When we were in Virginia at the beginning of our trip it was HOT and humid. By hot I mean the high actually. reached triple digits not counting the humidity. It was quite a different story when we returned to Virginia on June 8. It was in the 60's and 70's, and on our last day it also rained most of the day. Over our 13 day trip it didn't rain too terribly much. The times we experienced the most rain were on May 31st in the evening on Roanoke Island, NC, in Charleston, SC on June 6, and on June 9 in Charlottesville, VA. All three times it would have been very helpful if we had brought rain jackets and/or more umbrellas. We only had one umbrella, and I used it to shield my camera. Hopefully the next time we go on vacation I'll remember to pack those! On Sunday since it was in the 60's and raining we also would have enjoyed wearing warmer clothes, but we pretty much had just packed shorts. We took at family friendly tour of Montpelier (home of James and Dolly Madison)
from 10:15-11:20. I had planned for us to participate in the slave community tour at 11:30, but in light of the rain and our lack of umbrellas and/or rain jackets, we skipped that since it was an outdoor tour. It took us about 75 minutes to drive to Luray Caverns from Madison's home. The rain didn't effect our tour since we were underground, and having already spent time in the cool, rainy weather, we were ready to enter the cooler caverns even though we were wearing the wrong clothes. I had planned on the kids doing a high ropes course at Caverns, but we skipped that due to the rain. Oliver wanted to do it even though it was raining, but Nadia wasn't interested (partially because she was hoping we might make it back to the house by 6:00pm so she could attend the Middle). If I could do it over again, I would have let them do Go Ape in either Williamsburg or North Myrtle Beach. Nadia loved doing Go Ape (ziplining and ropes course) in Williamsburg in 2015. The ropes course at Luray was much cheaper, which is why I had picked that one over Go Ape. Hopefully another opportunity
will present itself in the next year for those two to do a high ropes course (and Ian if he is interested).
We had first planned to visit Luray Caverns in August 2017 on our way back from my Dad's wedding, but we were very sick during that trip and cancelled that plan. I hadn't been there since I was a child. I can't recall if I've ever been to Mammoth Cave, but I remember visiting both Luray Caverns in VA and Carlsbad Caverns in NM. The kids had only been to one cave prior to Luray, and that was Penn's Cave near Penn State. Penn's Cave is much smaller, but it's a bit unique in that you take that tour by boat. In Luray Caverns you walk for 90 minutes throughout the cave. My mom tried to include an amusement park and a factory tour in most of our summer vacations. We didn't have either of those in this trip, but last month we did visit Crayola and also toured a guitar factory. This summer we are going to FAR fewer amusement parks than we have the last several summers. Hopefully we had a nice blend of activities thought - "fun"
things like seeing Aladdin at the movie theatre, the Lion King Broadway show, two nights of miniature golf, swimming pools, and renting two DVDs of movies they hadn't seen yet from Redbox. We also enjoyed the beauty of nature- beaches in NC and SC, skyline drive in VA, and Luray Caverns. And hopefully they learned a little history at Jamestown, Yorktown, USS Wisconsin, Williamsburg, Roanoke Island, Wright Brother's Memorial, USS Yorktown, Fort Sumter, Montpelier, Highland, and Monticello.
On our way home yesterday I made a quick trip into our local grocery store to buy things like bread, milk, and bananas so that we would be prepared for breakfast today plus packing lunches for horseback riding camp. It took me awhile last night to unpack the suitcases, put away everything that was in the van, go through the mail, clean the very smelly guinea pig cage, etc. I don't usually use candles, but I burned a smelly one last night to try to get rid of the yucky smell. I also was cleaning the sea shells more
after I discovered some of them were stinky. I took five kids to horseback riding camp this morning. Tab and I are sharing the chauffeuring duties, which is a huge blessing. After dropping them off I bought a lot more groceries at Aldi, went to the library, and got gas for the van on my way home. I had a nice long chat with Yvonne and made calls to schedule mani/pedis for Nadia and I on her birthday (6/24), a tire rotation for this Wednesday, and scheduled a massage for myself for the end of July using a gift certificate Paul gave me for my birthday in 2018. It was raining for most of the day today, but thankfully there was a time when it stopped raining for a bit. It usually takes me about 75 minutes to mow the lawn. It took me 2.5 hours to mow it today because the grass was tall (hadn't been mowed in 2 weeks) and wet. I was grateful it was cool out today (in the high 60's) but despite that cool weather I was sweating like crazy while mowing. My arms are very sore. We shall see if I have trouble getting out of bed tomorrow morning due to back pain. I had to bend over and clean out the mower umpteen times and stop and restart the mower many, many times. I also did two loads of laundry, made a batch of brownies, and made tuna noodle for dinner. Even though the kids were at camp for 6 hours, I was still a very, very busy lady. I made plans to walk with two different friends this week. I am looking forward to that - getting exercise and catching up with a friend sounds heavenly to me! Despite the fact I ate too much at the Golden Corral on Friday night, I managed to lose 3 more pounds over the past two weeks bringing my total weight loss to 28 pounds thus far. At this point my goal is to lose seven more pounds.
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