Last But Not Least . . .

Miles' first day of school was this past Monday.  But I also started working and so it's been busy around here and so I am now just getting these pictures up of my cute bike-to-school middle-schooler.

We sure love this 7-grader!

East Coast - New York

Not knowing when we'd be out east again, we wanted to make a trek up north to New York - where we lived for a year.  But especially where Jonas was born!  :)  So we decided to drive the 5 hours there and stay for a couple of nights.

On our way to NY we stopped in Hershey, PA and visited the Chocolate factory.  We took a tour, got a free chocolate bar, got free pudding, and had a good time!

 The kids on the little riding tour.  It was cute and we all enjoyed it.

 Now whenever we eat a Hershey's chocolate, we'll be reminded of our little stop here!

 Jonas and his birth-state!  So cool.

 Our home-sweet-home while in NY.  We found some campground and rented this "cabin."  It was really a shed.  It worked out just fine for our two nights and was tons cheaper than a hotel!

That night we drove around, got some dinner, went to a park near our old home (where Miles had once played and swung on the swings), went to the mall to get some Gertrude Hawks chocolate (yes, more chocolate, but this place was somewhere that Ben and I would go and so we just had to experience it again), and then we went to our favorite grocery store - Wegmans.  It's just a nice store and we always loved going there while we lived in NY.

 Here is Miles in front of a cow.  Why you ask?  Because Miles was petrified of Wegman's cow (not this exact one, but at this exact spot.  The old cow was a plastic thing.) and would always start crying as soon as we neared it - whether or not he could see it!  It was crazy!  The cow made some weird mechanical noise and we're not sure if that's what made Miles scared?  But it was funny and so we had to get a picture of Miles and Cow.

 The inside of our home-sweet-home.  :)  Yes, Miles is wearing his shirt as shorts.  No, I don't know why.

 The kids showing off their muscles and tan-lines.  Miles is white as he wears a swim shirt.  :)

 Enjoying our breakfast by the Susquehana river - which was right at our camping spot.  It was really pretty!

 Here is Emmy at our church's parking lot.  We went to our ward and knew a few people and recognized a whole bunch of faces.  It was fun being back at our church!

Then we went and drove by our old home.  We wanted to take some pictures and so Ben went to knock on the door to let them know what we wanted to do.  The owner, Bill, totally remembered Ben (Bill was the guy that bought the house from us!) and that he was an OR nurse, etc., etc.  We were invited into his/our old home and had a delightful tour!  My curtains made by me and my sister were still hanging up on the windows!  It was so fun and the kids loved it - especially Jonas.  :)

 Inside our cute NY home!  See my curtains in the kitchen?!

 What a fun home and awesome property!

 Ben's dad actually helped rebuild the rock wall and made the steps.  So fun!

 Just us.  :)  (It would have been a perfect trip if not for the scary neighbors yelling like crazy - "F" this and "F" that - and then hearing shots go off a little while later. . . )

After our delightful visit to 127 Harrington we went to the Restoration of the Priesthood site.  It's super nice and we had a good visit!  When we were there 10 years ago there was hardly anything at the site - just a marker or two.  Now it's a whole site with many places and things to see and visit.

 Here we are in the replica home of Joseph and Emma Smith, where like 70% of the Book of Mormon was translated.  Very cool.

 Somewhere in these sugar bushes John the Baptist appeared to Joseph and Oliver C. and restored the Aaronic priesthood.  Again, very cool.

 My dad, as a young boy, was at this site many years ago when it was officially dedicated.  So special!

 We love NY!

Some friends from our ward invited us over to diner on Sunday and we all had a good evening at the Espositos!

Monday morning this was our view of the Susquehanna.  It was cool and foggy!

I went on a run in the fog and it was super awesome.  Then we left NY and headed to Gettysburg . . .

East Coast - D.C. and the Beach

On Thursday we went back to D.C. to check out the Smithsonians.  We went to the American History and the Natural History museums.  I think the first ended up being a favorite of most of our group - maybe due to its not being as crowded!  Miles probably liked the Natural History museum best.  Again, Miles could have spent and entire day in each one - rather than a couple of hours.

 Here we are in downtown D.C. in front of the Washington monument.  I liked being downtown and could probably just walk around the town all day - if it wasn't super hot and humid, of course!

 The cousins, minus an Ollie, in front of the Smithsonian.

 Miles taking a picture of . . . something.

 Cute Emmy in D.C.

Again, another afternoon of swimming and evening of olympics.  (And, as always, thanks to Erin for meal planning and prep!  It was always delicious!)

On Friday my sister took the day off and we went to Terrapin Beach on the Chesapeake Bay:

 Again, the water was warm!

 Again, we saw lots of jellyfish - only this time, they were alive!  So there wasn't much swimming at this beach!

 But you can always do handstands on the sand!

 The kids did like to catch the jellyfish and keep them in buckets.

 I helped Lucy build a sandcastle.  Very beachy, right?

 Beach-looking Miles.

Ben took a walk with the kids and found this great spot - where the river came in and so there were no jellyfish in this spot!  Perfect, now the kids were able to swim (although it was a little shallow!).

 The kids liked to just float down with the current.

 A floating Emmy.  :)

 Yay, a having-fun Lucy!

 More floaters . . . haha.
 

 Ahhh, the kids having fun!

 They liked to have the waves come and splash into their faces.  Kids.  :)

 Byebye beach!  It was grand.

Since we were right by Annapolis, Ben wanted to go and get some ice cream again.  :)

 Cute kids checking out the map.

  Uncle Chuck and the cousins in front of the yummy ice cream store!

 See how cool the town is?!

That little girl is pretty cool, too.  And adorable.

East Coast Day - Air & Space and Harper's Ferry

We spent Ollie's birthday at the Dulles Air and Space Museum.  It was an amazing place full of amazing air and space artifacts.  Miles could have spent the entire day there reading every plaque to be found!

 This is the helicopter that my father (these kids' Grandpa) actually flew while in the Marine Corps.  So cool!!!

 Jonas in front of the Discovery spaceship.

 All the cousins at the Discovery.  It was kind of weird-looking in the sense that it seemed to have been built by a child as it was so patch-work-y.  But it was impressive - especially realizing all the times it up made it up in to space.  Amazing!

 So many cool airplanes!

 The girls and I in front of the Enola Gay.

I'm sure we spent the afternoon swimming that day and the evening watching some Olympics.

On Wednesday we went in to Harper's Ferry.  One of my sister's suggestions was to tube on the river there and so we did.  It was awesome!  The water was so warm and the kids just had an amazing time.  We got to do it twice - it took us about 4 hours to do it twice.  We couldn't bring our camera because we didn't want it to get wet on the river.  Bummer!

 Here the kids are getting ready to go tubing.

Afterwards we went in to the town of Harper's Ferry:

 Lucy helping us navigate with the map.

 The Susquehanna and the Potomac rivers meet up at this spot.  It sure was pretty!

 This was the infamous John Brown's fort.

We walked up to Jefferson's rock - a place where Thomas Jefferson went and remarked on the beauty of the spot.  It was pretty!

Another good day full of lots of adventuring!