General


A few weeks ago we decided to go on an expedition. We have been to the Virginia side of Great Falls National Park several times but had never been to the Maryland side before. So we took a day and drove up.

The weather was pretty nice; it wasn’t too hot or cold but was kind of windy. We walked down the path by the canal and by several locks. Eventually we veered off the path and down into the rocks by the river. The kids (we had Abby that day so there were three kids) had a lot of fun climbing and scrambling on the boulders.

Eventually we found Billy Goat Trail. It is almost 5 miles long, and can be quite tricky in places. Of course Mason loved it, but the girls did pretty good as well. Whitney had a pretty bad fall when she was heading down a slippery slope of rock, tripped and almost went facefirst into a rock but somehow she stopped herself.

We ate a little lunch while taking a break about halfway through the trail and made it back to the car, which was about 1 miles too far away, cause they kids were really dragging. Between the Billy Goat Trail and the other trails we went on it was a lot of walking even for me. Pictures follow the break.
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This is a pretty old topic, but the pictures are funny. The kids wanted to build gingerbread houses, and Heidi and I helped them. We had girls against boys, and I think if you look at the pictures it will be easy to tell who built which ones. Me and Mason started off relatively normal, but we soon felt the need to make certain additions. We stuck a giant beetle on one side, built a face on the other (and made the face eating someone, complete with blood) and then made other animals and Lego people surround the house. We had an “M” for Mason on the roof and a vicious dog.

Whitney and Heidi’s was more traditional, with a beautiful blue lake and a cute dog and lots of pretty icicles. It also had a very nice wreath over the front door.

Me and Heidi decided to go on a cruise for an anniversary vacation. We had gone on a cruise before, and had a very good time, but the last time we cruised out of Orlando so had to drive all the way down there and all the way back. This time, we found a seven day cruise out of Baltimore for about the same price as the other cruise a couple years ago.

We started out on the first day, Sunday, in Baltimore and started heading south. Our first stop was in Orlando, but we wouldn’t be there until Wednesday morning. Full PostSo we spend the first two and a half days at sea. The water was pretty choppy at first, but it didn’t make either of us sick. We had a very good time all the way down. Our boat was the Carnival Pride, which is a very nice boat and we had a balcony, which we slept out on one night. The food was really good, and we each bought an all you can drink pop card. I figured out how many pops we needed to drink each day in order to break even so I drank at least that many each day.

We got to the beach in Orlando, which is very nice but would be a lot better if (more…)

On Saturday we celebrated Mason’s birthday. Heidi built him a shark cake. He got to chose what we did, and he decided to go to Funland. He has wanted to go there for a while and finally got his chance. At first we weren’t sure if it was going to be that much fun, since it is not really that big of a place. But we ended up having a lot of fun. Their favorite part was the rock wall, where they both got higher than anyone else we saw that day.

They also went on a couple roller coaster things, which were only about thirty yards in circumference, but lasted more than five minutes each. In fact, one seemed to go five minutes forward, then reversed direction. They went so long it seemed like Mason was going to puke but he didn’t. Then we were going to go to Cici’s to eat pizza but Mason decided he wanted a Subway sandwich instead, and ate an entire footlong chicken sandwich.

For his birthday, he got (more…)

When we went camping over Columbus Day, we were driving through the town of Warsaw when we realized we were right in time for a parade. So we stopped and pulled out our lawn chairs and sat down and waited for the parade. It was similar to the Aberdeen Days parade, but without the airplane, and a lot longer. But they did have several old tractors, which I taped for Herb’s benefit.

The kids enjoyed the parade, and ended up with quite a bit of candy.

Over the Columbus Day weekend, we celebrated the discovery of America by discovering a new camping spot, Belle Isle State Park, or “Bell Al” park as the natives would say. We set up our camp in good time. The kids both brought capes, so they each had assistance from capes. We went on several hikes. The paths at Belle Isle aren’t very difficult; they are mostly tractor roads. But they are quite deserted and scenic.

Sunday night a fellow camper gave a presentation on astronomy, and brought along a powerful telescope. We all got to see the moons of Jupiter and a galaxy that is the farthest object visible. Mason was hoping it was the Star Wars galaxy.

We also went out along the river bank and on the way back found a copperhead snake that had recently been run over. So, we did what Columbus would have done and ate it. Seriously, we ate roadkill. At least (more…)

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