Author: Jenny

So, the week before last, we were on vacation. And it took me so long to recover from said “vacation” that I am just now blogging about it!

Remember when I asked your advice about planning this vacation?  Well, I don’t know how much of it I took, but…it was pretty much the weirdest vacation ever. And it truly convinced me that a trip with children is NOT a “vacation” for the parents,  but would be more aptly titled a “family trip”.  A vacation, I declare, is when adults go on a trip by themselves.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of actual rest, we DID have some fun! Which, after I look back at our schedule, seems like a miracle! Let me break down our itinerary for you.

Sunday: Bobby and Joshua return from a music festival/camping trip in Illinois (4 hour drive) (where Joshua was sick the entire time and puked all over the tent in the middle of the night), pick the rest of us up, and we head to my parents’ house in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia (7 hour drive).

Monday: Bobby leaves for Baltimore (another 4 hour drive) for his uncle’s funeral. 🙁 The kids and I hang out with my parents, and go to our favorite local park, Boxerwood Gardens.

Then, my mountain-man father took the big kids on a ride on his new toy, the 4-wheeler. They L-O-V-E-D it! We could hear Sophie “woo-hoo”ing when we were way down the mountain!

Tuesday: My parents and I and the kids set off for a rented beach cottage in the Outer Banks, NC (Kill Devil Hills to be exact!). Bobby sets out for the beach to meet us from Baltimore. Five hour drive for him, six hour drive for us.

We arrive in the late afternoon and hit the beach!!!
Jonah was super-impressed by his first view of the ocean.

The big kids had a ball. It was Joshua’s first time to the beach since he was two. Sophie had seen the ocean before, but never gotten to play in it in warm weather. They loved every second!

We stayed at the beach until Thursday afternoon. We loved every minute that we were at the beach. But unfortunately…that great deal my folks got on a beach cottage was too good to be true! I won’t elaborate too much, but it was bad enough that none of the adults could stand to stay there more than two nights!  (And the owner gave my folks their money back!) So, we soaked up as many hours as we could on the gorgeous beach and then…

Thursday: My parents left in the morning, and we left late afternoon to go back to Virginia to the mountain. Should’ve been a six-hour drive, but it took us 8.5 hours. It was TORTURE! A bad traffic jam of over an hour, during which Sophie puked in her first-ever bout with car sickness set us back. Then, very late at night in the dark, dark, mountains, we encountered an awful thunderstorm that soon became a terrifying driving situation, and we had to pull off the road for a good while. It was close to midnight by the time we got to my folks! (All this with a two-year-old, need I say more?)

Friday: Fun and relaxation in Virginia! I was so wiped out from the rough journey and not sleeping while we were at the Outer Banks that I slept almost ALL DAY while Bobby and my folks took care of the kiddos. Whoops! They did venture out to one of our favorite sites, Indian Rocks.

Saturday: More Virginia mountain fun. The kids really wanted to go fishing so my dad took us to one of his favorite places. Everyone caught crawfish but Sophie was the only one who caught a REAL fish!

 

Bobby took several turns driving the 4-wheeler and the kids loved riding with him. We just relaxed and Bobby and I even got to go out on a date!

 

Sunday: We packed up and hit the road about 10 a.m. to get back to real life in Dayton. We were all sad to have our family trip end. I think Bobby and I could’ve used a little more R&R! But, we were pretty happy to get back to our own beds (at least I was)!

Despite all the hours logged in the car, we did have a great time. I can’t wait to visit the Outer Banks with my family again (and just stay in a nicer place). The area was not overly-touristy and seemed really family-friendly. And we had perfect weather!

I’m glad we got to go to the beach, but I don’t think we’ll do a road-trip-within-a-road-trip vacation again soon.

Where did you go on vacation this year?

Several months ago, I remember that it was the night before Easter in fact, my husband and I attended a dinner for the sail boat club his family has been sailing with for 40 years or so. This annual dinner is an awards banquet, but mostly just a time to catch up and see the sailing buddies you haven’t seen for several months.

One of the couples I look forward to seeing each year is a couple of empty-nesters named Mr. and Mrs. Goff. They have a daughter about my age and another a few years younger, and they are just really nice people. Mr. Goff even attended the small college I went to (thirty years before I did). After all these years of knowing them, I don’t really know them, but I really, really like them. {Do you know anyone like that in your life?}

On this particular occasion I noticed that Mr. Goff arrived late and was alone, and before I could even ask where his  better half was, he whipped out his iPhone with a picture on the screen and said, “I’m a Grandpa!” He had just come back into town to attend the dinner, having been a couple of hours away with his daughter and her new family. His wife was still there.

“Oh!” I cooed, and oohed, and ahhed over the picture. I knew his daughter had been married quite awhile and the Goffs had waited patiently to become grandparents. The baby was just precious. I carefully looked at all the photos.

“What’s his name?” I inquired.

“Tommy.” he said, with a smile.

Mr. Goff’s name is Tom.

And that’s when I lost it. Like, really, lost it. I started to cry. Not misty-eyes that I could hide, but big, fat tears. Tears of joy for Mr. Goff. For his daughter, for his wife, for his other daughter, the proud aunt. Tears of joy for Tommy, because he had been born into a family who loved him.

I was embarrassed. “Mr. Goff, you made me cry! I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I said sheepishly.

{Okay, there are a lot of things wrong with me.}

And yet I know that for me, my reaction was perfectly normal.

I cried big, hot, tears for a family I don’t really know that well because I know that they are a good family. A family that loves and puts each other first, and now, will be extended into another generation. I cried because I was happy for them but most of all because new life is beautiful. I cried because a man’s unabashed pride and joy in his namesake is truly touching.

Even as I’ve been writing this post I’ve been crying. Because it’s poignant, the love for a child.

What’s beautiful in your world today?

(Photo found on Pinterest with no link back to the original. Anyone know who I can credit?)

Every quarter, our local children’s museum, the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, has a fabulous new exhibit. And every quarter, I write a post about it and say, “This is my favorite one yet!”

I’m saying it again. But this time, I am also saying, “I have NO idea how they will ever top this one!!!”

The Animation exhibit, designed in conjunction with Cartoon Network is WILDLY fun, ENORMOUSLY educational, and RIDICULOUSLY captivating. The kids and I had a blast, blast, BLAST at this exhibit. (Did ya see all those caps I used? I love this exhibit!!)

There are honestly too many great features for me to tell you about in one post, so you WILL need to go see it for yourself with the kiddos! But here are a few highlights!

The quality the kids and I loved most about the exhibit? It’s HANDS-ON! You definitely learn about animation by DOING here. Sophie particularly loved all the stations where kids can draw their own animations.

There were also several parts of the exhibit where kids could do an activity and see immediate results! Joshua and Sophie made this by posing objects and taking a picture at each stage.

Here is a few-seconds long video I took of the resulting animation!

To move this activity even further into real life, there was also a station where you could jump around a grid and pose at intervals and then watch a video of your live-action animation! It was SO fun. The kids loved it and did it a million times!

They were cracking me up with their poses!

Our favorite, favorite, FAVORITE part of the exhibit, which we all (including moi) did over and over and over again was the Visual Effects booth where you struck a pose and a camera took a 360 -degree photo and animated you. Then, within a couple of minutes, you got to see yourself on video!

It was so cool. We felt like we were in a movie with special effects! I was able to use my phone to capture Joshua’s best pose on the resulting video. We loved it!

(I apologize in advance for how loud and excited I was about it!)

I think maybe Joshua is a ninja!

After all that posing and jumping around, we were a little tired, so we plopped down and enjoyed some vintage cartoons in the Screening Room. It was spacious and perfect for taking a little break from all the Animation excitement.

There was so much more to this exhibit! The kids learned about careers in animation, the animation process, and so much more. We cannot WAIT to go back again. We honestly could have spent our whole time at the museum there.

Daytonians, you have got to go see for yourselves! It’s such a blast and you won’t be disappointed.  But you have to get there before it closes – the last day for Animation is August 25th! Do you have any questions about our Animation experience? Leave them in the comments!