Spring Break

We had a great spring break at PeePaw and Grandma Beth's house in North Carolina and in Virginia Beach, visiting Uncle Matt.

Our first day in NC we made a quick mall trip to get Caleb some new shoes. And, since it was spring break, we had Dip-N-Dots at 10 am. 

The boys spent all afternoon playing outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.

On Tuesday, we loaded up and headed to VA Beach.

Our house was right on the beach and directly across the street from Uncle Matt. It was perfect!

I could get used to this view each morning!

One afternoon we visited the VA Aquarium, which Luke especially loved. He is still quoting facts that he learned that day, and even correctly answered a Jeopardy question about Horse Shoe Crabs.

The boys love the beach almost as much as the love the lake. ;)

We learned that Virginia Beach is the largest city in VA (I was shocked) and there are so, so many good restaurants. Uncle Matt took us to his favorites each night. 

We saw on the news that the destroyer Winston Churchill left Naval Station Norfolk and we were so amazed to look out in the Bay and see it as it headed out to sea.

We checked out Fort Norfolk

and then took a bus tour of Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval station.

We were not allowed so get off the bus, but did get to see the destroyers and aircraft carriers from a distance.

Luke loved learning about the various Navy planes.

USS Cole Memorial

"Pancake" planes, the most expensive aircraft in the Navy. 

We saw these flying up and down the beach so much while we were there. Apparently they are used to detect enemy (Russia, according to our tour guide) submarines off the coast of Cuba. 

On our last day, we went to downtown Norfolk.

We took a tour of the Naval Station by boat, which was incredible. It was about 2 hours long and went up and down the Elizabeth River.

Downtown Norfolk

We saw so many private shipyards working on various ships. Seeing this destroyer dry docked was amazing.

We also saw numerous container ships being loaded. The cranes at this particular shipyard were taller than the statue of liberty. (I felt so small!)

Coal ships bound for Hong Kong

Naval Station Norfolk is so incredible...words can't describe the size of the ships and what it feels like to be so close to them.

67 is the USS Cole

We learned that the guided missile destroyers are so advanced that they could hit a specific target in Florida from their dock. Amazing.

Can you spot the submarine??

Loving our boat tour

We thought the destroyers were big...until we got up to the aircraft carriers.

We got to see four, which apparently is lucky because there are rarely that many docked at one time. The USS Gerald R Ford is the newest (it's on the far right) and costs 12.5 billion dollars. The other three were a deal at around 8 billion each. 

Aircraft carriers carry between 3,500 and 6,000 crew members and can go 50 miles per hour. They run on nuclear fuel and can go 20 to 25 years before they need to refuel. (Which is a good thing because it takes them 3 years to refuel!)

The USS Wisconsin

After our tour, we met Uncle Matt one last time for lunch and then headed back to NC. We loved VA Beach and all want to go back!

March 2018

The first weekend of March Grandmom and Grandpa kept the boys so Creed and I could head up to Cincinnati. Our goal was to hit up IKEA and get our big pieces of furniture for the cabin. We rode in STYLE in the ProMaster. ;) 

The ProMaster was full...the signs of a successful trip. :)

By Saturday night we had made the trip to Jamestown and ate our first dinner on the floor, using an IKEA box as our table. Our main goals that night were to put together our bed and the sofa.

Coffee the next morning...on our sofa!

Sunday we managed to put together our dresser, bedside table, and the guest bed, along with some smaller pieces of furniture.

I was able to chaperone Luke's field trip to the Science Center.

Luke, with his best friends, Tey and Porter

Uncle Luke and Aunt Bri gifted Luke a punching bag for his birthday and he LOVES to "do his training" with it.

Creed and some guys from work went to Colorado to ski...for 24 hours. They few out Saturday late afternoon, skied all day Sunday, and then flew home late Sunday night. 

On March 12th, we said good-bye to our Rhett Butler. 

It was SO MUCH HARDER than any of us had anticipated. Rhett had been blind since before Luke was born, but recently lost his hearing as well, which really made him very nervous and very, very confused. His quality of life went down so fast over the last month that I just couldn't watch him suffer any longer.

 

Mr. Rhett would have been 15 years old this July...

On Saturday March 17th, we brought the boys to the cabin for the first time to see it (mostly) furnished...

The Master Bedroom

Guest Bedroom

The Main Living Area

The Boys' Loft

The boys, especially Caleb, were thrilled. They kept thanking us for everything and told us over and over how much they love it. :) We are so excited to make lots of memories...

That weekend we went to the dam and were blown away with how much water was moving through those flood gates... 

We also checked out the fish hatchery...

and let Uncle Rick give us a few fly fishing lessons. (Creed's Uncle Rick and Aunt Sharon own a cabin at the bottom of the hill from us so we will be seeing lots more of them!)

We got just over 8 inches of snow at our house on March 21st and welcomed in spring with another snow day.

Each time that we visit the cabin we try out local restaurants and Betty's OK Country Cooking was a hit for breakfast!