April

On Friday, April 13th school was called off so I didn't have to work and Creed already had the day off so we headed down to Cumberland and enjoyed our first lake day. Grandmom and Grandpa came later that evening and brought the boys for us. 

Grandmom and Grandpa bought the cabin at the bottom of the hill so we are neighbors!

Our resident dentist pulled another one of his brother's teeth.

On the 19th, Luke's class did their chapel program. 

Sweet friends 

During one song there was about a 15 second freestyle dance. Luke and his buddy Porter planned out their dance and nailed it. They did awesome...so great that at the end of the program, the teacher that leads chapel had them play the song again so we could "see those moves again." 

Luke celebrated his friend Luka's birthday at Scarlet's Bakery. 

He realized he could stick out his tongue without opening his teeth. Haha

It's recorder time! I brought mine home from work so we could play together. ;)

1st dinner of the season at The Tap on Lake Cumberland

This April was pretty cold and rainy...hoping May brings more sunshine and 80s...

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!