Tuesday at Shenandoah National Park

There is definitely beauty all about us here in Northern Virginia. Its taken me several months to start seeking it out and making it a regular part of our routine, though. Perhaps I was just spoiled by having the natural beauty right in our own backyard and just around the corner in our picturesque little village in England. Ok, so maybe more than perhaps. I was definitely spoiled and have done my share of "complaining", oh so subtly, about living in the heart of the suburbs and in the snarl of commuter traffic and with all the faceless commercialization of restaurants and stores. But, I am remembering that you can create beauty and/or see what He has already provided wherever God plants you - He wants all of us to do this. He wants our home to be a place of creative and peaceful beauty. Scotty has indeed provided us a beautiful home with a "forest" of trees behind us which are just now starting to turn a variety of colors. Having Shenandoah just a bit over an hour from our home doesn't hurt either! Enjoy the beauty which we were able to experience yesterday...

Look Mama, a leaf bug! I took one look at the "bug" Jonnie had found on a tree and now held before me in his hand. I can't think of a better way to describe it either. We laughed about how we figured that summer is this insects's friend but probably not the autumn when the oranges and yellows, etc come out in the leaves.

APPALACHIAN TRAIL

We hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail to end our visit. We "hiked" for about 2 hours. This includes hiking, stopping to take pictures, picking up leaves to save (Christy carried the leaf backpack), looking for various items along the way so the girls could complete their national parks junior ranger notebooks, stopping to listen for one minute with our eyes closed and recording what we hear, sketching leaves and acorns, and turning fallen logs into trains, boats and airplanes.

SKYLINE DRIVE

Shenandoah National Park's most famous feature is its' Skyline Drive which is a 2 lane highway that traverses the length of the park - a bit over 100 miles long. Awesome views of the Shenandoah Valley and the layers of the Blue Ridge Mountains are around every corner - most often shrouded in mist. Christy gets a bit anxious on the drive as she looks over the edge - she prefers the terra firma of the Appalachian Trail hikes.

National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Hi everyone. Have gotten several e-mails regarding our blog, so its good to know you are enjoying the pics of our adventures on the east coast. I discovered that if you click on any of the pictures in the blog, they will display full screen size - in case you want to see more details of the coastline, etc.

On a beautiful fall day (we've had nothing but those lately), Callie brought joy to our day by joining us for a trip by van, metro and foot to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. As we walked from the Smithsonian Metro stop to the National Gallery, we strolled through a butterfly garden along the way. We saw several monarch butterflies.

By the time we got near the gallery, the children were ready for lunch. We stopped to eat our picnic in the sculpture garden next to the gallery. We sat on a bench right across from this fountain - on our way back to the metro in the late afternoon, we walked back to the fountain so the children could dip their feet and cool them off before our trek to the metro stop.

One of the modern sculptures in the garden.


The National Gallery is on the National Mall so if you come out of the gallery and look right you see the Washington Monument...
...and if you look left you see our United States Capitol Building.

Ok, now let's go see some paintings!!!!!

This is Jonathan's favorite - The Railway by Edouard Manet. 1873. The art book we have actually has it titled Gare Saint-Lazare which is the name of the railroad station in Paris. Seth told us he really wanted to go inside the painting so he could see the trains and hold the puppy on the woman's lap :-) We have several childrens' books which help the children (and me!) appreciate and enjoy works of art. Whilst living near London and its National Gallery, I learned that teaching the children in fun ways about a few paintings ahead of time, which we will see in a particular gallery, exponentially increases their enjoyment. Its as if they have a relationship with the painting before they ever see it and then they respond as if meeting an old friend when they do see it hanging on the wall. Jonathan was searching every room in the gallery dilligently until we saw "his" railway painting. He was also most interested in the maritime scenes - expecially the battles. Callie read him several of our art books on the metro whilst I read some to Seth and the girls read the others together.

Faith and Christy's favorites of the day - both by Renoir. When they did their sketches, they both chose a fruit still life by Cezanne. Monet's Garden - we read a book about his garden about a year ago - "Linnea in Monet's Garden"

At the end of our visit, Callie stayed with the girls so they could sketch a painting in their sketch books. I took the boys outside and they enjoyed playing around the huge pillars and playing with leaves and nuts under some of the trees. While I sat on the steps and watched them frolick in the sunshine, I took a couple more pictures of the US Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Camping with the Naylor Family

About a week and a half ago, we joined the Naylor Family at Prince William Forest Park http://www.nps.gov/prwi/ for some delightful autumn camping. Friday night is what worked with both families' schedules and well, let's just say that both families forgot we live in commuter central! Without Friday afternoon commuter traffic this 18 mile drive takes less than a half hour to/from our home. On a Friday afternoon - 1.5 hours!!!!! We all arrived about the same time and set up tents by headlight. But, you just learn to go with the flow (or lack thereof regards the traffic) and it didn't ruin a thing for any of us. After/during tent set up we grilled our suppers and ate separately at our adjacent tent sites - couldn't fit the whole gang at one picnic table. The children gathered wood for a fire and we roasted marshmallows and made smores for dessert.

We got to listen to the "deafening roar" of acorns falling to the ground from very tall trees for much of the night. A new experience for sure :-) If you have not had the privilege of a similar experience, you cannot fathom how loud their impact with the forest floor is!

We were all up about 7am and the children gathered wood for another fire. Scott Naylor toasted bagels on their grill and we all sat around the campfire and enjoyed them for breakfast. We gathered loads of acorns and leaves. Many of the leaves were in the midst of turning their fall color when they fell, so there were some beautiful combinations of green, yellow, red, brown. Everyone pitched in to pack up camp mid-morning and we all drove home at the same time. We had a birthday party for Christy to get ready for - and the Naylors had to rest up before they came over as Christy's guests :-)

We all hope to start camping more often again - it was refreshing and restoring for all of us. And I'm sure we'd all get used to the acorn meteorites after a few nights too!!!!

The time was short but didn't really seem so - well worth the effort. The greatest blessing of all was another chunk of time spent with this precious family - our treasured friends.

A day on Virginia's Eastern Shore

The Eastern Shore is in dark green like the rest of Virginia, The Eastern Shore is basically the southern tip of the peninsula formed by Maryland and Delaware. Growing up in Nevada, I 've never learned of it until now! The Cheseapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel provides a permanent way to traverse the gap between Virginia Beach and eastern shore of Virginia.

Virginia Beach was overcast, extremely windy and rainy one day so we drove the 20 miles across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and explored the eastern shore of Virginia. Well, our exploring consisted of following sings "on a whim"to the small town of Cape Charles. Once in Cape Charles we followed a small white arrow pointing to public beach. We arrived in the late afternoon and didn't leave until well after dark. The weather was warm, sunny and the winds were calm. Yay! We never saw another person on the beach and it was a perfectly lovely evening. When we walked back to our van, we watched some fishing boats come back to the harbor in the dark. I think all of the children were asleep before we were back on the main shore of Virginia :-)

Friends at the beach

This was a good week to catch up with good friends. We didn't get any photos of Dean and Cara but got some sweet ones of their children whilst they spent a few hours in our cottage on a rainy day. Our dear friend Lynne is holding Dean and Cara's youngest wee one in this last photo. Lynne drove up from North Carolina to spend a couple of days with all of us. Then the children had two laps to warm them up in between body surfing the waves with Daddy :-) Lynne made a fondue supper for all of us one night. By the time we'd had a full day at the beach and cleaned up, the boys were ready for bed. In the midst of our indulging in fondue, Lynne mentioned how sorry she was that the boys couldn't partake with us. Simultaneously, each of us looked at her, smiled a big chocolate smile and empahatically said "We're not!". Yes, it was a quiet, peaceful evening of cheese and chocolate and our boys were sleeping peacefully after a full day of running and playing. A win-win situation :-)

Cape Henry Lighthouses

We really had no idea what greeted us at Cape Henry. We just knew we were going to enjoy a week together on the beach. We were delighted to discover two lighthouses on Ft Storey. According to the VA state website:

The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse was built in 1792. It started to crack in 1870 and was replaced with the new Cape Henry Lighthouse only 357 feet away, which is an active aid to navigation and operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse is maintained by the APVA and is a National Historic Landmark, serving as the official symbol for the City of Virginia Beach.
We took this picture from the beach after we climbed the old lighthouse (the one on the right)Scotty and Jonathan climbed first. Seth was 3 inches too short (new height restrictions this year due to new insurance requirements) so we divided up into 2 groups so one of us was with Seth down below. Way to go Jonnie!!!!!!!!The guys took this picture from the top of the old lighthouse. You can see how close most buildings on Ft Storey are to the ocean. Now the girls are ready to climb! Christy endured many a dark, narrow, steep, winding staircase in England whilst she traversed castle towers, climbed to the top of St Paul's Cathedral, etc. with us. Now, she is exhibiting bravery again - climbing to the top of the old lighthouse when she would probably rather not. It is scary for her - but she overcomes that fear each time. We are all proud of her.



Almost there! Getting onto a ladder to go down it is still disconcerting for me. Christy and Faith did great going up and down. We were rewarded with beautiful views - the best one being that of Scotty and the boys waving at us from the parking lot :-)

An old railroad car behind the lighthouse. Seth was thankfully tall enough to climb on this with everyone else :-) The post chapel, where we worshipped on Sunday, is behind the children.