Whirlwind weekend in Spokane and New York!

Turkey Swamp Campground..Freehold, New Jersey

May 21-May 28

We had a divide and conquer weekend!!  Jordan and I flew home to Spokane for my Mom and Dick's wedding...while Curt and the little boys stayed in New York to explore the city.  Curt took the boys to visit his best friend from Junior high and his family.  Mike's sister lives in Manhattan and graciously hosted them for an afternoon and evening of fun in the BIG CITY!!  They explored Central Park, ate NY style pizza and loved seeing all the skyscrapers.  The only challenge was finding a parking lot that would let Curt park our F-250 in it!!  The boys also spent an afternoon in Brooklyn on their way to pick us up from the airport.  The highlight of the trip was a sports complex that had an unbelievable view of the city and the Statue of Liberty.  Everyone gave the park a 10!

The boys loved the view from Meg(Mike's sisters) high rise apartment.

 Mike and Curt!

While they were adventuring to New York City, Jordan and I had an amazing weekend in Spokane, celebrating my Mom and Dick's wedding and getting to attend one of my favorite colleagues, Linnea's, retirement party.  We had non-stop festivities!

The GORGEOUS couple...currently getting ready for their 3 week honeymoon to Europe!!(so exciting)

We loved spending time with my family...the kids looked so cute in their fancy clothes that Aunt Rebecca chose for them.  Jordan said, "We are so PROFESSIONAL!"

All the girls got pedicures on the morning of the wedding!

And I even snuck in a little cuddle time with Analee..our dear friend's new baby.  Sadly, I did not get any pictures at Mrs. Shaw's retirement party....we were too busy having fun.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when I surprised her on Friday morning.  She was 2 out of the 3 boys first teacher and we have worked together for the past 7 years.   I will be miss her so much and  feel so blessed to have gotten to see her again before she heads to teach English in China next year.  

Today the boys and Curt are at Six Flags.  They are loving their season passes.  Early tomorrow morning, yes...like 3AM, the Mulder's will pull out of here and head to Cape Cod.  The traffic is so bad around this area that we are going to try a middle of the night escape.  We are so excited to spend the week at Bridget's(my page roomate) house on the Cape and spend time getting to know her family.  We feel so blessed to have reconnected with family and friends...Life is GOOD!! 

Washington D.C.

Washington D.C.--May11-21

WOW!!  You are lucky that I didn't download the HUNDREDS of pictures we took.   It was so hard to pick just a few pictures to share.  I absolutely LOVE Washington D.C.   I was so excited to share my love of the city with all my boys.  It feels like we could have spent months here and still have things to see and do!  We are so thankful we had a long time to visit and explore.  We camped about 20 miles away from the Hill, so it took some planning to avoid traffic.  Several days we came really early to the city, unloaded our bikes and had the Mall area, practically to ourselves, which was awesome.  We also spent a late afternoon and evening in the city to see the monuments at night, which is spectacular.  Armed with our bikes and two bike bells we saw so much of this amazing city.

We had awesome tours of the Capitol and White House. 

We had a great time in Alexandria visiting a high school friend.  It has a darling downtown area...complete with a great ice cream shop.  

Since I lived in Washington they have added a huge Capitol Visitor Center. It had a great movie about the history of the Capitol and a great tour.  A big thanks to Ian, for setting up our awesome tour!

We visited the Library of Congress, the boys couldn't believe how many books they had!  This is the main reading room, quite possibly the most beautiful room in Washington. 

The boys loved playing sports on the Mall.  World Cup fever has taken over the Mulder family.

We loved seeing the D.C. United soccer team in action!  Thanks again to Ian for the tickets.

Playing football on the National Mall was a highlight for Curt.

One of the highlights for me was reconnecting with several high school and Page friends who now live in D.C.  One of them is my page roomate, Beth!!  We have not seen each other in 18 years, so it was such a blessing to spend the afternoon together.  All we were missing was our other roomie, Bridget!!

We went to TONS of museums.  We enjoyed the Smithsonians,  but they were very busy with Junior High and High School school groups in matching shirts!!  The boys enjoyed a place we hadn't been before called the Newseum.  They had a particularly hard hitting and unflinching exhibit on Anchorman...

We JUST LOVED seeing all the monuments...several times!!  Many of them I had not even seen before.  The Martin Luther King Jr., WWII, and Korean War monuments were new to me. And of course we went to all the old favorites!  We even got to go to the top of the Washington Monument on a newly opened elevator.  It has 360 degree views of the city.  

Tomorrow we head north to the Philadelphia/New York City area.  Thanks for following us on this EPIC adventure!!  

History in Virginia!!

All over Virginia

Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Shenandoah National Park

May 4-11

We have had a week full of history in Virginia.  We camped at a great place called Chippokes State Park, outside of Williamsburg.  It had the oldest working farm in the United States.  We were able to tour this great mansion that had been left as it was in the early 1920's.  It was so fun to go on a run through the farmlands...those are the times I wish I was a farmer!!  The Virginia rolling hills are covered with green grasses and beautiful farm houses...so stunning!!

It was a short ferry ride over the James River to go to Jamestown.  This was the 1st English settlement in the United States.  It was extremely tough living conditions in those early years...and most people that were sent by the Virginia Company died within the first 2 weeks of living there.  There was no access to clean water and disease was rampant.  The first picture shows the church that they have restored on the original fort grounds.

The view from the ferry of the Jamestown settlement.  They have done extensive archaeological digging at Jamestown to figure out how the people lived during those early years.

From Jamestown we headed down Colonial Drive to Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.  We just LOVE the National Park Service and their great informational videos, visitor centers and ranger guided tours.  This was from the battlefield at Yorktown.

Behind the boys you can see what they called a "redoubt."  It was a fortification used by the British to defend the fort.  It was one of the last areas that was conquered by George Washington's army.  The battlefield had many "earthworks" which looked like hills to us.  The constructed them by filling huge woven baskets with dirt and then stacking them on top of each other, filling in the surrounding area with fill dirt and then planting sod on the top.  This provided a natural bunker to hide behind.  The Continental Army had to dig their own trenches after hiking over 400 miles from Georgia.  They say that the Army of both American and French troops stretched for over 30 miles as they hoped to surprise the British at Yorktown.  Thankfully, their surprise attack was successful and we became a free nation!!

We also spent an afternoon in historic Williamsburg.  It had some cute old houses and we walked around the village.  But I have to say that the highlight for the boys was finding the William and Mary bookstore and reading the afternoon away!!

Our last stop was about 200 miles North in Virginia to Shenandoah National Park.  We stayed at Shenandoah River State Park...which was beautiful.  We spent a whole day hiking and exploring the park.  It has breathtaking views along the Skyline drive of both the farm valley below and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We did a long hike to Big Falls.  This was our best attempt at a self timer family portrait.  I was so proud of the boys...as it was very humid and pretty hot.

The second hike was to Stony Man Peak...the 2nd highest mountain in the park.  It gave almost 360 degree breathtaking views!  It was a little hazy, as they were doing a prescribed burn in the area.

Here are the goofballs...barely hanging on for dear life.(haha)

Guess where we are heading tomorrow...one of my favorite cities on earth...WASHINGTON D.C.!  I spent a semester my Junior year of high school as a page for Tom Foley.  It was a life changing experience and I cannot wait to show the boys around.  I am sure they will tire of sentences that start with, "When I was a page..." We will be there for 10 days...so it will be a little bit before I update the blog again.    Happy Mother's Day to all those special moms out there...especially MINE!!  I love you Mom...wish you were here with us to celebrate!

Virginia Beach and The Outer Banks(OBX)

Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks

May 1-4

We had busy and fun filled days while visiting the Chesapeake Bay area.  We spent the first day in Norfolk, Virginia visiting the zoo and the naval museum.  We have loved our Science Membership card that has gotten us into so many cool zoos, aquariums and science centers.  The animals were pretty sleepy at the zoo, but it was a beautiful park like setting and the sun was shining!!

We headed just down the road from the zoo to an AMAZING museum called Nauticus.  It covered a wide range of topics from Navy history, information about the importance of the Chesapeake Bay as a port, to a 3-D movie about the Oceans off of South Africa.  The boys had a chance to build and try out an aqua-bot...an underwater robot.  Next door to the museum was the Battleship Wisconsin.  It was HUGE...we were able to see the top deck areas and see how the technology had changed, since this ship was used until the 1990's.

The other full day we took a day trip about 2 hours south to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It was a place that I have always wanted to see...and being just a few hours away...we couldn't pass it up.  We spent the morning at Kitty Hawk at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  It was fascinating to see what determination and scientific method was used to get their planes off the ground.

 This was a replica of the exact plane they flew on that amazing day in December 17,1903.  We listened to a ranger program on some of the specific features of the plane that made them successful.

 They took off from this rock the plane took off from...only doing 4 flights that day.  The first only lasting 12 seconds and going 120 feet.  But you will see what happened on the 4th flight...

 The Wright Brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, OH and just traveled to Kitty Hawk to work on their plane.  They spent a total of $1,000 on all the materials for all their planes that they experimented with...that is building on a budget. :)

 Just a little farther south was Cape Hatteras National Seashore...truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  Lots of rolling sand dunes, grasses swaying in the breeze and wonderful, long beaches.  If I ever disappear from Spokane...you should start your search here...I am likely hiding out on the beach.

 Our next stop is Williamsburg, Virginia and the historic towns of Yorktown and Jamestown.
  Farewell from the sandy beaches of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The Carolinas!

South Carolina Coast and Wilmington, North Carolina

Huntington and Myrtle Beach State Parks
April 22-May 1

We have spent the past 9 days in the Myrtle Beach area.  We have previously planned to just spend 5 days...but the weather report called for lots of rain in Virginia Beach...so we decided to stay!!  Who wouldn't rather be at the beach in the sun than in the rain??  We celebrated Curt's 40th birthday with a trip into Myrtle Beach and out to lunch.  It was a fun city...lots of things to do.  It is a huge tourist area for the East coast.  

Many of the state parks have had great nature centers in the campgrounds. We had the chance to watch the rangers feed all their animals...this little turtle was so cute!!

Myrtle beach has more minature golf courses than anywhere in the world...so we had to play!!  Everyone got a hole in one on some hole...which was exciting.

We had some great beach days...the boys are loving skim boarding and boogie boarding.  When the tide went out it formed these really fun lakes of water that they boys had so much fun playing in, perfect depth for skim boarding tricks.  

 We had an unexpected trip to Wilmington, North Carolina last night.  There was very bad storms coming our way that may have included hail, strong winds or tornadoes.   We headed up to a hotel that had concrete walls and was farther away from the storm.  Thankfully, we barely had a drop of rain and had a great visit in Wilmington.  We had a chance to tour the U.S.S. North Carolina, a battleship used in World War 2.  It was one of the best tours we have been on.  You got to explore all 9 levels of this massive ship and really get a taste of what life was like for the brave sailors.  We tried to decide what our favorite jobs on the ship might be...Curt would want to work in the general store, I wanted to be the signal flag raiser, and the boys for sure didn't want to be the dishwasher, potato peeler or sheet ironer for the 2,000 + men aboard.  My "Papa", the boys great grandpa served in the Navy during World War 2, so we had fun remembering him and the great man that he was to us and his service to our country.  We think there was a chance he even did some mechanical work on this ship while it was in Hawaii...where he spent alot of time during the war.  

Another highlight of our time in Wilmington was seeing one of my former first grade students at University of North Carolina Wilmington.  He is just finishing his junior year, and is an awesome swimmer there.  Adam gave us a great tour of the campus and the swimming pool.  It takes so much dedication and time to be a swimmer...often practicing 2 hours every morning and 3 hours every afternoon.  WOW!!  I was so proud of him...he was so sweet to take time before finals week to show us around. 

This campground activity cracked me up...the boys spent hours at our last campground playing basketball with their mini hoop that was tied to the tree outside the trailer. 

Next we are heading north to Virginia Beach on the Chesapeake Bay to explore the first English colonies at Jamestown.  Have a great weekend!