In Virginny-aaaaaah!

 Waaaaay back in the fall, Marcus and Melanie texted us and informed us that we would be visiting them at our choice of one of three specific times that Marcus would be available for play.  It was wonderfully direct, and it got results!  We bought our tickets right before Christmas (for less than $1,700 total--thanks COVID) and spent the next few months in delightful anticipation.  Going on a trip always forces me to take stock of my children's wardrobes, so right before we left there was some shopping and some alterations to be done.  All these little bums have trouble with elastic waistbands.  

Our flight was in the afternoon, so we took the morning at an easy pace, which turned out to be too easy of a pace and we ended up not having time for lunch and having to buy very expensive sandwiches at the airport.  I mean The Sunport!  I love the statue in the back.

It's been a long time since we flew with kids.

In fact, it was Merrick's first time flying, ever.

They were super mad at me for not letting them spend their entire flight on their tablets.  

There are so many other things to do on a traveling day than watch movies...

..."jumping up and down on the alligator"...

...eating more overpriced airline food, etc.

We arrived in Richmond very late and Uncle Marcus picked us up from the airport.  We tucked the kids in to their room of cots...

And then tucked ourselves into Marcus's napping cave and went to sleep.  There was much fun in store.  

In the morning we watched church with the cousins in the family room.  I wish I had blogged right after we came home, because Melanie (who was pregnant and ill) fed us so well for our entire visit, and I like to say what we ate and when but I just can't remember now.  You'll have to trust me that it was all delicious.  That afternoon we went for a walk in the woods behind the neighborhood along Meredith Creek. Marcus said nobody used to walk around back there until COVID came, but now it is always peopled.  Notice the proximity to the temple being built.

 There is a rope swing over the water on the way to the lake.  It was a good spot to stop and get wet and muddy.  

We were soon joined by a couple families that had a remote control motor boat.  It was very difficult for all of them to keep track of the boat and the swing's path at the same time.  We had many close calls and eventually one casualty: the swing caught one of the other family's little boys and slammed him into the bank.  I think it was better that way then into the water, but it was still a little tense for a moment.  

The water play continued once we arrived at the lake.  Merrick wanted to continue walking, so we moseyed along to a playground on the other side of the lake and he played while I uploaded all of my Song Leader's singing time videos to our Primary's YouTube channel.  

This is tricky.  I want to say "the Forbes did x" but we are also the Forbes.  I'll just have to use more words.  Marcus and Melanie and boys had family pictures the next day, so that night Melanie gave them all haircuts while they watched Bubble Guppies.  I think my children used to watch Bubble Guppies when I was pregnant with Merrick, because I remember the songs, but as if through a glass, darkly.    

Isn't Melanie cool?!  She gave them all good haircuts that are not boring.  Marcus has a lot of hair.  

It was fun to be in a boy house.  There were all sorts of delightful struggles involving Alexa and what music she should be playing.  There was an artist who makes ridiculous kid songs that the boys really liked.  I can't remember his name or any of the song lyrics well enough to look it up...but I think I'm ok relegating that particular batch of information to my memory dump.  My favorite was when Melanie told Alexa to put her volume at zero.  That one took awhile for the boys to figure out.  Here is a picture of little Rett and his Pikachu.  

We visited Mount Vernon on Monday.  It was not the best time to go (both in terms of season and pandemic) but it was still a beautiful, peaceful day.  

The garden and grounds were inspirational. 

Everything functional and practical, but elegant and pleasing to the eye.  

We saw our first cardinal in Washington's botanical garden, where he would experiment with plants and see how they did in Virginia.  I loved these triangle pea trellises they had up.

There were definitely moments throughout the day where I found myself saying, "Well if I inherited some beautiful land and owned 300 people to make all my ideas come true, I bet my house would look pretty great too."  But then I look at my scrappy garden and know that if I had been in George Washington's shoes, Mt. Vernon would not be what it is.  It might look "pretty great," but it would be an expression of MYself, what's important to me.  It was a joy to walk around and see a physical representation of what George Washington valued.  Even if we had to wear masks while we did it.

With the COVID precautions they were not conducting tours inside the house.  They had us gather in front in the sun and gave us the beginnings of a tour.  We admired the painting of the wooden exteriors with sand and paint to make them look like stone (rustication).  

Then they told us all the things we should watch out for as we walked through the house and sent us in alone with strict instructions to not talk because the "ventilation" was not good enough in the house for COVID prevention.  It was kind of hard to stomach the reasoning when they had every door open and there was a lovely breeze moving through the house off the Potomac.  Oh well.  I am actually taking a virtual tour on the website right now.  It is fun because I recognize the places, but now I actually get to learn about the things I saw.  The "New Room" reminded me so much of Ross Poldark's addition to Nampara when they finally have enough money to do anything but survive.  I like to picture George Washington dancing in it, beneath the "fancy pictures of [his] own choosing," so many of which are landscapes, which I love about him.

His Little Parlor that attaches to the New Room reminds me of my own little music room that used to be a bedroom, with pictures of ships on the blue walls and a couch that turns into a bed to accommodate visitors and windows that look out onto the river (I don't have a river, but my music room windows look out onto my garden, which makes me happy).  I'm glad I don't have green trim though.

Here is a picture of the key to the Bastille from Lafayette!

Here is a tour guide not telling us anything about Washington's study.  The light!  Such a beautiful space.

We walked by the kitchen and felt very grateful for all our conveniences and our decreased risk of burning our house down trying to feed ourselves.

Actually every outbuilding we walked past made us feel grateful for the ease we enjoy.  We have appliances that can do the job in 3 hours that it took a whole building and a couple enslaved people all day to do.  

We loved these ha-ha walls, "hidden barriers that kept livestock safely in the pasture...which cannot be seen until one is right on top of them!"  I wonder how many people went for a midnight stroll and stepped off into unexpected nothingness...

This plant on the bowling green looks like the most epic hideout for kids ever.  

And of course, the teeth.

Poor Drew was worn out after our long drive and our day of walking.  

Rafe was not.

On Tuesday Drew and I got to go for a run together!  My hair was exceptionally bouncy with the humidity.

Speaking of hair in humidity, even Rafe's had a little texture while we were there.  It made very...exciting shapes.

Anyway, we found a frog on our run.

Then it seemed like a good day for a puzzle.

Later that night we played on the playground and on the soccer field at a park for a little while..

...then the kids got to go to a rock climbing class with their cousins.  Marcus showed Drew and I around the gym...

...and showed us how it's done.

Marcus is not a half-way sort of person, nor is he a 100% sort of person.  He goes that extra bit that frequently results in injury.  Here he is demurely stretching out a sad joint.

And here he is with a swollen knee just a few days later.

That night on our way home we stopped by Costco to replenish all of Marcus and Melanie's snacks that we had wolfed our way through in two days.  It is really fun to give Max snacks, because no one says "thank you" cuter than this.  

We came home and finished the puzzle (of course we did--Melanie is an excellent puzzle buddy).  Jackson helped us out towards the end.  

When kids were asleep there was always lots of standing around in the kitchen talking.  Look how cute these two are.  Awwwwww!

The next day was Rafe's birthday, and it was wet and rainy.  

We did inside things, like rough house...

...and snuggle...

...and messy outside things, like play in the mud.  

Marcus has a punching bag out in the garage that I got to beat for awhile for my exercise, then we went for a run together in the rain.  It is funny to run behind Marcus; he and Drew are definitely brothers.  That evening we had hamburgers per Rafe's request and a birthday cake from Costco.  We sure love this Rafe-kun.

Please note Vivien in the back trying really hard to hold onto a pout while we mock her for being a stinker about the picture.  

The next day Drew went for a run in the lovely mud made by the previous day's rains.

Messy, messy, messy!

We had delicious French toast with buttermilk syrup for breakfast.  Here is my beautiful boy in the morning sunshine.

We were headed to Monticello this day, but about an hour after breakfast I came down with the exact same stomach complaint I had the night before we left on our trip, when I actually had to leave work early because I was so close to vomiting in one of my patients' toilets.  I felt like if I could just sleep on the drive there I would be ok, so we loaded everyone up and Drew took the wheel.  

It was a cool, misty, early spring sort of day.  

Mel had been to Monticello before, so she was our tour guide, pointing out things to us like the extension on the weathervane that made it so you didn't have to go all the way out of your house to see the top to find out which way the wind was blowing.

It's time for Monticello's trim to be re-rusticated.

It was funny to walk through Monticello and see all the unique things Jefferson collected.  And also which things he did not think were worth much--like staircases.  Waste of space.  Make them as small as possible!

This tree stump is an original from Jefferson days.  It has a new tree growing out of it now.  Like a decorative pot!

I thought this was cool swirly plant.  

We very much enjoyed our time outside on the Little Mountaintop.  There were races on the lawn...

...romantic strolls through the garden...

(Would you just look at this dirt?? Could not be more different than our sandy soil in 'Burque.)

...and best of all was the little fish pond where they would keep the fish from faraway streams close at hand until they were ready to be eaten.

It was the best, because it was choc full of frogs.  

They let us get up close and personal.

One wanted to get a little too close for comfort.  

When we were done touring the top of the mountain we took the forest path down to the cemetery. 

 Jackson and I followed a cool blue jay through the woods.  

Back at the visitor's center we purchased some tomato seeds for Grandma Paula, then we were all quite tired of wearing masks and trying to keep people in line, so we went home!  That night we had a fun campfire and roasted marshmallows to eat on Ritz crackers with Reese's peanut butter cups in the middle (the sweet! the salty!).  

Marcus responsibly doused his fire when we were finished.  

The next morning was a hot day, so we decided to go to the beach.  Drew had an afternoon meeting, so we spent the morning hanging out.

Marcus had some military implements that needed to be picked up from the base, so Mel and I went errand running earlier with all the kids (except sleepy Max) and left the boys to meet us at the beach when they were ready.  

The guard at the closest gate to the exchange told us (over the eardrum rending roar of a jet that was flipping and spinning above us) that we needed to go to a different gate to get me checked in as a visitor.  The line was long though, so we just sent Melanie in by herself and the kids and I had snack time on the lawn in front of the gate.  

We watered their landscaping for them while we were there.

With uniform patches in tow, we made our way to Buckroe Beach.

How glorious is the beach?

And how much more so, a beach with cousins?

The water wasn't super warm...

...but these crazies didn't seem to mind too much.

We made a callipygian sand sculpture.

Melanie introduced me to Kubb, which is maybe my new favorite thing.  

I was hoping the glare coming off my exceeding whiteness would be to my advantage, but it was not enough to counteract my lack of skill throwing batons in beach winds.

When Merrick slipped on the rocks and gouged his foot open on the barnacles it was time to go.  

It was a rough time for the small lad.  But, if the lady we met at the beach is to believed, he is destined for great things.  She told us she's good at reading people's auras and that he's something special.  We already knew that.

With our last remaining daylight moments we picked up dinner and went to visit a Revolutionary War site.  

We explored the redoubt that Alexander Hamilton took during the Seige of Yorktown.

It was cool to see the real thing.  

And horrifying to imagine.  War is the worst.  

I am so grateful we could come here to enjoy a beautiful sunset with our families, instead of having to send our poor, starving husbands here to kill or be killed.  

What's that you say?  There's not enough puzzling going on in these pictures?  Oh don't worry, we did another one.  A bigger one!

I should have put it away right after, but I didn't and some child threw the entire thing off the table and into the homeschooling shelves the next day.  I hope we found all the pieces.  I know two people who wouldn't be sad if the puzzle had to be thrown away from too many missing pieces.

We played some fun games that night, to celebrate the completion of the puzzle, of course.  Here's Marcus about to lose badly.

Our last day we spent getting ready for us to leave and Marcus to leave.  There was some cleaning to do.  Melanie was soooo excited about it.

There was also lots of laundry, gathering things, last minute errands, reading all the cool books your aunt and uncle have, etc. 

There were the normal things that still had to happen too, like feeding everyone.

Or pushing your big brother on a rope swing.

Do you like Drew's shirt?  Marcus did, so he got some for himself.  Now they can be mAtChY at the family reunion this summer!

That night we had a movie night in the family room with the projector (I'm pretty sure we watched Space Jam).  Then I got to squeesh Rett who did not want to go to bed.

Oh, we were sad to leave.  We all had such a fun time with these people we love and wish did not live so far away.

It was hard to leave the kitchen that night.   

The next morning Marcus took us to the airport early, early.

Merrick pretended he couldn't walk, until it suited him to be able to.

And that was our trip to Virginia!  Nobody wanted to sit with me on the way home.  Too stingy with the electronics.  Mean mom.

I have to put this in here at the end, because I had this song stuck in my head the whole. darn. trip.  It was almost as bad as when I was engaged to Drew and sang "Goin' Courtin'" compulsively for months.