Our route
I have put together our route for our vacation. Here is the map. I am excited!
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Summer Vacation!
It is here! We are on summer vacation! So far, we've spent quality time on the internet, and played lots of video games. Ah, this is living.
The boys are going to do summer school for the first time ever this year. The school will pay them cash for attending, which is just the motivation they needed. Jared and I will both be working summer school as well. Although, Jared's summer school is one week less, and half days only. Sheesh. It hardly seems fair.
We are just two months away from our vacation. We've been doing our weekly vacation theme nights. This last Friday we had a National Parks themed night. We grilled sausages, had chips and soda with them. Ate smores for desert. We watched a tv show about Cuyahoga National Park, played some badminton, and topped it off with ice cream. It was a bit of a hodge-podge of nights. I'm trying to decide on what kind of tv program we can watch for "colonial Philadelphia" night. We can dine on some of Martha Washington's favorite recipes.
Anyway. Summer Vacation. For one week, pure bliss.
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Valley Forge Night
Tonight, we celebrated the Valley Forge portion of our vacation. We debated walking on ice, barefoot, but decided against it. The weather was not the greatest today, but it just added to the authenticity. I looked it up, and the soldiers at Valley Forge received regular rations during that rough winter. The rations consisted of meat and vegetables. So, tonight's dinner was beef stew. Surely they made stew at least once. Surprisingly enough, all three boys LOVED the stew. Two asked for seconds. I may have to make that again.
Following dinner, we had a shooting contest outside. Frankly, we're not much of a gun family. We do own two air soft guns, thanks to my wonderful brother. We also had targets, thanks to that same wonderful brother. I got some posts and ropes from my grandparents' farm, and put together quite the shooting range.
We followed our shooting contest (the winner really isn't important), with a game of poker. I remember visiting some historic sight when I was in Philadelphia at the age of 15. The soldiers played cards. I don't remember where we were, but I remember the cards. No numbers. So, poker it was.
Jonas can now tell you what state Valley Forge is in, what they ate, and perhaps even who the general was. It was a successful theme night.
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Relaxing
I felt mighty relaxed, as I sat on my porch today. No sounds from neighbors, as there are no neighbors. The boys were in the field, flying their kite. One dog was sound asleep, at my feet, and the other dog was chasing frogs in the pond. Both of the dogs were enjoying country life. As was I. So peaceful and beautiful.
We had another vacation theme night today. On our second day of vacation, we'll be visiting the NFL Hall of Fame. So, we had football night. We had grilled brats, nacho (With the PERFECT concession stand style cheese), and soda. We played some football outside, and watched the NFL draft on the tv. I'm still a bit tired from the football in the yard part. I'm not the most in shape person in the world.
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Pennsylvania here we come
Last night our themed night was Scranton, with a bit of Philly thrown in. We enjoyed Philly cheese steak sandwiches, an awesome blossom with extra awesome (Office reference), and double fudge brownies (another Office thing). We then watched an episode of The Office.
It was late. That's all we had time for. We concluded our night with Spades. The game was suppose to go to 1000 points last night, as a reward for ending games early due to state testing all week long. The boys were up until 10:30 or so. We didn't quite make it to 1000. Tired boys. Tired mom.
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Ohio Night
Tonight was the first night, in a series of themed nights we will be having over the next several months. We celebrated the state of Ohio this evening. The boys made buckeyes, we had some fake White Castle burgers (because it is head quartered in Ohio), enjoyed some Ohio trivia (Beautiful Ohio is the state song, for example. Tomato juice is the state drink.) Jared lead us in an Ohio chant. No video, you'll have to use your imagination for that one. Then we watched Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations that were about Ohio. We now know we just HAVE to go see the large picnic basket.
We're all pumped now! Ohio here we come!
*Don't worry, Alex got a burger too.
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Vacation preparation
We missed vacation last year. We did get to go to Lake of the Ozarks, and a touristy Kansas City trip, but our big vacation was canceled, due to us moving.
This year, we're not missing it. We're planning on going to the NFL Hall of Fame, Hershey Park, Cuyahoga National Park, Scranton (where The Office is!), Philadelphia, Valley Forge, Mammoth Cave National Park, Shenandoah National Park, and just today, we decided to add Hilton Head, SC. It will take us about 1 1/2 weeks. Most of our hotels are already paid for. We're going to camp at some of the spots. We'll eat out of a cooler. We are masters of frugal vacations.
We took a walk this evening, starting the process of getting our bodies ready for fun fun fun times. We also will start having themed Friday nights, based around our trip. You will just have to wait and see what those entail. The first one will be this Friday.
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