"Mama! Hey! Look!"

A weekend of exploration...

What a beautiful weekend! The weather here was just amazing! I somehow managed to convince Chris to spend some time with the family on Saturday morning and afternoon. It isn't easy to convince him to step away from his studies so early in the weekend, but I enticed him by dangling a historical trip to Yorktown in his mind. On Sunday Ava & I retreated to the grandparent's house-of-fun to give Daddy study time back at home. Ava enjoyed a hike on the nature trail with Mommy & Papa. Honey cooked up a yummy dinner complete with home-made apple pie for dessert! What a life!

On Saturday we started by meeting up with Honey & Papa at a new coffee shop in town for breakfast. They have a cute little kids corner with a wrap-around chalk board. I thought Ava would just love writing on the chalk board but I should have known better. She got much more pleasure out of erasing the existing chalk on the board. "I'm cleanin' Mama! I'm cleanin'!" Eventually I peeled her away from the eraser and we were off to Yorktown.

Yorktown is a gorgeous 15-20 minute drive down the Colonial Parkway from us. It's sad to say that this was our first time venturing out there together. Chris did some volunteer work there 2 years ago and I just visited the area for the first time, since an elementary school field trip, about 2 months ago for work. They have an adorable downtown area with tasty restaurants on the water and cute little shops. There are plenty of historical buildings, monuments and battlefields to explore also. Ava was such a trooper and really seemed to enjoy herself, despite all the walking and stopping to read historical markers. She received compliment after compliment on her behavior. Yes, I'm bragging again. We ate at the Carrot Tree which is in a quaint little building circa 1720-ish something with several older patrons and Ava was such a doll she became the talk of the room we were dining in. The servers at the restaurant made it a point to tell us what an angel she was and what a pleasure her business was because they "never see that with children her age." They then proceeded to tell us that we won't be so lucky the second time around...lovely... ;-)

Here are some pictures of our Yorktown adventure. I'm including a video too that Chris took with his camera. It's funny because she's on this "guys" kick. Everything is, "Hey, guys!" or "Two minutes, guys!" or "What you guys doin'?" She also doesn't stop talking...ever...right now. It's a really fun stage, actually. I like this clip because you can hear her going on and on about who knows what until she realizes that Chris and I both have our cameras on her to which she exclaims, "You have two, guys." Of course, she's referring to two cameras.


The traveling gnome :-)









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On Sunday Ava, Aspen and I headed over to Honey & Papa's house. Since it was so beautiful outside Papa and I decided to go for a walk on the trail. Ava usually enjoys a leisurely ride in the wagon while we hike. This time, however, Papa invited Ava to walk for a bit with us shortly after we got on the trail. We didn't expect her to hang with us for 2 miles worth of walking though - in her Crocs! She refused to get back in the wagon. Instead, she helped Papa pull the wagon, she ran, she laughed and she explored. We heard over and over, "Hey! Look!" I love that. I love hearing her say, "Mama! Hey! Look!" It means that she's discovered something so exciting she just can't wait to show it to me. Usually her discovery is something such as a mushroom or a tree that's fallen down or a pine-cone but it's so exciting to her that it just makes it magical for me too. Ava discovered that a bunch of fallen pine needles make for an excellent broom to clean the trail with... Papa and I had all we could do to urge her to keep moving and stop cleaning. Silly girl.


FYI - Crocs + socks = COOL!



Overall it was a fun-filled weekend. I have more pictures on my camera and will hopefully post some soon. Ava crashed in her big bed tonight. I think I'll go do the same now...