Big Parks, Animals and Old Houses

Here's some little known trivia you may not have heard of before; where can you find the largest municipal park east of the Mississippi River? You guessed it, right here on the Virginia peninsula at the Newport News Park. There's over 8000+ acres of fun to be had there and we only saw about 1/16th of it. Tuesday we wandered out on one of the many trails and over a lake that was full of turtles, watched a field of deer, and then found a playground and let the kids play for a while.

Yesterday I took the kids to a neat museum that is just down the road, the Virginia Living Museum. There are lots of hands-on displays and exhibits of the different animals/plants found around the state. We saw among other things, coyotes, red wolves, skunks, otters, and a sleeping racoon. These two beauties were my favorites:

I found these two hiding in a log

Last night we wandered up to Williamsburg to have dinner and check out the city. We came upon the colonial part of the city and decided to walk around. The history and beauty of the area is just amazing. Everything is just as it was back in "the day" and the gardens were just spectacular. I got a few hint and ideas to implement in my own. Madison and I almost took off running after the boys put themselves in the stocks. ;] We wandered around, saw lots of lighting bugs and even caught a few (they are just amazing)! We only spent a little over an hour here and will definitely come back and take some tours.