The Family Vacation

This year we decided to take a longer family vacation. For three weeks we were away. Now you may be thinking that this was an exercise in insanity given that we took our five children (11, 9, 8, 5 & 4) back East. We visited many places and ran around with friends and family.

New York Part I

The first part of our trip took us back to Wales, NY (just outside East Aurora). This is where I grew up and where my parents live. We spent 5 days there hanging out with family, fishing in the pond, going to Lake Erie and riding the Sarasota (I know it's a golf cart).

After the time spent with family we took a couple of days to visit Niagara Falls, Palmyra, and Fayette NY. We met up with our good friends Jared and Michelle, who came up from Virginia.

You may have noticed the two handsome cutouts. They are "Flat Stanley's" of our Orthodontists. Their office was having a competition and we had to take them to these places.

Hershey PA

Next on our trip was a stop in Hershey, PA. This was roughly the halfway point between Palmyra, NY and Lexington, VA where our friends live. Of course we had to go to Hershey park and eat chocolate!

Of course no trip to Pennsylvania would be complete without a visit to Amish country.

Lexington, VA

We left PA and headed to our friends home in Lexington, VA. Here we got to mow the lawn, take a tour of Virginia Military Institute, go to a lake and relax with our friends.

We had a great time with our friends, but soon it was on to another destination.

Washington DC

We left our friends in Lexington to spend a couple of days in our nation's capitol. We visited the Air and Space Museum, the National Zoo, Ford's Theater, the Museum of Natural History, the Lincoln Memorial, the memorial to the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Washington DC Temple.

New York Part II

We left DC and drove the 7+ hours back to my parents house. 7+ hours you say? Yes, because there are really no major highways between the two places. We did take a side trip on the way back as we passed Gettysburg. We had to stop. Levi is really big into the Civil War and so we took an auto tour of the battlefield. None of us realized how big the site is. We were amazed at all the divisions that fought in this turning point battle.

We arrived about 10PM at my parents house and spent 3 days relaxing and enjoying Grandpa and Grandma's house. We even got to see a summer thunderstorm which made Cheryl and I very happy. We then boarded a plane and flew the five hours back to AZ. Hopefully our children enjoyed this time and will have many memories to draw from.

What can we do for an encore you ask? Well the day after we got home was our church camp out. So yes, we slept one night in our own beds and then went up into the wilderness to sleep in a tent. Are we crazy? Yes, yes we are.