Ouch

Life has been rough for him lately. This is what he looks like, oh probably 60% of the time he's awake:

Getting 6 teeth at once is just not fair, is it Buddy?

Pocahontas

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First of all, a few people have asked why we chose Virginia for our vacation spot. We were able to use a Marriott Getaway Vacation (thank-you Grandma and Grandpa) which gives you discounted hotels/condos. When we put in our weeks we were available to vacation, the Getaway website pulled up which locations had openings. I was looking at Mexico, Costa Rica, Cali, and Washington DC. As I was telling Ollie the locations in VA, hoping to get close to DC, Williamsburg was one of the open locations. And it was a Marriott! When Ollie looked into it and saw all the historical sites nearby, he had his heart set. I was still debating between Cali and VA, but in the end, VA did sound really fun, and different. And the rest is history.

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On our way to Jamestown we told Lulu that we were going to the place where Pocahontas used to come and visit. She lived nearby. She got really excited, and of course she thought she may actually get to see Pocahontas, like she saw Elmo at Busch Gardens.
When we got out of the car, Lulu heard distant canons firing. "What's that?" she asked. "Guns," I told her. "No, not guns. Lamanites!" she said. She made the connection between Pocahontas and Book of Mormon people all by herself. I thought it was pretty hilarious, and pretty smart.
Alas, Pocahontas was nowhere to be found, although there was a lot of information about the facts and myths surrounding her story.
This was the best Lulu got. A picture of her by Pocahontas' statue:

When she asked where the real Pocahontas was, I told her Pocahontas had died. She got sick. I told her that everyone has to die, and that it was a really long time ago. The rest of the day she kept telling us how Pocahontas had gotten sick and died. I think she was a little scarred, hopefully not for life.
Later that day, maybe it was the next day, Ollie caught her putting her fingers in her mouth. She has a bad habit of picking her lips and he is always trying to remind her not to touch her face. The conversation that day went something like this:
Ollie: "Don't put your hands in your mouth! That's how you get sick, remember? Pocahontas put her hands in her mouth and look what happened to her."
Lulu: "Pocahontas died."
Ollie: "Yes. Do you want to die?"

Nice.

Our Virginia Trip

Friday: We arrived in Norfolk at 9 pm local time, rented our "new van", and then drove to Williamsburg. We dropped Grammie and my Buddy off at our "new condo" and the rest of us went grocery shopping at the local Food Lion. Saturday: Busch Gardens was about 15 minutes from the hotel. We had a good time and stayed almost all day, although we'd do it different if we ever went back with kids. We didn't plan right so Ollie missed a lot of the big rides he wanted to go on. We didn't realize they actually do have a way for both parents to wait in line with their kids and both take turns riding. Oh well. You live and learn. And Lulu learned to be extra careful sitting on a bench with no back.
Sunday: We made it to church at 9 am for Mother's Day. It was a nice meeting. Afterwards, we went home to the condo for lunch then headed out to Hampton to go to a free petting zoo. Not a bad Sunday activity I thought. We then headed over to Fort Monroe in Hampton to see their free museum, but unfortunately we weren't able to go in. I didn't bring my ID and the museum is on the base. So, we went over to Newport News to hike through a beautiful park and view the USS Monitor from across the lake. It turned out really nice. Before we headed home, we toured a war museum. Lulu was funny, she kept pointing out everything and saying “oh wow.” All my Buddy wanted to do was run. It was quite educational and interesting to see how many wars this area has gone through.
Here are 2 pictures from the condo. The front lobby of our building, and our screend in porch:

Monday: We spend all day at Colonial Williamsburg. It's a historic area close to our hotel where the Original Williamsburg buildings still stand or have been recreated. The employees are all dressed in the time period of the 1700's and are recreating life from that era. It was a lot of walking but a lot of fun. Tuesday: We visited Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Historic Jamestowne is where they landed and built the fort. You can see the original foundation in the church, and the fort wall has been recreated. They are still excavating the grounds and finding artifacts from those first settlers. It was very interesting and educational. Next we visited Jamestown Settlement where they are dressed and acting like the time period again. We toured the fort with its buildings inside, 2 boats that would have brought the colonists over, and an Indian village. They had the best museum there by far. It was amazing.

Wednesday: The revolutionary war, where the colonists broke away from England, had a big battle in a place called Yorktown Battlefield, which was about 30 minutes from Jamestown. We walked along the earthworks (big dirt banks piled up by the men in the revolutionary war to create trenches) as we viewed the battlefield, canons, and the river. We also saw the Yorktown Victory Center where again they are dressed like the time period and showing how they lived in that time. We toured an army campsite, watched a soldier fire a musket, and toured the museum. This day was also Ollie's birthday, so we went out to a really nice Steak/Seafood restaurant recommended by the concierge. Mmm, my steak was amazing.

Thursday: Ollie really wanted to drive out to Monticello to see Thomas Jefferson's home, but it was over 2 hours each way. The kids were not going to go for that, so we decided to back to Colonial Williamsburg and see what we had missed the first day. It took all day again to see the sites, so we were glad we went back. For dinner we had some good southern BBQ, although it was a bit overdone on the sauce.

Friday: We had a few hours to see things before our plane left that afternoon. We decided to go to Portsmouth to see their children's museum and other museums. I was picturing a cute quaint little town right by the river, how historic Yorktown looked. It was actually a dirty ugly dying town. The museums were small and a bit pathetic, but hey, it was cheap and the kids had a great time.

After that we made it to the airport and took the 2 flights home. Lulu was very sad that the "new van" was gone and her vacation was over. When we actually came inside though, the kids were quite excited to see their toys they had left behind and they slept really well in their own beds with their fans on for white noise. We missed that at the Marriott.
Overall, it was a fantastic trip, especially if you love history. There was a lot of walking. A lot! But I would definitely recommend it. We loved the Marriott at Ford's Colony in Williamsburg too.
For a few more pics, check out my travel blog: chermytravels.blogspot.com . I put my favorite artistic photos there.

Ollie's Day

My Ollie is officially done with school! He finished all of his classes last Tuesday for his MBA from Westminster College.
At the end of the month there is a pinning ceremony to make it official, but he is done! This was a big accomplishment for him. He says he never loved school, and look what he's done. I'm proud of him for sticking with it, and graduating with such great grades.
He had night classes, homework, and projects to be done, all while working full time. With all of that, he never complained when he was asked to do something for church. He always found time to play with our kids, make me feel special, and he still cooked and did the laundry among other household duties. Every week. Oh, and yard work. I mean, seriously, he is amazing.
And to let him know how amazing he is and what a big deal I think it is to get your MBA, and to show him how much those close to him are proud of him, I threw a surprise party for him yesterday. I thought it was a fairly little party, one he wouldn't mind too much. You see, he's really not into parties. Like at all. Just too many people, too much noise, too many kids getting hyper and breaking things. I only invited family and 2 neighbor friends though, so it turned out nice. I think.
Here are a few of those who made it

My Nana, her husband Scott, and my brother Andrew:

His momma:
His sister Rashelle:Some of the kids in attendance:

My Grandparents:

Neighbor James and his family:

Neighbor Rocio and her family:

and of course our little Buddy:

and Lulu:

After all was said and done, my Grandpa stayed to help fix our tubby's faucet. What a job. He is amazing, he can fix anything, and he's always so willing to help. And it was just in time, I couldn't get the water off after the bath last night. So thanks Grandpa!

Cleaning up the streamers:

And, my buddy wearing one of the little cups that had candy in them. He helped clean up the candy, he's good at that:

Then, to celebrate Ollie even more, our neighbors took us to dinner! They are too nice. We drove down to a little Hawaiian place for delicious teriyaki steak rice bowls.

This is the outfit Lulu wanted to wear to dinner. Swimsuit and snow boots. Sorry Lulu, although I try to be understanding and let you express yourself, this was just a little too much. Plus it was freezing outside:

Thanks guys, it was delicious!

Then our day was over, and I hope Ollie felt how important he is to all of us in his life, and especially to me. I love you honey! Hopefully you don't mind us calling you Master now, cuz it's kinda catchy.