Colonial Williamsburg

 Saturday was the first day of August and our adventures continued... We spent the whole day at Colonial Williamsburg. We headed straight for the gift shop and smashed some pennies and bought some souvenirs and then we got the shuttle into the old town. 

  We started with the Governor's Palace just like last time. 

Well we knew it was the coolest thing and we wanted to make sure we got it in first thing.

 

Ok, the most hilarious thing happened in the Palace. Check out Christina's shirt and the chairs. Seriously we laughed about this the whole trip. I chuckle every time I think about it still.

Then the check showed up everywhere in there! 

hahaha I told her a good tablecloth check never goes out of style!!

We then went through the gardens and found the maze. It has grown so much in the past 12 years. Probably at least 3 feet or more. We spent the rest of the day exploring Colonial Williamsburg. Sure it was hot but not too bad really. I expected worse.

When we got tired and hungry we headed over to the Trellis for some lunch and their famous 

Death By Chocolate. It's seriously worth dying for and all the calories could probably kill you. When the waitress heard we wanted one each she told us we were crazy so we settled for three to share. I don't know but it's possible we could have handled one each. Well maybe not it was brutal.

After lunch we toured some more and shopped lots looking mostly for stuff for Christina's classroom. 

We had a blast but there was no way we could fit it all in.

We did get to jail though or as they said back then gaol.

Classic jailbird poses!

We got to eat in a tavern for dinner.
Not the big fancy one because of course it was completely booked but we got into one at least.

The menu at Chowning's Tavern for dinner that night.

 After dinner so much was closed we decided to see the museum while we waited for our ghost tour. We were so tired we pretty much drug ourselves around. We enjoyed the furniture but us girls did perk up a ton though when we found the doll houses. It was amazing!!

 Our Fave!!!

 After we pretty much closed the place down we went on a ghost tour through Colonial Williamsburg. It was different. Not my favorite which might always be Charleston, SC. It was still fun though. They had reenactments of ghost stories in a couple of different locations.
 It did prompt some interesting conversations that night.

It was super fun being in the buildings after dark when they are closed though!
That night we went back to our rooms and hung out.. Apparently we may have all gotten a little punchy!

Seriously how am I supposed to pick a favorite picture of the day with stuff like this to choose from!!
 

Monticello and More

We are known for packing alot of stuff into every single vacation day so here we go...Friday we opted to drive almost two hours to the other side of Richmond to Monticello and a few other stops. After all Rachel hadn't ever been there so we were on it.

 Monticello is still just the coolest place. I wish you could take pictures of the inside. We had a great little tour and then checked out the grounds. Christina was a bad influence on Rachel and they were naughty and jumped the chain. luckily we didn't get thrown out hahaha.

 Got have a selfie. Too bad you can't even see the house behind us lol.

 Gotta have scaffolding on a Cooper vacation.

 The garden looked just the same. It is amazing how much they can grow there.

 Two goofballs in the brick reading gazebo. Lots of bugs in there too.

 Jeff pondering life. It was quite the view so not a bad idea.

 Thomas Jefferson's grave.

 Rachel found this in the family cemetery. We about "died" laughing. Ahhh I crack myself up.

 Thomas hangin with Jeffery Thomas and Rachel

 Next we headed over to Ashlawn-Highland which is Monroe's home. It was the first time for all of us to see it. Not as spectacular but we were glad to check it out.

 We stopped at Michie Tavern on the way down the mountain. A famous stop for the locals that had the cutest gift and curio shop. Of course I made a bee line for the penny smashing machine (thanks again Karla) and Mendis and I enjoyed shopping and looking around while the kids hung out in the van.

 We had just gotten back on the freeway headed back and we decided we need to check out the University of Virginia because Thomas Jefferson had founded it and laid it all out and everything. It was really a cool campus.

Lots of red brick and for some reason I didn't take a single picture so I got these online. Lame. It was an enormous campus. We drove all around it and then got back on the road after our detour and headed back to Williamsburg. We got back in time to have pizza delivered. Very convenient and very pricey.

After dinner we played some nertz and relaxed.

Washington DC/Williamsburg Trip

YAY time for our summer vacation! Christina arrived from Provo just before I got home from work (on a dreaded Wednesday late night) and we loaded up and headed to Vegas for the night. Our flight was leaving at 6:30 am so spending the night one hour closer was going to help even if it was just a little bit.

 

There's still something unappealing about going to the airport in the pitch dark at 4:30 but we were off! We got to watch the sunrise from the gate of the airport. Christina and I shared a breakfast sandwich and then we were off.

 Southwest was good to us because we had enough points to go without it costing us $$$. 

For once. This is the free flights smile.

So this is more or less the view of Chicago I told Christina we were going to see (like the last trip). Even more dramatic actually than this...

The view we got wasn't even this cool!! 

 But we did stop at Nuts on Clark and load up on Chicago Mix popcorn. To DIE for, seriously.

Gotta be Chicago mix...1/2 caramel 1/2 cheese sounds gross but so fabulous.

So the whole day went by and we finally arrived at Reagan Airport. You can just see the Pentagon in the distance. We hit the ground running and then waited for ever for our luggage which finally arrived. We slogged through the multitudes of travelers, walked a couple miles and finally got to our rental car. They gave us a Flex instead of the minivan we reserved but it worked out after we finally figured out how to put the back seat down. We are technical geniuses. We headed straight over to Jeff & Rachel's apartment and picked up Jeff after a grand tour of their apartment. Then we thought we would get some groceries for the condo while we waited for Rachel to get home from work. She beat us by a mile. We grabbed Rachel and headed off to Williamsburg!
Of course we didn't completely miss rush hour traffic but it wasn't too bad. We thought we would quickly exit the packed freeway and grab some Chic Fila but we couldn't find the place even with GPS so we went to Qdoba which was fab. We hit some construction about 1/2 hour from Williamsburg and the GPS suggested a quicker route...no bueno. We completely circled a lake in the dark and finally rolled into Ford's Colony about 11 pm. So much for our plans for an easy, early trip down!

Christina shot a funny little video of our condo so I am putting it in. Our home away from home.

Minions

 We snagged the boys and went to the movies one afternoon. Ashley wanted to come too so that worked out perfectly because we had wanted to take Dane too and we couldn't fit all the boys in our car. So we took Rees & Cooper and met them at the theater. We loaded up on treats before the movie of course. The hilarious thing was Dane was beside me and I was watching him so into the movie he hardly ate his popcorn. Then he would go in spurts and eat a bunch. It was so funny to watch. He was so intent on watching the movie he didn't even notice he was slowly getting folded up in the chair because he is so light. So I kept my foot on it so he didn't get swallowed up completely.

After the movie we took Rees & Cooper to McDonald's for dinner and play time. We were so surprised they were actually hungry enough to eat anything after the movie!