Thursday, August 24, 2017

Great Wolf Lodge

For a few years, we've given the boys experiences rather than gifts for their birthdays. Last year, there was talk of GWL as a combined gift but for whatever reason, it just didn't happen. This year, A really wanted to visit an indoor water park. In investigated the local places and turned up really mixed reviews. Then, a GWL sale turned up, making two days at the water park plus hotel only slightly more expensive than one day at the local place. Totally out of character, but we booked GWL.

We had a great time. The hotel itself was nice. We ate dinner off site and breakfast too, but ate lunch on site. We didn't splurge on any of the (many many) extras but sort of wished we had... Maybe another time Mom acts totally out of character...

























Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Vacation 2017... History and science

All of our vacations end up involving both history and science. The last day of our trip turned out to be the same. When we first discussed what we'd so, the boys really wanted to go to the tomb of the unknown soldier, but the reality of our trip led the boys to choose not to make this serious and respectful stop.

Instead, we visited another National Park (thank you to the every kid in a park program!)-Fort McHenry. We even got to view a cannon firing.











The boys got their second NPS badge, after refusing to try the Junior Ranger stuff at the DC Parks.

We then went to visit M's aunt and uncle. They'd just returned from a cross country road trip themselves and instead met us at Uncle's field station, where he researches the Map Turtle. Next, we visited the Susquehanna River for some bald eagle watching!!












There were really bad storms across our Garden State. It started raining at dinner, and we saw this double rainbow as we turned east. We chased the rainbow back into the storm and made it home safely.



Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Dc

Hot as Hades, aka DC in mid August. And we made it a big walking day (7 miles).

The original plan was based upon a thunderstorm at 4. There was a LOT of modification to our plan.

M got donuts in the morning from Alexandria. Delicious but not so sustaining.

We walked to the Capitol to see it and wandered to the visitors center to see about a tour, which was way easier than I expected it to be.















We got a super cheap and good lunch at Burrito Bros. Then to the Botanic Gardens, no to the monuments.... What, it's a long walk?...




Omg it's hot. Let's go to American history. Since we're passing WW2, let's find Kilroy.

So American History was a bust. Boys were just not interested in the museum. We told them they could get pennies crushed at ONE museum, and they chose Natural history, so we went back there and explored more.