I Just Hit Snooze

I've hit the snooze button on my blog (if you've noticed) and will be back in the near future with many pictures, stories and adventures. The insanely busy, going-everywhere time has begun so don't mind me not posting or commenting on your blogs--I'll be back soon. :)

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.

Curls, Sunsets and Yorktown

So what do these three things have in common? They're all part of our life for the past week. It's been really humid lately which makes the hot weather feel even hotter, but it does wonders for Madison's hair. I LOVE them curls! :] I snapped this picture at Corben's last baseball game. We ended the season at 8-3-1 and we didn't even get to play the last game - the other team was a forfeit. Booohooo! :) As fun as it was, it will be a nice break until next spring. I think for the fall we'll do karate - a once a week sport! :)
As for the sunsets and Yorktown, well they are are easy to see when you're in Virginia ;] We're staying in the hotel with Lester while he's at school at Fort Eustis and checking out the area since we'll be relocating here next summer. This area is rich with history and is very beautiful [and great shopping too - Trader Joes, Panera Bread and Costco - what more could you want? ;]
We drove out to Yorktown last night and walked along the beach (Chesapeake Bay/York River) and almost blew away during a sudden windstorm, but took shelter in a restaurant and had dinner instead. Corben was ready to head back to the hotel, but once the mini-storm passed we continued our walk. Never a dull moment, always an adventure. We'll see what adventures find us today! :)

Yep....It's out!!

To quote a famous songster...."School's out for summer!" I almost put that song on my blog, but some of the lyrics were a little sketchy, so I'll just let you sing that in your head.

I got my Family Fun magazine yesterday in the mail and it had some fun ideas for the last day of school, so I recruited a friend's children I was watching this morning to help me color this banner and I stuck it across the door into the house. Corben was excited and I did get it on film, I'll have to download it to youtube since it's at least a minute and a half. I had him run through it [wanted it to tear in half like the football banners of high school days] but the wrapping paper I used must have been made of strong fibers. It never did break, but he ripped the tape and then it came tumbling down.

I've been busy trying to get the last plants of my garden in the ground, but the weather has been unreal here - it's the 6th or 7th day in a row of 100+ temperatures. It's actually scorching hot, and my grass is really feeling it too. We're officially the animal kingdom here right now, with 6 animals in the casa. Yikes, I know and that's not counting the kiddos ;] 3 dogs, 2 cats and a hamster to boot. The family that owns the two dogs and hamster will be back towards the end of the week and the animal house will be calm and still, and I'm certain that Lexi will be bored stiff.

Purrrrr-lease Let Me Introduce

Another fine member of our family. It's official...."Patton" has been adopted and is well loved by everyone in the house. He is the antithesis of Sophie - playful, loves everyone, visible in the house when the sun is out, and purrs like there's no tomorrow. [Sophie in her defense does purr, loves Lester and I (only) and when the stars are aligned, shows herself (briefly) during the day ;] We decided to name him Patton due to the fact it was Memorial Day weekend and Lester felt he should have a patriotic name. My first thoughts for his name were Sampson (and "De-Lexi"), Lancelot, then we got into the patriotic aspect and started with Revolutionary era names.... Jefferson, Washington, Harrison, Benedict (Arnold - well, not so much), Revere etc., but we didn't find anything we liked. Then we started thinking more contemporary and agreed that we liked Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf or "Scwhartz." That lasted for about 12 hours, and Lester just couldn't get "may the schwartz be with you" out of his head, and it just didn't seem right. That's when Patton came along....and it stuck. He even had the patriotic collar to go with the name. Very fitting. [A very small disclaimer to our good friends the Frey's....we hope you don't mind sharing the name ;]
It's going to be an interesting summer - I'm swapping dog watching services with some friends, so Patton is going to find himself confined to our bedroom while the dogs are in the house, but I'm sure he'll fare just fine.
Patton and Lexi get along just fine....with Lexi just a bit on the rough side. I'm sure she'll back off once the kitten's nails sharpen up!! (I clipped them in case Madison got too rough...go figure)

Oh and one last thing....to all the animals that are looking for a good home near me, THIS animal rescue is at full capacity. Please try the house four doors down on the left.