Williamsburg, Norfolk, and OBX

The most expensive day of our vacation this year was May 30. We spent 8 hours at Colonial Williamsburg and then drove to Norfolk to see the Lion King. Personally, I wouldn't say that the Lion King was my most favorite or least favorite Broadway show. Nadia has seen three Broadway shows in the past year - Cinderella, Aladdin, and Lion King. The boys didn't go to Cinderella. The kids said they liked Lion King as much as Aladdin, and Ian said he liked Lion King even more than Aladdin, which is high praise as he loved Aladdin last August in Buffalo. I liked Aladdin a lot more than Lion King. I'm thinking we'll try to take the kids to one show per year. Maybe once we'll actually see one in NYC but for now the plan is to stick with touring Broadway as those tickets are at least 50% cheaper than the ones in NYC. We're hoping to see Wicked next year. Paul and I saw Wicked in NYC in 2009.

The kids' first time at Colonial Williamsburg was in 2005 with my parents. When we went on Thursday it was the first time that Paul or his parents had been

there. We started with a tour of the palace and then learned about a famous freed slave who was a barber in Williamsburg before we attended a short play put on by two men who wore a wide variety of hats to represent all the parts they were playing.  Two of the highlights for the kids were the coffee shop (at the end of that tour you get a small cup of tea, coffee, or chocolate) and stomping in the mud at the brickyard. Oliver and Nadia participated in a theatrical experience at the Capitol. Nadia did an excellent job reading the lines as she played the part of Patrick Henry. Oliver was selected to take the notes with a quill. He was supposed to transcribe every word, ha ha! We certainly couldn't see everything in eight hours, but we saw quite a bit of it! They gave me 50% off my ticket because I'm an educator even though I didn't have my ID with me. That was a pleasant surprise! Lion King started at 7:30pm, which meant it was 11pm by the time we crawled into our beds that night even though we were staying at a hotel less than 10 minutes from the Chrysler Hall. It took longer than 10 minutes for us to exit the parking garage when the show was over.

Friday morning we had planned to start our day with a bus tour of the Naval Base in Norfolk, but I was so tired from our long day on Thursday I asked Paul if it was okay if we skipped it. He was disappointed, but he knew none of the kids would mind if we skipped it. If we are ever back in that area again, we'll have to be sure to tour the base. We started our day at the Nauticus which included a tour of the Battleship Wisconsin. We got in free thanks to our ASTC membership. It was a nice museum. We saw two 3D movies -one about sea creatures that live in the Pacific Ocean and another about aircraft carriers. I paid $20 for a picture that someone took of the five of us in front of the Wisconsin. Since I'm usually behind the camera, photos with all five of us are rare so I decided to splurge since it was a good picture. I'll scan it and share it on the blog after we return home. Then we drove about 90 minutes to Kill Devil Hills, NC. The kids wanted to head to the beach, but it was much cooler out. Ironically it had been around 100 degrees the first three days we were in Virginia, but as we drove farther south the high temperature dropped almost 30 degrees! We visited a National Park on Roanoke Island, and the kids earned another Junior Ranger Badge. We had tickets to see The Lost Colony which is a theatrical production that has been playing at that national park for 82 years. We left during the intermission because it started pouring. I'm not sure if they performed the second half of not. It was an outdoor theater. Today is the 6th day of our vacation, and the rain during that show was really the first time we experienced rain (while we were awake) during this trip.

The kids and I made two trips to the beach that morning before we went to the Wright Brother's Memorial which was less than 1 mile from our hotel. They earned their 4th Junior Ranger badges for this vacation and 7th for 2019 as we did Ellis Island, Steamtown, and Valley Forge last month. It was very windy there (hence why the Wright brothers picked that spot!) and the kids were actually complaining about being cold albeit it was in the low 70's. We then drove to Myrtle Beach. We planned to stop and tour the USS North Carolina (another battleship) which we passed on the way, but the kids weren't wanting to see another battleship. Poor Paul is disappointed because none of his kids have his love of history. When he was ten he would have spent hours exploring a battleship. We arrived in North Myrtle Beach around 6pm. Paul's parents are in a different resort about 1 mile from ours. Paul took the kids to the beach while I went to Aldi's and also put things away in our 2 bedroom unit.

Today was our most relaxed day of the vacation thus far. The only time we drove anywhere was to spend some time at Paul's parents' resort this evening as their resort has an indoor lazy river. While the kids were enjoying that, I did two loads of laundry in Paul's parents unit. Our resort has coin operated washers/dryers on a few different floors (not in our unit), but they have ones in their 1 bedroom unit that you don't have to pay to use. The kids played in the pool for 2 hours before lunch, then went to the beach for a few hours after lunch followed by another visit to our outdoor pool. They were outside for 6 hours and despite all the sunscreen we put on them more than once today, they got some sunburn. I made penne and meatballs for dinner. Paul's parents joined us in our unit for dinner before we went over to use their lazy river, washer, and dryer. We didn't eat out at all today thanks to having a kitchen and my shopping trip at Aldi's. We have two queen beds in our unit (one in each bedroom) plus a sofa bed in the living room. Because he wanted to stay up later last night, Nadia and I shared the bed in the master bedroom and he took the sofa bed. Paul's parents have two queen beds in their one bedroom so Nadia is again spending the night at their place, which means we aren't using the sofa bed in our unit tonight.