Jack is 6!

     This little stud turned 6 this week! 

I can't believe we have a first grader on our hands!

   Since we're on the road for Jack's actual birthday, we decided to celebrate his birthday a few days early. He told us back in April that what he wanted to do more than anything was play at the beach on his birthday. Luckily, being in Virginia, that's an easy thing to do! We headed down to Myrtle Beach, "America's Most Family Friendly Beach," and we had the time of our lives. The water was just right and the weather was gorgeous. We stayed for two days and went miniature golfing, per Jack's request on day two before we hit the beach one last time.

Shenandoah

     I must say,  I am certainly enjoying being in, what feels like, one never ending forest here in Virginia. One thing about this place though, it must take a long time to really feel like you know an area. There are just so many trees all around, and very few open spaces, if any. Shenandoah felt much like the rest of the state but just higher on a mountain, and with views of the rolling hills and forest surrounding us. It's beautiful here, so we took lots of pictures, as usual. :)

Jack really wanted to hold Lacy for a picture. 

I have a hard time not laughing at how gigantic she looks here. :)

STORY OF THE FOREST

                 We were particularly impressed with Lily's performance on the hike. Before we even started, she told me, "I don't want to hike, it's going to make me hungry, and thirsty, and tired." 

As you can imagine, I didn't foresee it going incredibly well. We started with the flattest, easiest hike,  called Story of the Forest.  Her enthusiasm spurred the crazy idea that we could possibly veer from the kid friendly hike and do the steep, Black Hollow Falls. We tried our luck, and much to our surprise, she did extremely well and did the entire two mile hike, steep parts and all, with no complaining. Yay!!

BLACK HOLLOW FALLS

We were lucky enough to capture one of our best family pictures yet.

Geeking out at Sperryville, just outside of the Shenandoah park.

Camping, 4th of July, and Monticello

This weekend we went out camping with my dad up in Cumberland, VA. 

It was Lacy's first camping trip. She did great, but she was really quiet and inquisitive. :)

In the morning on the Forth of July, we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was a gorgeous day and the gardens were just so beautiful. We took lots of pictures. :)

This little one's first Forth of July!

MONTICELLO

Grandpa took Jack and Lily so John and I could take a tour of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's residence. It was inspiring to see the home of such a brilliant and inspiring man. 

This is Jefferson's tombstone which includes three things that he obviously must have wanted to be remembered by.  I love that the first one is "author of the Declaration of Independence." The other two were 'author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and "Father of the University of Virginia." Doesn't even include President of the United States. 

Chillin' with our homie, TJ.

BEST ROOT BEER. EVER.

(Must be the honey).

On the way home, we had to try a little place called Crozet Pizza that

 National Geographic claimed has "the world's best pizza." It was dang good, that's for sure.

Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City

        We took a three day weekend and visited D.C., Philly, and NYC. It was a bit crazy,  not everything went the way we had planned, but all in all we made some good memories. The kids are getting used to site-seeing and being dragged all over the place. They did so well on this jam-packed trip.

WASHINGTON D.C.

We had originally planned to take the kids to see several monuments in D.C.,  but the city was packed with people due to the Supreme Court ruling that happened that day (Friday). We spent half of the day at the National Zoo which was incredible. We probably only covered about a quarter of the zoo. But what we loved was how active all of the animals were. They were all moving around which was fun!

PHILADELPHIA

The weather ended up being rainy on Saturday while we were in Philly. But we had to at least see the Liberty Bell while we were there. The line was outside, so we all got a little wet but it was worth it. 

And then of course, while in Philly one must eat cheesesteaks! We ate at the two original restaurants which was awesome!

NEW YORK CITY

We visited a few sites in Manhattan. Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Freedom Tower which just opened up in May. Again, the weather wasn't great, so we didn't get so see anything from the top of the Tower. We've all done NYC before, so we've seen the view from the Empire State Building. I thought it was just exciting being in the tallest building in America! 

You can see the windows behind us. It was just white because the clouds were so low.

It cleared up later on in the day.

What a beautiful building!

 The kids loved the train, subway, and ferry rides!

Miss Lacy turned 8 months old in NYC!

 Nobody wanted to jump in an Ellis Island picture with me :(   Haha!

 We ended our day in Manhattan with some delicious New York style pizza!