Well it's raining

Literally it has been raining for several days here, also it seems that the expression "when it rains it pours" fits what has been happening lately. My brother came in town thursday night, friday night he and my parents were over for dinner. My dad was feeling a little puny so I called Sandi (sil) who is a cardiac nurse to come see him on her way home from work that night. To make a long story short he is in the hospital for heart trouble. We won't know more till monday after they do a stress test. The good news is that once they gave him blood thinner his blood pressure went back up (it had been 79/40) and he is feeling fine. There is a possibility that he could come home for Christmas on some medication and then follow up with a cardiologist to see why he went into A fib (sp?) and see if there is a blockage. This is serious but thank God they can nip it in the bud, he could have had a heart attack or stroke if he had walked around like he was for to long. I was planning on Christmas shopping this weekend because we hadn't done that yet since we have been so busy, but that is not going to happen now so it will be a different kind of christmas at our house this year. The kids will still have theirs because we were able to get them everything they would need from Walmart. I will get stuff for the stockings today or tomorrow but that is it. The boys and I did make a gingerbread train, christmas cookies and handed out christmas cards to our neighbors, so there was some holiday cheer.

Our day in Jamestown

I still have to post the Yorktown pictures but that will be for another day. This was a great day and very interesting. These types of living museums are really educational and can keep the young ones attention.

This bunk that Nate is sitting on was on the mid level of the largest ship that came over, it would be sufficient if you are under 6 ft and you didn't have to share it with another man. It was horrible to imagine them below deck for over 5 months. They couldn't come up to the outside deck unless the captain deemed it ok, not even to empty their chamber pots. ugh! 59 men shared this space with their belongings and chamber pots, most of them were terribly sea sick for a good while and the rest were bored to death.

Getting ready to tour the 3 ships that carried the settlers

Dad gets a lesson on axes and canoe making
The boys take the boat out
Luke finds a clam shell

The goofy helmets the settlers wore

Notice Evan coming in for the swift kick, I felt like doing it myself a few times. lol

Inside the fort at Jamestown settlement

Nate and Evan watch grandpa and Luke scrape a dear hide

The outside of the Powhatan indian villagen, and Nate and Evan inside one of the huts. They are not called huts or teepees or dwellings but the name escapes me.

Activities at Powhatan Resort

Around the Manor house on the grounds of the resort.

Pictures Part 2

This is taking way to long to load all these pictures so I'm going to post part 1 at a later date. Normally I would never post so many pics but we took 311 and saved 304 so you can understand my dilema. It was hard to choose which ones to post. I haven't even posted Jamestown or Yorktown yet so that will be on the next batch.

Aboard the USS Wisconsin

All these photos and the ones to follow were taken at a great Naval museum in Norfolk Va, about an hour from Williamsburg. This was an awesome interactive museum for adults and fantastic for the kiddos, they had so much hands on stuff and some great films as well. There was almost nobody there, due to the time of year and day of the week, plus it was only $7 a person and we pretty much spent the day there.

Don't Ask

This pretty much sums up Luke all week.

on deck of the USS Wisconsin

Goofy costumes for all

Sailors heading off to sea.

Nate makes a hideous mermaid
But a much better captain


This was a underwater crane that the kids could manuever and pick up stuff with.

Pictures at sunset

The whole gang outside the naval museum

A walk along the harbor

A Day in Colonial Williamsburg

Public scorn and humiliation

The Governors house and some silly fun.

The friendliest cat in Williamsburg and of course Evan and I had to hold it.

It looked beautiful blowing in the wind, and is a perfect picture to end our historic vacation with.

Dania

Usually when I get new pictures of Dania it makes my day. Today however they almost made me cry because I have no idea when she will officially be our little girl. I'm sorry that she will miss our first christmas in our new house. On the bright side she looks happy and content, and that is wonderful medicine to my soul. A mission team is on its way to Haiti next week from the org. I am adopting from. I was invited last year to go but I had Tonyas kids and Nate was away. This year when they started planning the trip I didn't consider going because I was pretty sure she would be home by now. I am wondering if I should have gone this time to meet her or would that have made things harder?

No News

We have been back to our schedule this week but we are definitley starting later than usual. We have been incredibly tired so my feet aren't hitting the floor till 8 or 9am. Evan and I went out last night to buy the boys some pants and sweats, they have all been flooding around here or walking around with holes in their pants. All the boys are very tall for their ages so it makes buying things that fit difficult. Austin 10 needs 12 slim but even those have to have the adjustable waistband pulled tight. Evan is not quite as skinny so 10 slim fits him pretty well. Luke on the other hand would fit a size 7 perfectly but with no room to grow and the size 8 swamps him, so I ended up with the size 7. I just bought him the cheapest stuff I could find since he won't be wearing them next year for sure.

It was snowing nice and heavy in DC last night, boy am I bummed not to ever have snow around Christmas time. It MAY snow here but usually in Jan, Feb. The good news though that next week in VA the temps are going to be in the upper 60's and even 70's, so if it won't snow we should have lovely weather for sightseeing which is actually better for the kiddos on this kind of a trip.

Party's over

The party is over and it was a success. Everybody liked the food and house and having it in our home made it so much better than eating at a restuarant. Of course there were a couple of camera's but we forgot to take pictures, duh. Sunday we skipped church but had my parents and in laws, plus Tony(Nate's business partner) over for lunch. Today has been sort of a let down after all the action, not that I enjoyed all the stress of prep work but it definitley felt dull around here today. Luckily we are heading to Va on Saturday so we will be able to truly relax and take in the sites of Williamsburg decorated for Christmas.

Today's disaster was I washed my new RED tablecloth with my expensive white mattress cover. I bleached it, but to no avail. The top of my dryer is even stained a nice deep pink. Maybe I should sue Walmart(kidding) for making their dye so strong that even metal is ruined.

I love having boys for the most part and here is one of the reasons why: I drove up in the driveway to see Austin in the back yard digging a hole with the large shovel.

Me "what are you doing"

Austin "digging a hole"

Me "I can see that, it's pretty big, but why are you digging a hole?"

Austin "for the fun of it, of course"

Me "oh yes, the fun of it, of course"


Tonight is tree decorating time as soon as Nate gets home from his meeting. We did end up getting a beautiful live tree since we were having the party and didn't have time to do anything else, it cost $63 which is so sickening. I will try to take pictures and post them if I can find the down loading cable, it has been missing since Thanksgiving.