Day 13- Friday Monticello

We packed up and headed back West on Friday morning. Our destination was Charleston, WV, but we stopped in Charlottesville, VA to go to Monticello.

We went to get tickets at the counter. The lady asked how old the kids were. She said, "kids are 5-11, adults are 12 and over." She went on to say, "I see you have two adults and one child. I'm unsure about the other one." Not a big deal unless you know the difference in ticket prices. Adult tickets were $22 and kids were $8. I knew what I should say, I knew what I wanted to say and I knew I had little ears listening. So, the frugal mom who hates to pay full price for anything (they didn't even have a AAA discount!), said "12". Man, that hurt.

The burial plot of Thomas Jefferson at his estate, Monticello, in Charlottesville, VA





This is a shot of the back of Monticello. No pictures were allowed inside.

Another angle of Thomas Jefferson's tombstone. There is a big fence around it, so this is as close as you can get.
When sitting here, Cole looked out and said, "Gosh, this is beautiful."

This is a machine that makes silhouettes of people. Cole could look through it and see Drew.




Thomas Jefferson's gardens. Now, the employees of Monticello get to take home all of the produce. What a nice benefit.



We took the shuttle up to the top of the hill/mountain. The grounds were spectacular. By present day standards, the house was really big and lovely, but not presidential. Our tour guide seemed to really love Jefferson and the whole era. They don't let you take pictures inside the house. :( After the tour, we snapped a few pictures and then, surprise...went to the gift shop. We made it out of this one with just drinks and some hard candy sticks. We had the option of taking the shuttle back down or walking on a trail down. If you walk on the trail, you get to see Jefferson's burial site. We opted for the walk. This sounds weird, but the cemetary was really cool. The tombstones were really pretty.

Back at the visitor's center, we walked through another museum of Jefferson stuff before we loaded back in the car and headed for West Virginia. It was another 4 hours from Charlottesville to Charleston.

We stopped in a town called Covington, WV. We saw a restaurant "Cucci's" that had a million cars, so we decided to stop there for dinner. The million cars were right! It was so good and so reasonable. It was one of those places were everybody in there knew everybody else. There was a baby that seemed to get passed from table to table. Nobody could make that baby happy, but nobody really seemed to care. Drew ordered a piece of chocolate cake. I took a bite, and then another and raved about how good it was. Drew was eating it as fast as he could. Scott tried to get in on the action, but he only ended up with a bite, so he was bitter. He said he didn't want any, but he always has a fork ready. He was mad because the lady had taken his fork. So, I suggested we try the lemon cake. The server brought us a piece of the lemon cake. We ate it like we hadn't ever had dessert. It was SO good. We raved about it and asked the server if it was made there homemade. She said, "nope, it comes out of a box from Roma." Good grief, another person thinking we'd never been to a restaurant before. We were going crazy for frozen cake out of a box.

We made it to Charleston. Did you know it is the capitol of West Virginia? I took a picture of the Capitol building. It was about 2 blocks from our hotel and really pretty at night. I figured most people I know will never go there, so now you'll know what it looks like. It was the only part of Charleston that we saw that was desirable.

I finished reading, "Room" by Emma Donoghue. It was really good and I would recommend it. I've moved onto, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. It's really good so far too. I'm about half way through it now.

Day 12-Colonial Williamsburg

Two monks taking pictures of each other.
Drew in his element...the candy store.

They don't sell these in the gift shop. We might have been tempted.
Cole got a quill pen and ink so he can write like the people on the Declaration of Independence.
Drew taking a break.

Pretty purple flowers and pomegranates (below). These are for Shelly.

Cole trying a hat on.

Colonial Williamsburg was a cool place...not literally though. I fully expected steam to come up off the ground. We enjoyed walking around and looking at the old buildings. There weren't too many that were open. We liked the church. Four past presidents attended church there. Thomas Jefferson went when he was a student at William and Mary. We also liked the old cemetary. Drew's favorite was the candy store. There were also neat shops with present day items. I didn't buy anything, but did get to browse a little while Scott took the boys to the toy store. They didn't buy anything either.

Another McDonald's ice cream cone on the way back to the condo.

We went to the Tavern so Scott could go to a beer tasting. We walked in and Scott took one look around and started walking backwards. I guess he expected a crowd. Instead there was an older couple sitting at the bar. We went to the activity center to confirm that's where it was happening. Yep, that was it. He just went back to get a beer and then joined me at my spot outside the game room.

We went to the pool for a swim. We had a family dunking contest and if they'd taken a vote on "who do you want to leave the pool area", we would have won.

Back to the condo for some animal planet. They really want to get this channel at home now.

Friday we are heading for Charleston, WV. We were going to stay close to Charlottesville (Monticello), but Scott didn't want to do such heavy driving 2 days in a row, so now we are breaking it into 3. We will still stop in Charlottesville, but then keep on going. Our final night will still be in Louisville.

Hard to believe it's coming to an end. :(

Day 11-Wednesday Virginia Beach

Scott got his first old man hat today. He is quite proud of it.

Cole in the Atlantic Ocean.

Drew taking a moment out of his swimming.

Cole riding the waves.
Drew battling the waves. The waves won.





Today we got up early and headed to Virginia Beach. It's about an hour from here as long as you don't get caught in "base traffic." There are lots of military bases around here, so lots of rush hour traffic.

The beach was beautiful. The sand was clean and fine. The beaches we've been to in the past have lots of shells and rocks. This one didn't have any that we could see. We got to park close by, so that was nice. There was a store across the street where we got Drew some water shoes.

We only had to walk a short way to get to the water. It was colder than I expected. It's been awhile since I've been in the ocean. I think I was younger and a little tougher then. This video is when we got there. The boys hadn't fully gotten wet yet. You can tell when the water hits them how cold it is.

The coolest thing happened while they were swimming. I was looking out to the ocean behind them and I saw a dolphin in the water...and then another..and another. I lost count of how many were out there. It was great. We saw them swim one way and then another. There were boats that were on sightseeing cruises that basically kept chasing them back and forth in front of us. We had planned to take one of the dolphin watching cruise, but after seeing them from shore, we decided that was good enough. We could spend that $70 elsewhere. We really enjoyed the beach. It's really hot here, so it was nice to be in the water.

We left the beach and headed back to the condo. There was an accident on the interstate, so our one hour drive took 2.5. Since we're on vacation, not a big deal? wrong. We'd stopped at Sonic on our way out of town and got the Route 44 drinks. Not good.

We finally made it back. After some pizza from the freezer in the condo, we headed back up to the activity center. Scott and Drew hit the pool again while Cole went to the arcade. I take my place outside of the arcade. I'm like the ambassador of the arcade...or a future Wal-mart greeter...however you want to look at it.

And, we are officially caught up! Yea! I'm actually on the correct day. What a happy feeling.

Day 10-Tuesday Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Beach

Drew at the colonists' camp at Jamestown Settlement

Drew on the Susan B Constant

Cole in the colonists' church (above)

Looking at a canoe and how the Indians made them out of trees. They burnt out the insides and then scraped the charred portion with shells.

Drew in a hollowed out canoe.

Scott and Cole in the Powhatan village.

Drew grinding corn.

Learning from a "native".


I finally woke Scott up at 11am. I guess he's sleeping pretty well here. After getting ready, we headed to Jamestown Settlement. Our late start actually paid off as we got there about the same time as all of the school kids were leaving.

We walked in, paid the entry fee and Drew spotted the gift shop. We went in there and decided we really didn't even need to see anything else. They could have entertained themselves for hours. They had all of the colonial weapons, rubber band guns, cap guns, coon skin caps, etc. Drew had a hard time deciding which hat to get...the coon skin or the colonial hat. He opted for the colonial. I was secretly glad because when we get home if a coon skin cap found its way under a bed, it might freak me out.Here is Drew with both hats on.


We watched a film about the founding of Jamestown. It was great. I wish I'd paid more attention in history class. Then we went through the museum. It was really well done too. They didn't allow pictures. :( Outside, they had re-creations of the colonists' fort and a Powhatan village where the guides answered questions. There was an artillery demonstration where they shot off a cannon. There were recreations of the three boats that came to Jamestown originally. It was really hot out there but we enjoyed it. Real history buffs probably wouldn't like it much, but for us it was great. A man in the colonists' fort was from Manhattan, KS and he gave us a dinner recommendation of a seafood place on the way to Yorktown.

We ate dinner at Bill's Seafood Restaurant. Cole got the special...two types of fried fish with two side dishes. Cole got french fries and a baked potato. The waitress from then on called him "Potato Boy".

We went on to Yorktown to see the beach. The boys mostly played in the sand. It was pretty there too. It was a pretty relaxing day.

Day 9-Monday Busch Gardens

I'm going to try to get caught up today. It's 10:15am and everyone is still sleeping. We had a big day at Busch Gardens yesterday. I've never been to a Busch Gardens before and I was really impressed.

We got there at 9:45am and left a short 9 hours later. Yep...9 hours. Open to close. The park is pretty hilly, so we were once again worn out. We weren't complaining though, because it was all good fun.

They rode every ride (except the baby rides) at least once. They rode some of the roller coasters twice. We got really lucky in many ways. The weather was warm and mild. The crowds were low. I guess this particular park draws mostly a local crowd, so it's packed on weekends. School here doesn't let out until the 2nd week of June, so there wasn't more than a 5 minute wait for any ride. I'd like to say that I planned it like that, but it was just dumb luck. We also went on a Monday which is supposed to be a slow park day.

The facility was clean and really pretty. It almost looked like a park (arboretum type) than an amusement park. We also didn't realize that they had wildlife there that you could watch. Everything was tastefully done.

We ate lunch at the German Octoberfest and were entertained by singers, dancers and a band. It made paying the high price seem not so bad..I thought of it as a dinner theater. (Although, I can't remember ever hearing The Chicken Dance played at a dinner theater.)

I requested that we go to Celtic Frye which is an Irish show. I told them just to go for 10 minutes and then we could leave. I looked over at Drew and he was clapping. I thought, "maybe they are enjoying this after all and we can stay the whole time." Then, I looked at Scott and noticed that he was sleeping. How someone can go to sleep that fast while people are singing Irish tunes and doing Irish dancing is beyond me...but he did it. I looked back at Drew and his hand was attacking his face. His hand was like a claw and it was taking all of his strength to keep it away from his face. We made it 15 minutes.



We headed back to the condo and went to the activity center. It was "s'more night" and there's no way Drew is going to pass up a s'more. More games at the activity center and then back to the condo. This East coast tv is killing me. All of the shows are on so late. I watched a show about a guy that weighed 459 pounds losing weight over the course of a year. I fell asleep at 6 months and never got to see what he looked like at the end. Bummer.

One member of the family is awake...Cole, so hopefully the others will be up soon too. I'm sure they all would have jumped out of bed if they knew we were going to Colonial Williamsburg.

Have a great day today!

Day 8-Sunday in Williamsburg

American Gothic-The Bellamy Putt Putt Version

Our condo is great with one exception. The Wifi frequentl y loses the signal. It’s about to make me nutty. It won't let me upload pictures at the moment. I'm going to go ahead and post the text so I don't lose it. I'll try to post the pictures later.

Today was just a lazy day…so nice after running like crazy people all last week. We slept in again. We had the option of a time share presentation. Normally, we say no, but we had plenty of time, so we agreed to do one today. We got lunch and a $50 gift card. It was pretty painless. Scott is pretty good at just saying no to them. I love traveling, so I just try to be quiet.

We let them play in the game room this afternoon for a long time. After about an hour and a half, Drew came out of the game room holding his arm. It appears he played so long that his arm cramped up. He was done for the day. Cole came out a short time later and we went back to the condo.

We seem to have a new pet. There’s a cat that hangs around our building. We gave it and its friend part of a hot dog, because they looked hungry. We have a friend for life now…or at least a week.

After relaxing for awhile, Scott and Drew went to play tennis and putt putt. After awhile, Cole and I went and we all played putt putt. Scott got two holes in one. I wish I’d had a video running after his first one. I’ve never seen anyone do an endzone dance when they got a hole in one. Scott’s got his own putt putt dance. I took a picture right after he did it.

After swimming for Drew, we headed back to the condo for the night. I’m still fighting with the connection signal…grrrr. Can you tell it's frustrating? :)

Tomorrow is Busch Gardens. We’re hoping it won’t be so busy on a Monday.