Virginia In June

I had planned like crazy for our trip to Virginia. When you standby travel you have to have at least 5 different scenarios in case your flights starts to fill up. Then the flight out of St. George cancelled and then the Cedar flight cancelled so when Jake came to pick me up at work I at that moment let him know we were off to Vegas. We get to Vegas and tried for a flight to Los Angeles where we would connect to Tucson and then stay the night there and go to Atlanta the next morning to connect yet again to a flight to Norfolk, VA. The agent called our names for the flight but we got ready to get on the plane and they wanted to check our bag (number one rule of standby travel – never.check.your.bag!) I told her we didn’t really know if Tucson would be our final destination and she said we had no choice the bag was being checked. Jake makes his classic comment “ya we have a choice… we don’t go” and we looked at each other and thought we should not get on this flight. So we back away from the gate and start panicking that we might have missed a great chance to get to Virginia. We had one more chance that night for an oversold flight to Washington Dulles and wouldn’t you know it that we totally slipped on that flight with no problem! We landed in Washington at 7:00am just as Andy my brother-in-law was pulling into town. Jake had never seen Washington DC and if you know Jake at all you know how much he loves his history. We did a quick view of the sites because Andy had to get some paperwork back to Yorktown before a certain time. We did have the special privilege to eat at the Washington DC military base located behind Arlington National Cemetery. We really will have to go back and do a real detailed tour of DC sometime.













Andy is going into the JAG and so he is based at the Naval Weapons Base in Yorktown . Let’s just say that they hooked him up! He has a darling family of 4 and so the Military requires that each kid gets their own room. So he was in a Colonel house looking over the huge York river (okay huge for a Utah girl). Andy’s wife Noemi is from Mexico so we had some delicious meals. In fact I would have been content playing games with the kids the whole time and eating her amazing food.
We did take a tour of Yorktown and saw the cave where General Cornwallis went to hide after Secretary Thomas Nelson bombed his home. He then shortly after that surrendered. We also saw where the battle of Yorktown took place and saw the battle hills that were made. We went to Jamestown (you know… Pocahontas) and saw the coolest glass blowing done there. We honestly could have spent hours just watching these guys do amazing artwork out of glass.











One of the highlights and at the same time disappointments was when we had the chance to take a fishing boat on the Chesapeake Bay. It was so fun being out on the water like that and fishing but the disappointment was when we only caught a few lame croaker fish. Now they call them croakers because that’s exactly what they sound like… some weird croaking sound – kind of freaks you out a bit. We did catch a flounder but it was so little that we had to throw it back.






When we took the little croakers back to the house to cook up because the kids had never caught and cooked up their own fish (what world are they from?) so Jake was showing the kids how to gut a fish and Olivia was just enthralled in the process and wanted to do everything that Jake was doing. So when Jake cut the fish she wanted to hold his hand in the process to also cut the fish, and when Jake tossed the guts she tossed the guts and best of all when Jake spit like a real man she… no kidding… turned and SPIT just like him… oops sorry Noemi about that one!






















Last but not least we went to Williamsburg which is a darling historic town with people even dressed up in the typical colonial outfits. We caught a lot of fireflies with the kids and saw some of the fun sites and then ended on a perfect note in the candy shop with amazing caramel apples and fudge.
We had a tough time getting back to St. George with the flights but the whole trip made it worth it. Dan however had no problem! As we were waiting for a flight he read his horoscope that said he would fine with all his travels today and that nothing would stand in his way. Apparently the stars meant that we wouldn’t stand in his way because when the Flight Attendant called Rainey she informed us that she only had one seat and could only take one of our party… well have fun Dan LOL He made it home without a problem! We’ll have to check our horoscopes next time we plan to fly.




some more fun pics:
















The Prince and the Princess tried to run away... shoot they didn't make it... guess you should have paid your taxes.





















Jamestown:












































the base:





























Yorktown:



























Williamsburg:


























































After a very long day and coming to the end of the journey...

Waterfalls and Primary Day

I’m sorry I’ve been so horrible about posting and I promise to get better. Friday night Jake and I went to Beijing Buffet and I hesitate to even post this because the one thing we love about the place is the fact that we NEVER see anyone we know there lol. It’s our little secret rendezvous point where we can eat bad Chinese food and talk to each other about anything and everything. We then rented the book of Eli which was a bit weird but not a bad movie.
The next morning was the beginning of a day where I wished that I still drank Diet Coke lol. I had a primary pioneer day to put on but honestly it went off perfectly. We watched parts of Legacy to get a little bit of the spirit into the day. We have a little down-syndrome girl Amanda who totally bonded with Jake. She sat next to him during the movie and when it got scared she grabbed his hand. After the movie we played some fun games that I was in charge of. I had a relay race they had to do. Two teams of two and they would have to balance a balloon between their heads and run down the gym to the end where they would have to grab a straw and suck a marshmallow onto the straw and move it from one bowl to another bowl (10 total). Don’t worry that some kids kept blowing instead of sucking and that created a bit of a saliva mess - yuck. They would then move to the final obstacle of putting a spoon in their mouth and balancing a hard egg on it and race back to where they had started. They loved it! We then moved to the last game, the easiest to prepare and of course the biggest success - The stick pull! We had so much fun playing that and we had one kid in there that just was beating everyone so I had Jake jump in at the end and all the kids started laughing and screaming… he’s so big… he’s so going to win LOL. Of course Jake won and all the kids were so glad that the boy who had been in for so long finally was beat by someone.
We then had some time before we moved on to the yummy scones so we all passed around jars to make homemade butter, we shook them like crazy as we kept playing. We played with the balloons, Jake played catch with Amanda, and the boys wanted to try the marshmallow contest some more so I set that back up for them and don’t worry that the stick pull was still a success all the way until their parents were pulling them away to go home.
The scones were delicious with homemade butter (yes I can’t believe that the butter actually worked). The cutest little boy decided he didn’t want a scone, but that he would make one for me with every single topping available to him slathered on it. It was sure the best scone ever.
We then went home and had some time to rest and then took off with our friend Dave and Kara in their awesome Jeep to Toquerville. They told us they knew of some waterfalls out there, but with the insane terrain we were facing in the jeep and the endless miles of desert I could not believe the little oasis they lead us to. The pictures only show the smaller first falls but then it drops to a bigger second fall and a deep pool. A bunch of crazy guys were jumping off the cliff and into the second pool. I was so amazing! Being the romantic that Jake is he dunked me under the waterfall and I drank some of the nasty water and was totally sick lol. Don’t worry he made up for it with some romantic kisses behind the falls.
We then headed back to Dave and Kara’s house to have pizza and watch the Bounty Hunter. It was a perfect day.