Fall Break

I absolutely love the school system we are in here in Brooklet, and one of the many things I love is their breaks. They have quite a few week long breaks during the year, and then there summer is just eight weeks. I think it works great.
One of those breaks was the 12th through the 16th of Oct. We started it out going camping, and then slept one night in our own beds before we headed to Virginia. Steve's parents live in Virginia, and it is so nice to have family close enough to drive when we want to. The main reason for this visit was to go to the dentist, and being with Nana and Papa was just a huge added bonus. See...Steve and I have terrible dental insurance, and I have terrible teeth. My mother-in-law works for a dentist who gives free care to the families of the people who work for him. Since I thought I was going to need a root canal on one of my teeth, it made sense to me to drive that 9 hour drive to get it done for free instead of paying for it myself. The big problem was that Steve couldn't come. He had something all week at work that he had to be there for. So.... I headed out in the van with the boys by myself. I was very concerned about it because I never drive long distances, and I have gotten in to a habit of staying up late, and then taking a nap every day. So I knew that come 1:00 I would be exhausted, and only be halfway to my destination. Well, I went anyway! And it was great. We did so good. The boys watched movies, and I listened to my IPOD until I started falling asleep and then I had to turn it off. I made sure we were stopped for lunch at my usual naptime, and let the kids play at McDonald's for half hour. We actually made it in great time. I was so happy.
While in VA, we loved seeing Fran and Lyle, and the Hardy family. The boys loved all the toys, and playing with their cousins Daniel and Emma. And we all made it to the dentist. I didn't need that root canal, even though I have a suspicion I will need it sometime in the future. And it seems that some of the boys have inheritated my poor teeth. Steven's teeth are perfect, Nathan has two cavities, and Jacob has EIGHT. Yup, that is right. Eight cavities. And these boys DO brush their teeth at night and before school. So oviously they are not brushing them well enough. The worst part about it is Jacob will start losing a lot of those teeth that have cavities in them in less than a year, so do I really go through the hassle of getting them filled when they are going to fall out so soon. I am confused on that part. But anyway, we will be heading back to Virginia a little early when we go for Thanksgiving so that the dentist can fix the boys teeth. Ugghh, poor boys.

While in VA I talked to a good friend of ours that we knew in Germany who just recently moved to the D.C. area. We made plans to meet up before I left and catch up a little bit. We meet at a museum in Richmond and spent about five hours there checking the place out and chatting. It was a perfect reunion. The boys had a great time, it was great to see the Eliassens and the museum was pretty cool. We now have plans to seem them when we come for Thanksgiving too. I love how facebook keeps us so connected!

{This is out in front of the museum. I packed summer close for us for this vacation, and it was 55 and raining the whole time we were there. I had to go buy some pants for the boys and this day at the museum was especially cold. Nathan left his coat at Nana and Papa's house so he is suffering the most.}
{This is one of those spindles that hangs from the ceiling and there are pins in a circle around it. As the earth turns the spindle's swing shifts a little bit and eventually knocks all of the pins down around it. Very cool. We saw one or two of them drop.}
{Cockroach!}

{They used the soft blocks over their head to build that arch.}
{Jacob's castle}
{I let Brandon get away from me for a little bit while we were in this room, and when I found him he was at this school desk very interested in the documentary that was being played. It was about his naptime too.}

After we left the musuem we planned to only drive halfway home that day. We stopped in North Carolina at another families house that we knew in Germany. We stayed at their house for a couple days during the summer, and we are so happy to be close to the Kirkhams again. They are such wonderful friends. So we spent Friday night playing with them before we drove back home on Saturday.

{Brandon and Abigail at the Kirkham's table, that just happens to be big enough for company. Yeah!}

When we got home Steve was waiting for us with a great surprise. He has wired the house for his Bose cube speakers and the TV sounds awesome with them. Remember the wires hanging out a couple blogs ago? Those are all taken care of now! He also washed every pile of clothes that he saw laying around the house. I will admit that that wasn't a surprise that I loved since a lot of it didn't even need to be washed, but I love him for the effort anyways.