East Coast Tour '08

Ahhh - where to start. After working all day on Wed July 23rd, we got home, did laundry, cleaned the house, ate, bath the kids and started packing. To be totally honest, I can't recall what time we left. I want to say 11:30p. I started the driving and only got pulled over once. The cop gave me a warning after being a butthead so it all worked out. And again, I can't recall what time we pulled into Grandma Karen's drive way, but - we made it. We got to visit Great Grandma Kenyon and spent a fun filled day at Papi Bill's camp hunting in the creek for crayfish, jumping in the pool and riding the 4 wheeler.




Click the link to see a slide show of Clearfield.

Slide show of Clearfield




This is a little video clip of Acacia holding the newest member of the Learish family - Baby Ella! :)

Randy's 25th high school reunion was Sat the 26th. I thought it was pretty well attended! I met some "interesting" folks and Randy had a good time getting caught up with old friends. Mike was able to join us for the evening so at least I knew one other person!!



Click the link to see a slide show of Reunion.

Slide show of Reunion






On Sunday the 27th of July we packed up the van again and headed to Seven Spring resort in Sumerset, PA. All of Randy's family attended. We had 3 condos surrounding the pool. We did it all! Fishing, golfing, climbing wall, jumpers, biking, alpine slide, chair lift rides, bowling, go carts, mini golf ... well you get the idea. Something for everyone. Uncle Tennis / Chicken / Kevin was instrumental in entertaining and feeding the kids! I think Chris may be up for Wimbledon! Uncle Sean managed to get some way discounted tickets to a local amusement / water park. It was perfect for all ages!









Click the link to see a slide show of 7 Springs.

Slide show of 7 Springs



This is a pretty long video of the alpine slide. I took the video while riding down the slide so I was not going as fast as you can. It was a very cool slide!!



This is just Acacia coming down after climbing the wall. Sorry it's sideways. I'll have to remember that when taking movies!!



This is Chris, Acacia and Tyler "driving" their cars.

After about a week we cleared out of our condos in the mountains on Friday August 1st, packed up the van again and headed to Northern VA. We made a pit stop along to the way to see my college roommate (Christy) at her place in MD and then on to Julianne's house. Chris and Yoli, Mom, Dad and Nani and all the Berg's were there already. We arrived in time for home made spaghetti sauce / pasta, salad and bread! Just like mom used to make ... oh wait ... she did make it! The kids attempted a camp out complete with Brare Rabbit stories from Nono. Luckily we ended up bringing them all in as they were just not going to sleep. As it turned out, it rained big time that night and the next morning the inside of the tent was more like a small lake. On Saturday we loaded ourselves into two vans and drove to Baltimore, MD to see the Aquarium and take a little submarine tour. All very cool. A bit crowded but I guess typical for a Sat during the summer. We saw some amazing things, dauphin show and a cool 4D movie. Mom maneuvered the entire day in a wheelchair but this seemed to gain us some unexpected privileges as we were moved to the front of a few lines to see shows!! Valerie arrived crazy early Monday morning after spending a month "working" in Hawaii and a few days in CA for cousin Jeff's wedding and visiting with our CA cousins!! We spent Saturday chillin at the pool before Mom, Dad and Nani had to head home to NC.








Click the link to see a slide show of VA visit w/Emme, Nono and Great Nani.

Slide show of VA visit w/Emme, Nono and Great Nani



Emme, Nono, Great Nani and Zander headed to NC Monday AM. Not soon after their departure we all headed into DC. We drove a bit and then took the metro. It was uh - um a bit hot that day but we had a mission. The goal (proven to be a bit too lofty) was to walk and see the all the Monuments, and then see the Air and Space, Natural History and US Postal Smithsonian's. The walk from the metro to the Lincoln Memorial proved to be a bit taxing in the heat - not to mention the distance. Although we did manage to see the Washington Monument and a newer memorial for WWII. Just amazing. We made it to the Lincoln Memorial and back and met up with Chrisy and her kids at the Museum of Natural History. I don't know where the time went, but were spent over 2 hours in there alone. By the time we got out everything was closing. The sun was starting to go down and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Making us realize we started out our mission a bit backwards. We said good bye to Christy and her kids, hopped back on the metro and headed home.

I have to skip ahead a few days here ... It's now Friday the 8th. Since we did not get to see the US Postal Museum, we decided to get that in today. Back on the metro we all went to see Owney the Mail Pouch Pooch. A true story about a dog back in the late 1800's that travel the world protecting the US mail. He retained a tag from every city he visited and the post office in Albany, NY (where he started) made him a doggie jacket to pin all his tags on. You can read more about Owney. Just Google him ... Luckily we got to see him. He is stuffed and on display with his jacket and pins.













Click the link to see a slide show of DC.

Slide show of DC



Tuesday we kind of chilled out. We went to see a movie and that was really about it. Wednesday Randy left to go somewhere in PA to do some work and the rest of us went to the library and the pool again. Even on the days that we seemed to do nothing, we were walking chaos and never seemed to get to bed before 10p - more like midnight! Thursday we planned and got up early and drove to Luray Caverns. You know - stalactites and stalagmites?? This was just amazing. Even the kids thought it was pretty cool ... for the first 15 minutes. It was just over a mile walk and just over an hour worth of a tour before we were out again. Then we spent about 45 minutes on a quest to find the 4 clues in the giant hedge maze! This was a lot of fun and the sporadic "misters" along the way made the event quite pleasurable.











Click the link to see a slide show of Cavern.

Slide show of Cavern


So this ends the photo portion of the trip. Back to Friday the 8th. After we left Owney in DC we drove (well sat in a lot of traffic) but got to MD and spent a little more time with Christy and her kids at the local Burger King with a play land. Then headed to Pgh. We went to Sean and Dianne's place. Randy had arrived there about an hour before us. It was close to 10p by the time we arrived there. Sat the 9th, Sean and Randy went out to their new house to do some manual labor. Dianne took me out to see the new house a little later. It's just amazing. I can't wait to see it completed and try out the visitors suite!! It was about 4p before we finally left Pgh for home. We pulled into our driveway at 2:30a, (2,840 miles on the odometer) unloaded the car and went to bed. Sunday was catch up day. Massive yard work, groceries, the kids getting reacquainted with their friends .... Then back to work Monday ... but wait ... I receive an email from my boss that our building will not have water on Monday so it will be closed! Sweet! Well, I went in anyway - just a bit late. Not too bad for a first day back after almost 3 weeks! Sadly, all the yard work I did Sunday earned me a nice case of poison ivy and Wednesday I ended up with some kind of stomach flu. I am now heavily medicated with a nice steroid that makes me rather ravenous and euphoric. I can't complain. The kids are back in school (well summer school). Today Acacia's class had a littler talent show. Then we went to the pack the park at our local park. Kid games, prizes and Shrek III in the big screen. Acacia starts back to horseback riding tomorrow. Real school starts Wed the 27th. Then soccer 4 nights a week, swimming once a week, life group once a week and somewhere in there Chris will play hockey at least once a week. Ahhhhh ... it's good to be home!