Monticello Pictures

Pictures from Shenandoah

Pictures from before our trip

Last week

April 17  - back to the daily grind, except that the kids were on Spring Break.  I still had to teach and then meet with a few students who cheated on their project.  Then, I went home and Katsu went to work.  This week we started potty training so we didn't have any big fun plans for spring break.  The boys spent lots of time playing video games and I spent a lot of time cleaning up accidents and taking Noah to the bathroom.  I went out to dinner with the women faculty in Engineering.

April 18 - this morning we finally got to our Easter egg hunt.  There were tons - we probably made way too many.  We are still finding some every day that we didn't find before.  A little more exciting that way, I suppose.  Andrew threw a huge fit at the beginning because he didn't get the easter basket that he wanted but he perked up and ended up getting the most eggs.  Otherwise, a boring day potty training.  In the evening, we did our Easter meal - Seth freaked out because apparently eating ham is the worst thing in the world.  Then, Andrew went to Cub Scouts.

April 19 - I had to teach and then I met up with kids at the library so Katsu could get to work on time.  We ended up getting 50 books and spent most of the rest of the day in quiet bursts of reading and potty training.  Noah does pretty well in the morning but then has tons of accidents in the afternoon.

April 20 - we finally had to get out of the house.  We went strawberry picking.  Noah refused to wear a pull up, so we went in underwear and lived on the wild side!  Noah did great and didn't have an accident.  We picked $20 worth of strawberries and then we saw some of the animals - chickens and llamas.  Then, home.  We spent the afternoon making a strawberry tart and making homemade pasta using the pasta machine (me and Noah) while Katsu took the older kids to AirU.  

April 21 - I taught all morning, so the boys had a babysitter.  Then, it was a frustrating afternoon with Noah peeing constantly.  arggh.  So, I finally got frustrated and just put him outside naked with a potty and then let the boys dye eggs by themselves.  Yup.  For some reason, even though we had a kit, they used food colors and made a huge mess and then made the ugliest brown / green / gray eggs.  But they loved it.  Then, they found this gold cream that they painted on that came in one of the kits.  Katsu came home early and he Andrew went to Lowes to buy supplies to rebuild our fire pit.  Then,  I finally went to the grocery store - first time in a couple weeks - it took forever, but I brought home some pizzas and tons of other food.  Noah went to sleep early and then the rest of the boys watched An American Tail for movie night, which we all enjoyed.

April 22 - Noah had no accidents all day!!!  Yay - he is finally getting it.  We cleaned in the morning and then Seth and Logan and Katsu went to soccer games.  Seth's coach apparently texted the team (but not us) telling them she couldn't come and asking Katsu to coach.  So, Katsu unexpectedly coached and got sunburned.  We came home and Katsu taught Seth to mow the lawn.  And then we all went to Farmville to look at a car.  We might finally have time to look at cars!  The boys all loved it and Noah was really upset that we didn't take it home.  "We don't need that car anymore", referring to our Mazda5.  Soon, buddy, soon.  He even came in underwear and did great.  That boy wants nothing to do with pull-ups.  We had some dinner (I made meatballs hoagies with meatballs from scratch - Seth thinks I am trying to poison him, apparently).  We had another babysitter while Katsu and I went to our last play of the season - Lend me a Tenor.  The acting was great and the play was hilarious.  We loved it!  The babysitters were great, too, playing games and making huge train tracks and it just all went really well.  A great end to the week.

Trip to Shenandoah National Park, Manassas Battlefield, and Monticello (April 13 through April 16)

Friday morning, we woke up, the kids watched TV for awhile (up too early as usual) and we went to Walmart to pick up some food for breakfast (lots and lots of donuts) and for lunches / snacks (way too much food!) and then we headed into the park.  It is only about 10 minutes up to Skyline Dr from Luray, so very nice and convenient.  Andrew is in 4th grade and so he was eligible to get a free National Parks pass this year.  We had printed out a voucher, but after questioning him, he was able to turn it in for a card which he signed and will get us into parks until August.  So, that will be helpful this summer.

We were all excited to get out.  So, we got out at the first place, but the hike looked too long for us.  So, we drove further down (we went to the Central district of the Shenandoah National Park on Friday).  We stopped at several viewpoints.  Logan wanted to get out at all of them.  Andrew and Seth sometimes.  Noah was terrified that we were going to fall off the mountain or something and would cry and wail whenever we stopped.  So, there you go.  Spring had come to lower elevations (esp. on the northern section), but higher up it was still mostly bare trees so you could see the structure of all the trees.  We also hoped to see more wildlife.  We did see some - lots of deer, a coyote running across the road, lots of chipmunks and squirrels, etc.  But no bear, much to the boys chagrin.

Hike 1 - Stony Man Trail - This one was 1.6 miles, pretty easy with steep sections.  It was a summit trail, so it was a great first hike.  Noah hiked some, was carried some.  The boys all found hiking sticks along the way and they really enjoyed that.  The best thing about the hikes in the national park where all the stones and rocks to climb over and play on.  The boys loved it.  There was also a great view here.

Next, we split up.  Katsu and Logan went on their hike up the mountain together.  They went up the Hawksbill Mountain, the highest peak in Shenandoah Park.  They had a great time together and took lots of pictures.  Logan had a great time climbing a mountain with Dad.  I took the rest of the boys to the Limberlost trail.  It was flat and short and pretty easy.  There was a little guidebook that went along with it that had some fun activities to reflect on the forest.  We saw lots of chipmunks and birds.  It also criss-crossed with a horse trail, so we saw a lot of horses go by in guided tours.  There was a little rock mound in the middle of the trail that the boys loved climbing around on and sliding off of.  Katsu and Logan still weren't ready, so we went over to the visitor center by Big Meadows.  It looked like they had burned it recently because it was black and red and nothing was growing there.  Noah had fallen asleep, so I carried him around the visitor center.   We watched some of the movies, but it was about the Civilian Conservation Corps and the boys just weren't interested.  So, we picked up the Junior Ranger books (for Andrew and Logan). 

Limberlost pictures:

We really pushed forward and went on one more hike - the Dark Hollows Hike.  Logan fell asleep on the way over and the boys were getting worn out, but we really wanted to do this one since we weren't coming back.  It was worth it.  It was steep going down, but you could seem the stream as you went along and then there was a couple sets of falls.  Not huge, but very pretty.  Going back up was work, but it was a really nice hike and not long (though very steep in parts).  Logan really had to pee then, so we drove quick back to the visitor center and then we drove back to Walmart to pick up food for dinner and then back to our rental where the boys gorged on their TV and we had some pizza (and steak for Katsu).

Saturday -

We went up North today.  There weren't as many hikes, so we just did two.  The first hike we did was Fort Windham Rocks - it was very short, but we took forever ... slow going and then spent a lot of time climbing around exploring the rocks.  They are from magma, I think it said, so they made some really interesting structures.  The boys loved climbing around, especially when we found a little trail to climb up to the top of the rocks.  We were thinking of doing another hike around here to to see even more rock structures, but after we spend a couple hours on the 1.4 mile round trip trail at Windham Rocks, that it would take up way too long.  So, we had some snacks and drove to the next trail.

Next, we did the Lands Run Trail.  It was kind of a boring walk - pretty but along a fireroad, but it came to a nice little stream that ended in a waterfall.  Some other kids were playing near the top of the waterfall, but I wasn't too keen on that.  We let them play a little farther down by putting leaves into the stream, etc. though at one point one of the boys fell in and got their shoes all wet and Noah dropped a water bottle in the stream, though we did manage to get it before it went down the waterfall.  It seemed a long walk back because Noah did not want to walk, but me and the other boys walked singing songs and got to the end.  

Next, we drove to the visitors center up North.  We ate lunch at the picnic area and then went to the visitor center and the boys passed off their Junior Ranger and Logan and Andrew got a badge (Seth refuses to do it).  We thought about doing another hike there, but it looked kind of boring and we were all bored and the boys all needed a nap.  

So, instead, we got into the car and decided to drive to a battleground at Manassas.  It was a nice drive and everyone but Andrew fell asleep ... until we got lost at which point everyone woke up, but we finally did find the right exit and make it to Manassas.  It was packed - I think because National Parks were free that day.  

Noah was a fuss bucket the whole day and kept throwing fits.  Andrew and Logan wanted to do junior ranger badges here, too, so they got their booklets and Katsu helped them work through it while Noah and I went out and looked at cannons.  Then, we all walked over and looked at the cannons and at a house that was standing at the battlefields and was then later rebuilt.  Then, we went back.  At some point, Logan, Noah and I watched most of the film, which they really liked and didn't want to leave.  It was really well down and described the two battles as well as how it affected the people living in Manassas, including children.  Once everyone got their Junior Ranger badges, it was time to go.  Of course, at this point, Noah was throwing fits and didn't want to go.  We saw some more cannons and finally convinced him to get back in the car.  We finished listening to Hatchet along the way - the audio book we had for this trip.  

We had hot dogs and steak and the boys spent tons of time watching TV - their favorite part of the trip.

Sunday - Easter

I had been planning on bringing all the Easter eggs, but none of the kids wanted to (good, because I was worried about the chocolate melting).  So, we just brought the chocolate bunnies and hid those and the kids ate their chocolate bunnies.  Looking back, this was probably a bad idea.  Seth ended up feeling really car sick, so we had to stop on the way (before we even got into the national park) to get him some soda and get out of the car for a bit.  Noah is not sure whether he likes chocolate or not so he got horribly messy and then didn't want to eat the rest.  We went into the National Park at the gap and saw the Southern part of the park.  We stopped at a few overlooks, enjoyed the view and stopped for one last hike.  We did the Blackrock summit trail - a really nice short not hard trail but with some cool rocks to climb around.  We enjoyed it quite a bit and the views were amazing!  We had our lunch here and then we drove to Charlottesville to see Monticello.

Monticello was great!  It was quite expensive but we figured it would be worth it (it is a world heritage site, after all.  And because we were lower down, the flowers and blooming trees were all in force, so the views were great.  We watched the film and then took the tram over to the home.  We took a few pictures and then checked out some of the houses on the Row (the stable and one of the slave homes) and then went back to our tour.  I was really nervous about Noah throwing a fit in Monticello, so we told the boys over and over that they had to behave really well.  They ended up doing great.  Noah wouldn't walk and didn't want to be in a stroller (they have strollers there you can use), so I held him the whole time.  The house was really interesting - all the books, historical artifacts, you can tell that he loved all kinds of learning.  Afterwards, we took some pictures of the gardens, and then the boys tried out different toys - they did code things and the cups you try to get the ball into and then tried their hand at calligraphy.  We saw the kitchens, the toilets, and the icehouse.  Then, we walked done by Jefferson's grave and down to the car.  And started the long drive home.  We did stop at McDonald's on the way home because we didn't get home until 9 pm.