Fall Road Trip 2018- NC and SC

 

Monday- 10/29- The kids and I had a great adventure day today.  We started the morning trying to watch the sunrise, but a low cloud bank blocked the view.  The kids didn't mind though... while everyone else on the beach was wearing, pants, winter coats, winter hats, and carrying coffees, our kids were playing in the waves in their pajamas... it was only 54 degrees out and windy;)  

After breakfast we headed over to the Wright Brother's National Monument.  The visitor center just re-opened last week after a renovation so it was great to see a newly finished museum.  We learned lots about the Wright Brothers, their family, the importance of perseverance, the scientific method, and (of course!) flight.  We were also able to tour the grounds to see where the first flight happened, what the island was like in 1901-1903, and the monument itself.  We were all happy to get out and stretch our legs for a few hours before beginning our driving again.

Just after noon-time we headed south again. We went back and forth about our route for the day, but eventually decided to skip Roanoke Island and head for the full outer banks byway complete with two ferry rides.  This ended up being way better because it broke up the trip and made our actual in the car driving time relatively minimal today. We took a quick jump out at Cape Hatteras light house, but to be able to make the ferry in time we didn't climb to the top. We saw lots of sand dunes and lots of garbage piled up on the side of the roads as people are continuing to clean up from Hurricane Michael. 

Today we reached the 1,000 mile mark!

PB & J Count: 11

Tuesday- 10/30- Today we decided to be purposely slower about getting up and going.  I think everyone is starting to feel worn down from the travel.  We had a wonderfully large hotel room on Emerald Island and we were lucky to find a hotel as this was one of the few actually open after the hurricane. AND it seemed like almost everyone else staying there were construction workers and contractors working on other area hotels.

We passed by some great sights including Camp Lejeune, but the kids really wanted to get the driving over with and get to "Carter and Jackson's grandparent's house" in South Carolina. Who was I to argue? So, we drove for just over 6 hours making only one brief bathroom stop at a Lowe's (of all places!). We arrived at the beautiful Edisto Beach, SC and the kids immediately took to the area and were so thrilled to find that the Sturkie's had a dog!  Once everyone settled down, the kids got to get up close and personal with the island's deer population, take Matilda (the dog) for a walk, and eat dinner at a super fun restaurant complete with an amazing scavenger hunt!  In the evening the Sturkie's were kind enough to humor the kids while they put on a talent show for them before bed. Noah and James played violin, Audrey played the ukulele, and Ben gave a book report on his new favorite series, Dragon Masters.

PB & J Count: 16

Wednesday- 10/31- We got an early start in hopes that we would make it back in time for trick or treating on the island. The kids and I drove back up to Charleston for a tour of Fort Sumter and to explore Patriot's Point which is an impressive naval museum. Our first stop was the Vietnam Experience and a very pointed introductory video that will certainly be a jumping off point for studying the Vietnam War. After the hanger with the video you walked out back and into a courtyard set up just like a field camp in Vietnam during the war. It was complete with sound effects and helicopters. The best part was that all of the volunteers providing information and answering questions were all Vietnam War Veterans... so neat!

Our ferry trip and visit of Fort Sumter was also so exciting and much anticipated.  It was much smaller than we were all expecting and that is when we realized the obvious... it was the first fort we had visited that had been taken and destroyed in a war.  The pictures of the excavation, restoration, and preservation were amazing.  We didn't get to see all in the museum we would have liked, but it certainly did not disappoint!

After Fort Sumter, we turned our attention back to Patriot's Place. We started with touring a WWII submarine, followed by a WWII destroyer (that was actually in battle!), and finished on the aircraft carrier.  We really could have stayed at this museum for another day and the kids are already planning our return trip;)

The carrot to pull the kids away was certainly trick or treating.  I had been telling the kids that there were unlikely to be able to trick or treat in South Carolina, but when we were out at the restaurant last night they gave us a sheet with participating businesses that would be handing out candy. We weren't sure if/how the whole thing would work out, but when we arrived at the first stop there was a wagon getting ready to pull kids around to the trick or treating locations, so we asked the driver and the kids jumped aboard for the first half of their route.  The kids had so much fun and it was very convenient to not have to get the kids out of the car and buckled at every stop!  They were thrilled with their candy haul this year;)

Fall Road Trip- NJ and NC

We are taking quite a road trip adventure this fall! Gabe and I are attending the national AAP conference again and this time it is in Orlando, FL. Gabe flies down to meet us there on November 1st, but the kids and I are driving down and left at 6am on Friday.  Our first day we drove a long 9 hours to reach Medford, NJ. Hopefully this will be our longest stretch, but we are staying with friends for two nights, so it should break up the trip a bit.

Noah has been upgraded to co-pilot status after I realized that I couldn't hand things out, attend to everyone's needs, change the audiobooks, and drive while using my phone for navigation by myself.  Noah is far from an expert on map reading on a phone (I immediately regretted forgetting to stop at AAA for those paper maps!), but he is leaning and we only ended up in a mall parking lot once;)  I am sure he will be an expert by the end of the trip. 

We arrived early enough in the afternoon to play/visit, take on a corn maze, and have a fantastic dinner.  And that was just the first night!  On Saturday we got a surprisingly early start and hit Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market for their Halloween trick or treating event. The kids are quite a hodge poge this year for their costume selection. Noah- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, James- bowling ball, Ben- the Tin Man, and Audrey- a bowling pin. 

We had sideways rain in the morning, but by the time we were done with the Halloween festivities, it had calmed to a light drizzle. Our next stop was the Franklin Institute, a science museum around the corner from the Philadelphia Art Museum. We could have spent several days here and still not seen everything!  We took a break for pizza for lunch and went back to see a few more exhibits before heading back to NJ for dinner.

 Just to make sure we did as much as possible on a dreary day, the kids and I had our first escape room experience. We all had so much fun! In the scenario the prime minister contracted a virus and we had to find the antidote by solving a series of puzzles.  We did solve it puzzle with a few minutes to spare, but it was not without clues and it was definitely exciting!  Now we are hooked and can't wait to do another:)

This morning we left NJ and burned through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and (finally) North Carolina. We arrived in Kill Devil Hills late in the afternoon and checked into our hotel. It was a bit too late (and we were all way too hungry) to visit the Wright Brothers National Monument today, but that will be on our list for first thing in the morning. Tonight we had dinner at one of the only non-seafood restaurants that is open on a Sunday nearby our hotel.  On the way in the kids spotted a mini golf course, so we topped the night off with a rousing round of mini golf. Before you could start the course they drove you in some type of mine train car to the starting spot.  It was exciting and we are all exhausted so I am sure we will all pay for the fun in the morning :)

PB & J Count: 6 (the kids are excited about peanut butter again;)

Fall Misc.

It is the end of October and we forgot about our carrots.  We are leaving on our trip this week so we thought we should probably dig them up before we left.  Honestly, it has been so warm this fall that I didn't worry about them freezing. We presumed that we wouldn't get much of a crop this year because  we planted them so late, but we were mistaken.  This may be the largest crop of carrots to date.  James is our expert gardener so this is a pretty happy face.

This fall Ben, Audrey, and James have all been playing soccer and loving it.  Noah decided to skip soccer this year and instead join the middle school cross country team.  All of the kids have loved being active this fall and we are so proud of the progress they have made! At the beginning of October Audrey's soccer finished, but her basketball also started.  She has been waiting to play these "official" sports for so long and this year she is finally old enough!

This past weekend we ran in the annual Fit Girls 5K in downtown Wilton.  The original plan was that Noah would run solo and I would run with James since he hadn't trained a whole lot for this race.  When we got to the race that morning Audrey saw all of the other girls running and REALLY wanted to run too.  I tried to talk her out of it because she has never run more than 2 miles (and she is 5yo), but she was clearly determined that she was going to run it with or without a number.  So, Noah and James both ran solo and did an amazing job on their own. Audrey and I ran together and her persistence never wavered. She made it the entire way without complaint and finished 61st out of 134 participants. Needless to say she is proud of herself and immediately hung her ribbon on her wall.