you love that has just become forever your own! I love Amy immensely and have poured my heart and soul into her husband to be, it feels as if all that investment that comes with great love was hers all along. I have no reservations only joy! She is one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. It is overwhelming to think of how blessed I am with my daughter in laws!!!!


We met many of Tait's friends for the first time. I recognized them, and felt like I already knew them. And although I knew Tait was close to them I was surprised by the bond that was clearly evident between them. They posses a depth of love for each other that is revealed in the way they speak about each other and an obvious unshakeable knowing in they're interactions. I thought about it today as I drove. Was it obvious to me the bond that was there because I know who he was close to or was it there apart from that? It was not from my previous knowledge, it was in their eyes and familiarity, almost like soldiers gone through a battle together. I have no doubt they will be friends for life.
I get the feeling they know me better than our meeting for the first time. I am grateful to The Lord for the gift of each of them. They all possess great riches that few in this life have. I don't think it's uncommon to have a deep friendship but I think it's very difficult to have a group of friends that go so deep, that they did that without need of a huge tragedy like a war or something is incredible to me. Tait's struggle to be in two places finally makes sense to me. I have had the desire to be with different people in different places at the same time, I'm not referring to a common struggle.
There was so much to take in, stepping into Tait's world. One thing that was a great joy was to reconnect with Kira Clark, she talked with Tess and I as old friends and we loved every minute of it. Kira and Tait had been debate rivals during high school, now Kira is dating one of Tait's closest friends.
A group of us played Apples to Apples until we were kicked out.
It was a wonderful day.

Philadelphia

This morning we started a little late. We parked in downtown Philadelphia and made breakfast got dressed ect... Then walked around the corner to a little coffee shop and got some coffee :)

We just started walking down the street when two guys came up to us at the same time trying to sell us two different bus tours. They were competing for our attention and trying to tell us why their tour was better. The cost for the tour started out $27 for each of us but they tried to beat each other with their prices so we ended up paying $20 for all three of us. It was really hard to turn one of them down, but we got a great deal and the tour was really good. We sat right behind the tour guide on the top of a double decker bus. She was really good at her job and made the whole tour interesting, light-hearted and fun.

For lunch we had some Cheese steak sandwiches. That was really yummy :)

It was so interesting to see old historic and unique architecture right next to very modern looking skyscrapers. Every street was totally different.

We went to a huge museum that was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin. Drew and I went through this really in depth spy exhibit. There was so much information in there we could have spent an entire day looking at all the cool gadgets and reading up on spy history. I was sad we had to miss so much of it as it got late. We also saw a short presentation in a big planetarium about astronomy. There were other sections we saw, but these ones were by far our favorite.

We were too late getting back into town after the museum to tour the inside of most of the historical sites, which was disappointing. However, we had a really fun day and got to see a lot of other cool things.

For dinner we met up with an old friend of my mom's along with her husband. They drove two and a half hours to see us. Mrs. Rosner was in my mom's wedding. Mr. Rosner had some really good questions for us. He asked mom and Mrs. Rosner what advice they would give to themselves at age 19 knowing what they do now, and he asked Drew and I what we imagined when we get old we would tell ourselves now. Then he bought dinner for us. They were both so sweet and we had a really fun time together.

Tonight we are going to try and reach Baltimore and stay with the Bulls. Our estimated time of arrival is 11:30pm at this point.

Niagara Falls

Yesterday we drove till past 1 in the morning to get as close as we could to Niagara Falls. We ended up less than an hour away so this morning we got to the Falls about 8am. (Mom got us started pretty early because some guy was yelling outside our motorhome.)

The guy who was in charge of the parking lot was so nice to us. He was black and he talked like it too. He called mom "honey" and helped us back into the right spot with lots of encouragement the whole way. Later when we came back he recommended a cool restaurant that we ended up having lunch at. The food there was really good and the lady who helped us was very friendly and recommended some good dishes to us. She also gave us free drinks. Everyone was so friendly and kind to us, which made the whole day fun.

During lunch we called my awesomely wonderful brother Dylan and sang happy birthday and talked to him for a bit. That was so happy. :)

The waterfalls were amazing. Turns out we came on a super clear sunny day. The trolly driver said that usually you wouldn't be able to see nearly as far as we could today. We took the "Maid of the Mist" tour, which is a boat tour that takes you right past the front of the waterfall. We had to wear these plastic blue rain poncho things because the mist from the waterfall was more like pouring rain. It felt really good to feel the freezing cold water on my face. The waterfalls were so huge and very pretty.

After the boat tour we watched a short film about the history of the waterfall and it included some stories about people who have gone over the falls (on purpose and by accident) and survived.

It was a very fun day and everything was beautiful. We really enjoyed it.

On our way out of town we had to pay a road toll. The lanes were a little bit narrow. When mom pulled up to pay, the mirror was too close and hit the door jam which made a loud bang. The black cashier lady was pretty startled and jumped back and screamed but just made a joke about it. She said, "I'm gonna call you slap-rock from now on. Now don't you go on whacking anything else!" It was pretty funny with her voice and face and scolding finger.

We left Niagara Falls around 2pm and it's about seven hours from there to Philadelphia, our next stop.

A fun game

Ok, so mom and I were looking at the clouds and we saw something in this one. Anybody else want to try and see something in it?

P.S. This is an Indiana cloud.

The Aquarium

Today we went to the Aquarium in Chicago. We saw an amazing number of different kinds of fish. They all looked so different and most of them looked really funny.

We saw the biggest snake I have ever seen in my life. It seemed as thick as a telephone pole and it just went on and on. We watched it eat a rat. There was also a smaller green snake that looked like the snake from jungle book. I liked him, he was pretty and looked sweet all curled up on a tree branch.

The frogies were so cute! They were so brightly colored and some of them were super tiny. There was one that apparently was especially poisonous and he strutted around like he knew it.

We went to an aquatic show with beluga whales, a sea lion, and some dolphins. The beluga whales were so big it was really impressive to see them jump all the way out of the water. The sea lion looked so happy and playful as he waved and did tricks for us. One of the dolphins got up on a platform and posed all fancy for us, and then they would do flips in the air ect... It was a very fun show.

We also saw a 15 minute "4-D experience" movie thing. It was a nature show with polar bears and penguins and elephants and a few others. They very effectively made the killer whale scary with intense music, chair vibrations in time with the music, and a stab in the back as it dramatically jumped out of the water with a seal in it's jaws. They also had cute little baby animals.

One of our favorite parts was the jelly fish exhibits. The had very appropriate "jelly fishy" music playing. They were all very cool and different. The really fluffy ruffley ones looked kinda girly. When the jelly fish ate they scrunched their long tentacles in their caps to get all the food in their mouths. Some of the jelly fish had such long tentacles that they would get tangled up with their buddy's.

In one of the last exhibits we waited to see the green swordfish for probably 40 minutes. While we were waiting there was a funny fish who was hanging out around me for a bit. (I think it was because of my yellow shirt or something) He had black and white stripes and yellow fins and one of his black stripes was perfectly placed to look like a really skinny long mustache. We said he looked French. We looked him up and apparently he is called a yellow-banded sweetlips fish.

Then when we got home Aunt Su made us her special homemade pizza! We tried throwing the pizza dough, but the dough was a little soft and we weren't very skilled. The pizza was super yummy.

This is Drew and I right outside the aquarium.

Here are some frogs:

The orange ones were so tiny.

A Piper fish:

This one had so many pretty colors.

I don't think this guy needs any explanation...he's just funny.

These are garden eels. They looked so cartoonish to me.

These are sea dragons. They were one of mom's favorites.

This bird was posing and he looked so pleasant:

These little blue fish looked like fairies or something. They glowed and shimmered.

This fish looked like a very grumpy alien scowling at us.

This eel literally poked his head up and smiled for me to take a picture.

The underwater plants were also pretty amazing. This one looked like a trumpet to me.

This sea horse was showing off for me.

It's hard to see them, but these fish swam so funny. They were totally upside down and the just moved from side to side like they were hanging by strings.

This guy was curious.

There were a whole row of these turtles on a log all making the same expression with their noses in the air.

This fish just swam around with his mouth open. He looked like he was complaining. 

Cheese! 

These fish were totally see through. There was some groovy background music and this fish looked like he was dancing to it.

These are archer fish. The reason they call them archer fish is because they shoot bugs out of the air with their spit. Shooting from underwater is really tricky because the water bends the light and makes it look like you're shooting somewhere else. They also figured out how to shoot it in a ball as opposed to a stream by shooting slower and then faster.

These are garden jelly fish. Some of their tentacles look like leaves.

A ruffley one :)

The aquatic show, with Tye the Sea Lion:

You can see the beluga whale's heads. :)

A beluga whale from underwater. 

Waiting for our "4-D experience"

Here is the green sawfish we waited a long time to see. It was very impressive (and big) and we were glad we waited. 

Drew throwing pizza dough :D