A few Random Pictures

Aidan found my old ski helmet in the garage and is obsessed with wearing it.

Aidan riding the carousel at the Pentagon City Mall.

 Nick at field day painting shells

Aidan and best friend Dylan at the last day of school.

Here are a few random pictures I have been meaning to post for a while from the last few months. Just putting them on the blog for posterity purposes.

Virginia Wildfires

These are a few of the pictures we snapped of the wildfire very near where we were camping. I know all the news has talked about this week are the Colorado wildfires but there are 2 major ones burning here in Virginia too. We can smell the smoke all the way at our home. This is on Skyline Drive which is part of the Appalachian Trail that goes through the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had intended to hike this while we were there but the trail was closed. It is a beautiful area for hiking with waterfalls and just beautiful landscape. Luckily, we received some rain last night which hopefully will help with containment in a very difficult area. Please pray for the people of Colorado Springs too. We were supposed to move their this past summer but at the very last minute got a change in orders to the Pentagon. We have so many friends that live there right now. I have one friend who lost their home and another with parents who are now homeless. Hundreds of my friends have been evacuated and are having to live elsewhere until the fire is contained safely. Having been many times, it is such a beautiful area and it is absolutely heart breaking to see some of our favorite places destroyed by fire.

Yogi Bear Campground

We had the best time this week camping at the Yogi Bear Campground. O.K. so it wasn't primitive tent camping like I grew up with it was more Glamping as my neighbor called it but the heat index was well over 100 the whole time so renting a cabin with air-conditioning was a must for us. Otherwise it brought back lots of fun childhood memories of camping for me. The boys had such a blast and were thoroughly exhausted every evening from all the activities. They had swimming and water slides, a moon bounce, outdoor laser tag, fishing, an arcade, paddle boats, mini-golf, a playground and so much more. We went on wagon rides with the characters and they had live animal shows in the pavilion at night. Mostly the kids rode their bikes around with all the other kids in our section and played for hours in the evening while we cooked dinner and had a campfire. They instantly made friends with all the other kids and would play beach volleyball and build sand castles and play silly games until we went to bed each evening way past their bedtimes. We soaked up the family time and enjoyed all the quality time with Jeremy before he leaves. We made so many wonderful memories that I will cherish forever.

The Garden Maze

Looking out at the Blue Ridge Mountains

We went to this Garden Maze while we were there. You had to find all 4 goals before you could find your way out. They had all these funny signs that said things like go this way and then when you got to the dead end around the corner it would say Just Kidding! The boys had a blast running around and getting lost. Luckily, the maze had these misters going the whole time that kept you cool while you were trying to get out. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from there was amazing. We are so glad we got to see some more of the region and get away from the city for a few days.

Luray Caverns

This week we took a family vacation to Luray, VA where we went to the Luray Caverns. It is the United States' largest underground caverns. It was very interesting and thankfully nice and cool underground given the heat wave here. Here are a few pictures that I was able to snap.