Sunday, July 3, 2011

Sunday, July 3






































Dear Loyal Brown Girls Followers,


You will be glad to know that we all made it back safely from our harrowing experience today. You would think that a 6 am wake-up call so we could get to church on time would have "protected" us but, no! After Mass we left for Natural Bridge. Our first stop within the park was at the Animal Safari. Many of you may have seen our "I've Been Slobbered" t-shirts, well... we should have worn them today as we were all slobbered, especially Jessica, who endured a bath by a female elk. Jessica says that the tounge was a lot more slobbery than Squirt's and if the side of Aunt Becky's car is any evidence, all the animals have LOTS of slobber. The animals, especially the two humped camels like to steal the buckets of food from us. Katie enjoyed the whole experience so much, she dumped about half a bucket of food on her lap! Between Katie and the animals, we will be picking food pellets out of the car for months...

After the animal safari, we went to Natural Bridge were we visited the Toy Museum (they had a whole corner dedicated to Star Trek Toys!) and the butterfly area, we took some pretty butterfly pictures. Then it was off to Natural Bridge. We walked down 134 steps and around the corner and WOW! There it was, how beautiful. We located the place where George Washington carved his initials when he was a teenager on the bridge. The indian village was next where we were able to see an actual village. It was smoky and fun! We had to get back in our car to drive to the Natural Bridge Caverns. We enjoyed the cool temperature and the strenuous walk but the Luray Caverns from earlier in the week were in Katie's words - EPIC!


Pray for good weather - if it doesn't rain (it is now) then we will be going to an outdoor light show tonight.

Saturday, July 2













Did you ever wonder what the state bird of Virginia is? Well, we can tell you - it is the GNAT! Gnats, Gnats, Gnats and more Gnats followed us everywhere we went on Saturday. We attempted to explore Appomatax - but yikes! The gnats followed us to the point of distraction. We did brave the swarm long enough to go to the courthouse and see the famous desk where Lee signed the document of surrender and walked the road where the soldiers laid down thier arms. After looking in a couple more of the houses we finally had enough and had to leave.



We spent an early evening in Lexington, VA thanks to the best travel agent in the world, did a lot of swimming had a big dinner - and still went to bed late, you gotta love vacation :)

Friday, July 1, 2011

Friday, July 1





















Proud to be an American! Today we spent the day in Williamsburg and Yorktown. We met many interesting characters and saw what life was like when America first began. Everyone kept telling us how hard life was then. We tried to grind some corn, watched as Patrick Henry stirred the crowd, listened to local gossip from the woman who was in charge of the house slaves at the Governor's palace and agreed that we are much happier in the present. One funny thing that happened was we found a lens cover for the camera! Loyal Brown Girls followers will remember that last trip we sent the lens cover to our camera to swim with the fishes, somehow the fishes were able to return it to us - Halleluiah!

We arrived at Yorktown with just enough time to watch the final showing of the film that talked about Yorktown's importance in our history. We took a leisurely driving tour of the battlefields including Surrender Field. It was an historic day.

We got back late this evening, took a short swim and agreed that we are all pretty tired. It must have been the blazing sun that took it all out of us :)