Day 2: Exploring Wilson

Ben was working on Tuesday so the kids and I spent the day exploring the small town of Wilson, North Carolina.

Our first stop was the Wilson Botanical Gardens:









We headed to the downtown area which was quaint and appeared to be deserted. We found this great science museum. The kids loved it and had most of it to themselves.










There was a play room for younger kids. We spent a LOT of time in there.



We took a break at the hotel for a few hours and then went to a local park. Ben met us at another park by a lake for a picnic dinner. All of the parks were pretty old-school and had merry-go-rounds which the girls LOVED.

Day 1: Art + BBQ

We headed South Monday morning and hit the customary traffic getting out of town.

We stopped in Richmond and had lunch at Buz and Ned's, a yummy bbq place:



We also stopped at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond to see the Picasso exhibit. Richmond is the only East coast stop for this exhibit which features art from the Musée National Picasso in Paris while it is being renovated. The exhibit was fantastic. It represented works produced during every major artistic period of Pablo Picasso’s eight-decade career. Definitely an amazing opportunity. Amelia was intrigued by the cubism paintings, trying to decipher what was going on. The kids did really well in the museum. They have some really beautiful landscaping outside with some fun fountains so we enjoyed some outdoor time before getting back on the road.
















(The girls really loved hanging out in these chairs.)



We drove to Wilson, North Carolina, where we spent three nights. It was near the hospital where Ben had to work Tuesday and Wednesday. The girls loved staying in hotels every night and were most excited about the continental breakfast each morning. Amelia was thrilled with the amount of choices (apparently my breakfast offerings at home are pretty meager).

First order of business at the hotel was swimming. We decided to stick Oliver in the pool and see how he liked it. He loved it! The girls could have stayed in the pool all night. We had a late dinner at our new favorite North Carolina chain, Cook Out. Good burgers, fantastic shakes, and super cheap. We went twice while we were there.

ROAD TRIP!

Last week was Amelia's spring break and we spent the week on a road trip to Atlanta. We put over 1500 miles on the car. We had a great time and loved spending the week together. Ben actually had to work in North Carolina on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was about the halfway point so it fit in well with our trip, especially since that portion of the trip was paid for!

Keeping entertained in the car:








I gave the girls these cookie sheets from the dollar store to use as a desk and they could also do magnets on them.

We had such success with the "store" on our Michigan road trip that we did it again. I loaded up on goods and treats from the dollar store and every hour in the car the girls could buy items with pretend money that they earned by being good. They loved it. Even though we had loaded up on DVDs from the library before we left, the girls actually spent very little time watching movies.


Poor Oliver...the girls were always storing all of their stuff on top of him. Amazingly, he did really well in the car. We put him in between Elsa and Amelia and I think he liked the attention. It was great to have Amelia on pacifier and bottle duty.

Easter Egg Hunt

Thursday morning I hosted our annual playgroup Easter Egg Hunt. We had 28 kids (36 including babies) hunting for eggs. It was lots of fun and turned out to be a beautiful day (I managed to get a sunburn). Elsa was so sad when everybody left.

I hid 350 eggs in our backyard:

Sunday Evening Stroll

Last Sunday's stroll was at the always popular Huntley Meadows. The forest floor was covered with white wild flowers and there was new green growth everywhere. The evening lighting was gorgeous. My little Canon PowerShot did an okay job...