Summer in Virginia

So most of you know, but I'm posting it officially, we moved to Virginia last month. Cole even moved with us to work for the summer although he's planning to head back to South Carolina to finish school in a few weeks.  We've had a great  time here so far. We're only a short walk from the beach so we are there quite frequently. We've also taken advantage of the myriad of historical sites and  have done a lot of exploring. We moved here right at the start of berry picking season and managed to go blueberry and blackberry picking at a local farm and come home with 20-30 lbs of each. We've since been enjoying lots of smoothies and berry-based desserts. My deep freeze  is happy to be of service!

We also had Jason's sister  Suzanna and her kids come visit us for a week and had a wonderful time! after loading my van with 12 kids ages 11 and under to go various places last week I have a whole new respect for bus drivers. I was amazed at the noise levels of just normal talking. Thank goodness for in vehicle DVD players. Another reason to love technology.

I know I don't include pictures enough, but here are a few from our adventures so far. They are only sort of in order. And I realized that Jason takes most of the pictures these days so he's not in any of them. Sorry sweetie!

Lydia celebrated her 6th birthday right after we moved here. Her candles are in the shape of an L on her cake. She thought that was the coolest!  Happy birthday my 6 year old!!!!!

 

 This is the kids and I with some artillery at the Virginia War Museum on July 4th.

 The kids with a tank. The boys wanted to know if we could get one. I said our van would have to do for  now.

 We walked down to the beach one evening. I think Jason was holding Maggie otherwise she would have been all the way in the water and Adam is walking out of the picture.

 Fourth of July we also went to Yorktown where the final victory of the revolutionary war was won. Jonas and  Adrianna got to participate in an artillery exhibition to learn how to load and fire a cannon. of course they didn't actually fire it, but it was pretty cool to run through all the steps.

 Jonas also got to go to cub scout day camp and on the last day they invited families to come for the skits and lunch. Jo had just finished a  colossal water fight hence the lack of proper uniform.

 And of course two days ago we celebrated Odie Podie's birthday!! Happy birthday My new 9 year old!

 And here's Cole after a long day working for Dome.

So far that's our summer.