Williamsburg

We found Groupon tickets to go visit Williamsburg which is only about an hour away.

There is so much history there, but not necessarily very entertaining for the kids. Coming off of our trip to Hershey Park just a week before, I think Chris was disappointed that the kids didn't love it as much as they loved Hershey Park. I on the other hand thought they did pretty well actually.

Even with half-off tickets AND we didn't have to pay for Allison since she wasn't 6 yet (double bonus) we still had to pay $55. I really don't think it was all that worth that much money, though Chris may think differently.

As we were walking there we went under this cool completely brick bridge.

I think this may have been the silversmith or something. They make all of these things here in this shop.

The blacksmith was really cool to see. It is weird to think that this town takes care of everything themselves. When they need something, they just go to the place it is made and request it. Like hinges for the doors, or nails, or anything you can think of, it gets made and sent to that area.

 This is the woodshop.

Look at all those wood shavings on the ground. I think of great kindling when starting a fire with that but they said that they used to be able to just sweep it out into the street but there was a ban on that so now they have to bag it up to get rid of it.

Governor's Mansion

Look at those bushes.

Check this out:

This was REALLY impressive.

His decorations were of guns and swords. How cool is that?

I don't think I have ever seen REAL, LIVE oxen before and here they were.

I am glad that we have been there, I just wish it wasn't so expensive.

Swim Team

Matthew was excited to be on swim team again this year. He has the greatest coaches, Coach Will and the one who is with younger kids most of the time is Coach Mari. These coaches are the best. They are in the water more then they are out.

Depending on the meet sometimes there is quite a bit of waiting so Matthew usually brings something to do in between.

Yes, our little boy is SUPER white.

He is getting in his heat/lane.

 This meet was the first time that he has actually started off of the blocks. He normally was just on the side of the block, diving in. I was super proud of him.

Ready for this backstroke. 

Matthew says he likes this one the most.

This night Matthew's time for his free style was about 40 seconds.

His time for his backstroke was 35 seconds.

I just had to laugh that his backstroke was faster then his freestyle. 

He said, "See mom, I told you that my backstroke was better then my freestyle."

Clearly he was right.

The one thing I was surprised about this was that Coach Mari said that he just needed to drop 1 second from his backstroke to make Champs, basically the All-Stars of Swimming. You have to qualify to get there. Out of the seven swim meets that there were, he has only been able to make three. This was his second meet that he was able to participate in and though there were two more meets possible to qualify in Matthew was only going to be here for one of them.

He has done really well and learned a lot this year.

Hershey Park

The last Sunday in June a guy came up to me at church and said that he had 4 tickets to Hershey Park, which is only about 4 hours away, and wondered if we would like them. They were expire the end June which was that week. We excitedly accepted them and went up two days later. We got to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA around noon. We had SOOOO much fun.

 My most favorite ride was the scrambler. I had so much fun, got a little bit of that tummy turner but the best part was seeing the HUGE genuine smile. Chris keeps a lot of his of his feelings inside. He doesn't always express how he feels so to see him have a HUGE smile on his face while sitting next to his son was SOOOO fun for me. We all had SO much fun as a family.

The kids were old enough to have lots of fun and just be our little buddies. It was GREAT to have Chris with us. He doesn't always get to go with us on fun adventures like this so that made it even better.

Here is the view from the Ferris Wheel

 

This is what I get when I tried to get Chris to smile.

We were there until about 9pm and then got to go to my brother's house and stay with them over night.

It was such a great, little, inexpensive family trip.