East Coast Adventure

I've attempted a few times to catch up on this big blogging gap, but it's a little overwhelming. I think what I'll do is upload a bunch of pictures and quickly go through some of the highlights. It may take a few episodes.
We got to spend an entire month away from home. We packed up all the kids and drove to Bethesda, MD where Nate would be doing a rotation. It's a 3-day drive and we spent the 4th of July near Knoxville, TN in Dollywood (see Kaelyn's post). The kids had a lot of fun on the rides although some were too scary for them. Even Luke got to enjoy a few rides on the carousel and the ducks. The atmosphere was real pleasant and the surroundings were beautiful and it kind of felt like we had gone back in time. There was an enormous aviary full of bald eagles and an old steam locomotive train ride.

Ian was so tired at this point, it really shows on his face.

Kaelyn and Ian got to play giant checkers and Annika got to ride on the ducky ride lots of times.Once in Bethesda, we spent one day at the Smithsonian in Washington DC before he had to start work. Then it was just me and my four kids. Sigh...

So I too them to the National Zoo. I found out that parking had gone up to $20 for the day ($10 for the 1st hour) since we moved from there and our local zoo membership didn't give us any discount. Zoo entry is free already, but I didn't feel like having to pay that much for parking, especially if we wanted to come again. So I found out about the zoogoer membership. It's $35, valid for a year for free parking and a store discount for people who live outside a 200 mile radius from the zoo. I figured if we'd even go one more time it would have been worth it (we ended up going twice more). The kids were so excited to see the giant pandas.

That's the panda bear way in the back (the black and white spot)

Another one of my favorite places is the Brookside Nature Center. I used to do a lot of their activities with Kaelyn when she was tiny and I tried to sign up for the stream splash, but all the programs were full! I guess this place has become a lot more popular over the years. I took the kids on a little hike and we ate lunch at the picnic tables, you could watch the birds at the bird feeders, the bees in the indoor beehive... They all dressed up as a bee keeper, Annika also got to be a butterfly, Kaelyn a cardinal and Ian a bee. There is a wonderful play room and there are some live animals and science experiments.

All kids in the play area

Ian makes a cyclone

Kaelyn at the stream

Bee Keeper Annika

I thought the kids would get bored after a few hours, but we ended up spending the entire day at this place. I love it!!!

To be continued...