Spring Break! (part 1)

Mike was perusing the Armed Forces Vacation Club when he noticed that there were places on sale for the same week he had Spring Break.  It's already pretty cheap if we book a place through AFVC but this was even better so we had to decide quick before we lost our chance.  The sale made it possible for us to find somewhere under $300 for the entire week.  I was trying to decide between Duck, NC and Williamsburg, VA.  I love the idea of hanging out at the beach all week long with nothing to do but walk along the beach collecting shells or sitting under an umbrella reading a book.  I wasn't sure though if it would nice weather or if we would get rained on all week and Duck is located on this tiny island and there isn't a lot to do besides sit on the beach or tour lighthouses.  I don't mind that but thought if it was bad weather that the boys would quickly get bored.  Therefore, I decided we should go to Williamsburg, VA where we could easily travel to the beach but also have some cool sites to visit and a lot of indoor activities in case of rain or cold weather.

The resort we found on sale had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, and laundry facilities in the condo.  Amenities included a tennis court, mini golf, volleyball court, racquet ball court, a small park, two outdoor pools (closed), and an indoor pool.  All equipment checkout was free and they even had bikes you could check out.

We got there just after dinner on Friday and spent the evening unpacking and chilling at the condo after running to the local store to get groceries for our stay.  The next day, Saturday was a lot more of just lazying around the condo for a couple of hours.  Piper had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and she decided to play all night long instead of sleep so we were up late with her trying to get her to settle down so we all tried to sleep in the following morning.  After getting ready and eating breakfast we decided that since Piper had been up so late the night before we would have her take a short nap.  Mike stayed with her and did work while the boys and I went to play mini golf and tennis.  We got rained on but it wasn't too bad and we had fun regardless.  After we played for a bit and Piper woke up we changed clothes and headed to the pool until dinner and then found this awesome park right by the condo.  Williamsburg knows how to do parks!  That was pretty much the summary of our day that first day.

Sunday we went to all three meetings at the nearest church building.  It was a nice meeting and a pretty big ward that appeared to function pretty well.  We came home and changed, had lunch and tried to take a short nap before we gave up and headed to Virginia Beach to a friend's house for dinner.  Mike had a friend in high school (also named Mike) who is in the Navy and his family lives in Virginia Beach.  Mike (the friend) is actually deployed for another month and a half but his wife and kids invited us to dinner.  I have never actually met Mike or his wife but I am friends with his wife on facebook and know her from there.  It was a really nice visit and the kids became immediate friends.  I know how hard it is to host people under normal circumstances let alone host strangers when your husband is deployed.  Brooke was an awesome host and prepared a delicious dinner for us and we were so grateful to spend some time with her and her family.

Monday was Will's birthday.  We started the morning with opening presents and he even got a birthday message from Laila when we looked down and found a scrambled egg in the shape of a heart.  He originally requested that we go to Busch Gardens and we found a deal where the military member and three of his dependents can get in free, which is an awesome deal but upon further investigation we discovered that Busch Gardens is closed until the day we were leaving to come back home.  Instead, Will decided he wanted to go to Ripley's Believe it or Not!  The kids loved the museum even though I was reminded that it is actually pretty creepy the stuff they choose to display.  When we finished at the museum Will wanted to play tennis again and go swimming.  We all headed over this time and Piper and Eli played at the park area while the rest of us tried to hit the tennis ball.  Poor Mike is the only one of us that knows how to play and we were pretty pathetic.  After dinner we went to eat pizza, Will's choice of dinner, and then came home and had birthday cake. 

Tuesday we ventured over to Jamestown.  It was awesome.  Mike and I would have loved to spend more time at the museum but Eli and Piper were done and beginning to run around so we hurried outside to the settlement.  The kids loved talking to the Musketeer and asking about all the weapons.  They also enjoyed the blacksmith and watching another man make armor.  After the settlement we walked to the ships and explored the upper and lower decks, then headed over to the Indian settlement.  The boys were surprised by all the animal skins.  I think they pretty much enjoyed the entire thing.  We decided that even though Mike and I would like to go to historic Jamestown (which is different than Jamestown settlement) that the kids had probably done all the exploring that they could for the day.   When we were leaving we discovered that the ferry was right by Jamestown settlement and since neither myself or the kids had ever been on a ferry we thought it would be fun to have that experience.  I wish we had brought bread because there were crazy amounts of seagulls.  Surprisingly enough, there really wasn't anything on the other side of the river and our short drive to explore seemed mostly fruitless so we got back and the ferry and headed home.