Wright Brothers Memorial and the Atlantic Ocean!!

The kids and I drove 1.5 hours south to see the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk, NC. It was fantastic. Ever since Dave and I listened to David McCullough’s book about the brothers in 2011 (I totally remember the date because we were doing P90X while listening, haha) I have been interested in visiting this site. Orville and Wilbur were super intelligent, loved to learn and solve problems, and were incredibly determined. I love that their parents valued teaching them how to learn over teaching them what to learn. After their first successful flight in 1903 it was only 66 years later that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon! We happened to arrive at the memorial just in time for a half-hour ranger talk, which was perfect.

A reproduction of the flyer that finally proved flight was possible. 

(The real one is in DC at the Air & Space Museum.)

This stone is where the first flight landed, after just 12 seconds in the air. On this particular day the brothers made 4 successful flights, each one longer than the one before. The 4 markers in the photo above identify how far apart each landing was. (They had planned to do a 5th flight that day but while they were warming up indoors, the flyer caught a gust of air and was crumpled.)

This memorial was placed in 1928, on the 25th anniversary of the first successful flight. I’ve seen a photo of Amelia Earhart standing in front of this marker the day it was dedicated, which I think is just so cool.

This memorial says around the base, in part, “…conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.”

After visiting the memorial we had to touch the Atlantic Ocean (the big girls don’t remember doing it and the 3 little ones never have!) so we grabbed a quick lunch, ate in the van, and then headed out to the beach.

The beach sorta looked dingy after the glorious Destin beaches, I’ll be honest (is my ability to appreciate beaches ruined forever?), but it was still pretty awesome.

The shells here are so much bigger, colorful, and more varied than the ones in Destin.

This beautiful babe fell and bonked her forehead on the concrete running down the Wright Brother’s Memorial. It looked pretty awful but luckily didn’t seem to be too serious.

We topped off our trip to the Outer Banks with milkshakes. 

It was a pretty fantastic day, if I do say so myself.

Children’s Museum and Mariner’s Museum

We had so much fun at the Children’s Museum of Virginia. There were quite a few unique exhibits we hadn’t seen before at other children’s museums and we even got to see a planetarium show.

Playing music

Writing checks

Somehow, even after a full morning at the children’s museum we still had enough energy to drive across town, over the Jamestown River (or is it considered the Chesapeake Bay at this point? The kids absolutely did not agree with calling such an enormous and vast body of water a “river”, haha) and over to the Mariner’s Museum and Park. This was one of my favorite museums we have visited. I was completely unprepared for it to be so awesome, and because I thought we would come back with Dave another day (we didn’t have time), I hardly took any photos. Our favorite parts were seeing the ton of artifacts from the USS Monitor, the recreation of the resurrection of the Merrimac to the CSS Virginia, some incredibly beautiful and detailed model ships made by August Crabtree, and a whole room of small watercraft from all over the world. Two hours was not enough time to see it all and - I kid you not - my kids were into it the entire time. It was a miracle. No wonder it was my favorite!

The outdoor playground was tons of fun.

I didn’t write it down and don’t remember now but this tiny sailboat was used by someone to go a really far distance across an ocean at some point. Ha!

A narwhal horn!

USS Wisconsin

After our weekend in the treehouse we spent a week in Norfolk, VA. We visited the USS Wisconsin - a battleship that served in WWII, the Korean War, and the Gulf War. It was enormous! We didn’t even see the entire thing before some of us (Else) were too claustrophobic to go on. 

It could sleep nearly 3000 men.

The never-ending hallway.

There was also a maritime-themed children’s museum area with a giant Battleship game and other fun things.

Margot conducting electricity

These cute goofballs finally succeeded in accomplishing The Pyramid!

Birthday Weekend: Treehouse!!

We stayed in a treehouse for the weekend to celebrate Wren and Townes’ birthday. It was so fun (and so hard)! We only left to eat - we got delicious Mexican food the second day and for dinner the first night we each got our very own milkshake. That never happens so it was pretty darn cool.

There was definitely fighting at bedtime both nights.

There was an awesome bouncy pillow the kids spent lots of time on while there.

These two melt my heart.

Under the house we had swings, a hammock, and a hiking trail.

Townes sneaking up to the top bunk when Mabel wasn’t looking.

Are these two twins?

On the property were several treehouses and a couple of adorable hobbit houses.

Big swing!

Opening special birthday bags from their Kinder teacher (from last year) in Prescott. She is just the best.

We taught the three older girls how to use matches and they built this beautiful fire 

and then we ate candy bars for dinner.

We “hiked” up a hill nearby with some interesting mining history.

Cutest twins in town.