Wednesday, March 29, 2023

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!



Saturday, March 18, 2023

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.



Oregon!

A few hours after seeing Crater Lake we finally made it to our Airbnb outside of Portland. The kids loved it from the first moment we walked...