Virginia Vacation - Air and Space Museum

On Friday after the baseball game we got up in the morning and went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum - the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.  We ventured out with my friend Sarah and her three kids - two of which were contained in the stroller. 

I can't believe how amazing this was to see.

As we walked in, this is what we saw...

This is an F-105D Thunderbird

Here's a Marine Helicopter

 Everywhere you looked high, low, left, right there were aircraft.

Here is Drew and Preston in front of an Air Force plane.

And giving their best brain freeze expressions...

A Wright Brothers Replica

This next plane is pretty self explanitory.

And this is the Enola Gay from above.  I couldn't believe how massive it was.  Even from above I couldn't fit the entire plane into the picture!

For those who aren't History buffs like me, the Enola Gay dropped the first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima during WWII.

Speaking of History, Preston's Great-Grandfather flew this plane behind the boys - the Black Widow.  This is real-life history!

When I was younger I remember hearing about the SR-71 and it's "top secret status".  Well here it is in the flesh.

At this museum they have a space area - Drew is demonstrating some sort of Jedi hold on Preston.  I believe there is a picture from when the boys were about 18 months in a similar pose.

And the real beauty at the museum... this was so amazing to see!

The Discovery Space Shuttle

I was so surprised to see the material the space shuttle is made out of.  I really imagined it to be the same material you see planes made out of.  It appeared to be more "fabric-like".  The shuttle is also a monstrous sized space craft too!

Virginia Vacation - Let's go Nationals!

We've been asked many times why we decided to go to Virginia - let alone Williamsburg for our family vacation.  The answer is simple.  Baseball.

Dave's goal is to hit all of the MLB stadiums, and since Drew's T-ball team was the Nationals, we opted to head to the East Coast to catch a game.  Granted Williamsburg is 3 hours from Washington, D.C. That didn't stop us.  We used the opportunity to catch up with my friend Sarah and her family who I met through an online group when we were all pregnant.  Her oldest son is about 2 weeks younger than Drew.

So what you're about to see is a plethora of pictures from Nationals Park.  Despite a 1 hour rain delay the show went on.  And we had great seats I might add!

The Nationals played the Diamond backs... here's the line-up for both teams.

Dave couldn't have been more excited to see who was on the hill for the Nationals.  Strasburg.

The Presidents make their rounds around the Stadium - here's William Taft.

During the 7th inning stretch the Presidents did some dancing.  And someone in our party made it to the big screen... here's the video clip.



Someone had some cotton candy.

And here's a family photo from our seats...

Unfortunately the Nationals lost, but it was a fun game nonetheless. 

Here's our family shot after the game.

And the whole gang...

Back L-R: Dave, Me, Sarah, Mike
Front L-R: Preston & Drew

On the ride home Drew was so excited to see the sights of Washington, D.C. lit up.  Here's a shot of the Capitol Building which Drew mistakenly thought was the White House.

We promised him a view of the real White House the next day.

Virginia Vacation: Wine & Movie Time

By Wednesday of our Virginia Vacation (a month ago now) we were wiped out and needed a low key day.  Before our trip we promised Drew we would take him to see Monster's University and so we did.

When we got to the theater they were doing a Karate demo and allowed Drew to break a board with a karate chop.


He was quite pleased with  himself, all the while shaking his hand... I guess it hurt a bit.  After the movie we stopped in a candy store and Drew came out with two new goodies... an Angry Bird hat courtesy Grandma and Grandpa and a Angry Bird Space thing for his backpack (courtesy Mom and Dad).


Our gift was to bribe him for our next stop... wine tasting.  Yes there is a winery in Williamsburg.

Williamsburg Winery was located near our timeshare and we figured it was better to do wine tasting than head out to Richmond which is what we initially planned for after the movie.

This is the winery - and the tasting room is to the far left of the picture.

Some of the grapes on the vines...

Being a Californian, I am used to wine tasting going a certain way.  You arrive, you walk up to the counter and they pour the tastes.  Here at Williamsburg Winery they do things different.  While they do offer a tour on the hour, they apparently do their tastings also on a time frame.  We had to wait about 30 minutes for the next "tasting".

We were kind of annoyed especially when they said "tasting only follow me" - and then rescinded that saying they really meant "Tour and tasting" meaning we needed to wait even longer.

We finally got our tasting time and it was Dave, his Mom and me.  Grandpa and Drew stayed out front where Drew was on the electronic pacifier (my phone).

The pours were small (even smaller than you get here in California) and the wines weren't that good.  I will say there was a raspberry infused wine that was really interesting, but not good enough to buy and use up some of the precious weight in our checked bag.

We ended up going back and playing cards and having dinner after a low key day.  We tried to go swimming, but Mother Nature and her storm had another idea.

Virginia Vacation - Yorktown

After we finished up at Jamestown, we decided to hit up Yorktown - which was included in the Jamestown Settlement tickets we purchased (again, thankfully Drew was free for another 2 months).  It appeared we could catch a shuttle bus to get us from Jamestown to Yorktown.... we decided to grab a bite to eat quickly first.

(from Dave's phone)

And then we tried to grab a shuttle.  Notice my not-so-happy-camper.  First I made him eat a PB&J for lunch, then I said he had to put the phone down for a second to take a picture.  Such a mean mom.

Well we hopped on the bus only to find out we shouldn't take it to Yorktown after all despite what the guides told us to do.  So we drove the 20+ miles to get there.  Stupid GPS took us on a few wrong turns, but we managed to find it.  We arrived around 3pm (they close at 5) and it was just in time for the canon firing at the Military camp.

Yorktown is one of the battles that was the turning point in the American Revolution.  General George Washington defeated the British in a several day battle. Thankfully Yorktown is only a fraction of the size of Williamsburg and Jamestown.  You blink and you can miss it.  The heat and humidity were so bad we spent most of our time in a movie and the indoor museum.

Here was a cool shot of a ship on the James River during the canon demonstration

While I was waiting outside the museum for Dave and Drew I saw something out of the corner of my eye.  I thought it was a very large spider.  It turns out that it was...

 ... a crab that was lost.

George Washington was just chilling watching the whole confrontation.

As I made my way toward the front there were some more demonstrations in a few of the log cabins.

They grew everything they ate and served at this location as well.

I never would've been able to feed our family - this Mama has a black thumb instead of a green one.

After this adventure we made our way back to our place for some dinner and pool time.  We were pooped out.

Virginia Vacation - Jamestown

Continuing on our vacation, on day three we had some company join us on our adventures in Virginia - Grandma and Grandpa drove down from New York.  On this day we hit up Jamestown, part of the Historic Triangle.

For those who aren't history buffs, Jamestown is the first surviving colonial settlement.  You may remember the story of John Smith and Pocahontas.  That came out of Jamestown...

Once we paid for our admission into the Settlement (which also scored us tickets to Yorktown, the 3rd city in the Historic Triangle) we ventured in.  Here Grandpa and Drew try to climb the tall tower in the courtyard.

We decided to hit the Fort.  This is a replica of what the British explorers (among which was John Smith) built to protect them from the "natives" and the elements.

Our protectors for this trip...

Drew was found sleeping on the job.

 He wanted to play act everywhere he went, it cracked us up!

Here's their church.. Drew had to give his "sermon" from the lower pulpit (I couldn't see him when he tried to go to the top one).

Drew was excited to find a quoits game - we saw this in Williamsburg the day before, but my camera battery died when I tried to get pictures of the boys playing it.  Notice it's like a colonial version of horseshoes.

Barrel room..

Grandpa joins the other armed guards...

We couldn't leave the fort until Daddy did some heavy lifting and brought us some water.

After some time in the Fort, we decided to venture down to some replica ships.  The first settlers came on three ships.  The first was the Susan Constant.

The boys decided to explore the ships.  Grandma and I decided to find some shade... the hot muggy weather was a bit too much for me.

Here are some pictures Dave took on his cell phone. From the ships.

After the shipyard, we made our way back toward the Indian Village.

Here Grandma and I are checking out the animal skins.  I had to drape it across the front of me... my um, boobs were sweating through my shirt.

Drew conned Grandpa to carry him as long as possible.  That was one patient Grandpa... that kid is heavy and it was HOT!

Dave and I hanging out in the canoe... who needs water to explore in a boat?

A Powhatan hut

Me inside the Powhatan hut....

 Grandma checking out all the Indian artifacts.

Drew is grinding the corn... 

And here's a funny story, in the Indian Village there was a guy standing by a hut without his shirt.  Dave walked up to him, and asked if he could take his picture with him.  The guy says sure... then Dave dropped on him, he wanted to take his shirt off too - you know because he was Native American and he wanted to make it look authentic.  Dave wanted to know if it was okay.

The guy said "Um,  I've never been asked that before" as he looks around nervously - there was a tour guide and tourists walking up at that moment.  I told Dave to just hurry up and do it...

That was the result.  The man quickly walked off - I think we managed to embarrass him.  Hopefully the tour guide wasn't his boss and he didn't get in trouble.

Shortly after this we decided to pack it up and hit up Yorktown, it was already starting to get late, and the natives were getting hungry.