Summer Fun

Sometimes during the summer you need a little space from the family. Landon wrote this and put it up on his door without anybody knowing. He has all the toys in his room so he rarely gets any privacy!

We headed to Natural Bridge about twenty minutes away for a family hike. They claim it to be one of the seven natural wonders of the world... Look it up, it's not there. Ha ha ha.

Even though it isn't really one of the seven natural wonders it is very beautiful. We enjoyed the whole evening hiking in the rain.

The kids did great! It was about a two mile hike and they made it the whole way with smiles still on their faces.

Drive in movie night. We went to see Toy Story 3 on a whim at the drive in. They didn't have any more room for cars so we walked in and watched from our blanket on the ground. It was great minus the fact that we parked our blanket in the middle of an ant hill, and Chad and I were still killing ants off ourselves when we got home. The kids thought it was a blast and even Keely made it through the whole thing!

Sydney at the top of the slide

We found a rather pathetic looking, very sick, on the verge of death salamander (we think, we are very efficient in the ways of animal species identification, but we said it was a salamander and the kids accepted it, so it was a win win). Anyway, Landon loved playing with it. We think it probably died after or before we found it, but Landon swore that it was alive and was going to make sure that it enjoyed it's last few minutes on this earth. God speed little salamander! He buried it in the sand just under the lifeguard tower. It was a very moving ceremony.

Lastly, we'll give you a PRONUNCIATION guide for Southern Virginia...in case you ever plan on comin our way! Ok, so, we live in Buena Vista...it's pronounced bU-na Vi-sta. You could travel up the freeway 30 minutes to Staunton - Stan-Ton, or down the freeway 30 minutes to Buchanan - Buck-anan. Or you could travel towards West Virginia 30 minutes to the George Washington National Forest and Visit Douthat State Park - Dow-Thit State Park. So there you go, now you are Officially a "suthun-er" and can talk the talk! Anyway, Why is this all important. Well, we went to Douthat (Dow-Thit) State park to the lake and had an enjoyable afternoon. The beach has a wonderful, kid friendly, beach area that the kidlets enjoyed. On the Beach it also has a play structure with a couple slides. Syd and Keely took advantage of those. Landon spent most of his time on the beach making a very sturdy sand castle..complete with a moat, a flag on top of the castle, and a Bomb Bay for protection (what? You didn't know that most sand castles come complete with their own security system built in? Well, now you know, and knowing is half the battle - a shameless plug for all you camo fans of the 80's out there - you know who you are!) Anyway, it was great. It also happens to have a ton of camping areas on or around the lake, so we are excited to go back for some R and R...oh yeah, and some camping too!