Shenandoah Mountains continued

One night the kids all helped make dessert. The recipe said to use Brownie Bites but we made brownies and they wouldn't stay on the stick so we improvised. Most had caramel sauce but some had chocolate sauce.

When we finished, Grandpa began drawing on oldest grandson's plate.

Then everyone decided to help or take pictures.

On the last full day, we had a treasure hunt - actually two treasure hunts that joined at the end. This is one team working out a clue

and this is the other team working on a clue.

The last clue was to see Grandpa. He gave each of the five kids a Wackie Wordie to figure out. Then they had to figure out a coded message that said to tell Grandpa the theme of all 5 Wackie Wordies. 

Finally they got the treasure which was wrapped in lots of Saran Wrap. So we all sat on the floor and played the unwrap the Saran Wrap ball game.

I already miss you five!

 

Shenandoah Mountains

When we weren't at Bryce Resort, we found lots to do. In this picture you can see one reading and three making paper airplanes - I showed them how to make rubber band launchers.

I'm not sure how many puzzles were put together.

One day three of the kids learned about codes. This one was learning the Morse Code

and this one learned about binary and ASCII code.

There was lots of cooking and I always had helpers when I was in the kitchen. Our oldest granddaughter didn't need much guidance...

she even let her younger sister help.

One night we had a campfire and S'mores.

Ray wasn't as fast loading his Nerf gun as the grands. The gun battles eventually died down about day 4 or 5. We were there 8 days.

We decorated wooden letters. I can't believe I only got this one photo. They were all so neat! Can you see his J on the table? 

Two large gift baskets and a pie were left at our rental to welcome us. One of the baskets had glow sticks.

I woke up the last morning to find these two playing War.

Four of the kids made hot rocks. I think the other guy was watching a movie. There were lots of movies to watch.

One night most of us played Mexican Train, a fun dominoes game. It was fun to watch the kids think about their moves.

The night we had rootbeer floats, we put little umbrellas in each glass. Then people started putting the umbrellas in their hair and Grandpa really fixed this guy up!

The girls were riding with us when we went out to eat one night. It was a 20-30 minute drive to a restaurant and the older one was using my phone to take pictures of the mountains to send to her friends. Then the cute selfies began...

There was a little sewing. The two younger kids each made a jean bag.

The cooking wasn't limited to inside.

Our oldest granddaughter played her ukulele and sang for us! She doesn't sing for anyone, not even her parents. We were very honored! At that time, we were home with the two girls and everyone else was gone.

One day four of the kids went on a walk with us - we went around a block - at least a mile. There was lots of going up and down - we were in the Shenandoah Mountains - and they did great. 

We had a kid's zipline in our yard. It's near the back of the photo.

to be continued...

Bryce Resort

We had a really good time at our Basye-Bryce Mountain airbnb rental with our oldest son and his family. The kids have all grown and changed. They now range in age from 6 to 13. We spent a lot of time at Bryce Resort which was just 5 minutes away. At the resort, the kids enjoyed bungee jumping.

The 2 older boys quickly mastered back flips and then figured out front flips. One did 2 1/2 back flips!

Everyone enjoyed the chair lift.

The boys would have enjoyed the zipline course and the mountain bikes but they aren't quite big enough yet. All of the children tried the climbing wall. The two older boys were able to get to the top many times.

The grass tubing was a favorite. Sometimes the kids (and Dad and Grandpa) chained the tubes together. Three tubes were allowed to be chained and it really increased the speed.

Daddy took video on the way down.

Father (behind) and son (front) also made trips chained together.

 

The younger kids enjoyed the bounce house.

Lake Laura is also part of Bryce Resort. I think we managed to get there 3 times and the kids loved it. That is our crew on/around the raft.

to be continued...

A little downtime and more

Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday we had lots of downtime. Ray didn't feel very well so we decided to just hang out. He slept, read a little, and watched some TV. I worked on my Brioche knitting, read a book, paid bills😕, and surfed the Internet. Late in the afternoon, Ray felt some better so we drove around Strasburg a little and went to Woodbine Farm Market. Later in the evening, we took a walk around our neighborhood.

The Farm Market was great. You may recall that I love farmers' markets. We found local peaches, local sweet corn, local tomatoes, and some delicious cookies. Our noon meal today was wonderful - BLT's, salad, sweet corn, and peaches! Sorry I have no photos - guess we were hungry! Ray's stomach was fine yesterday so the cookies did not make it to today! Have you ever had shortbread cookies with raspberry filling? Wonderful!

Ray feels fine today so we headed to Winchester (about 15 miles north) right after eating lunch. Our destination was Old Town Winchester. We didn't know if shops would be open but we wanted to see the area. A few shops and a few restaurants were open and there were people around but nothing was crowded. The temperature was in the 90s.

City Hall

One of the entrances to the Pedestrian Mall

Building in Pedestrian Mall

Building in Pedestrian Mall

Pedestrian Mall

Fun on a very warm day in the Pedestrian Mall

Pedestrian Mall

Old Courthouse and Civil War Museum

Side view of the Discovery Museum

After leaving Old Town Winchester, we stopped by Apple Blossom Mall and walked around in the air-conditioning for awhile. On our way back to Strasburg  we stopped in Stephens City. I wanted to see the Cloth Peddler, a quilt shop located in a pre-Civil War home dating to around 1840. When it was built, it was a Methodist Parsonage and the backyard was used as a field hospital during the war. We were both surprised when the shop was open! One of the owners, I think Kathy, was long arm quilting. Whenever she is quilting, the shop is open in addition to the normal hours.

I found lots of beautiful fabric but limited myself to these two pieces.

Does anyone know what Missouri Star Quilt Company did with this last fabric a little while back? Cloth Peddler is having trouble keeping it in stock because of a MSQC video or pattern. 

When we got back to Strasburg, we checked out the park - the location of the fireworks tonight. There is very little parking and we can see that they plan to close some streets so we are looking for another site to watch from.

Tomorrow we will head to Basye, VA where we are meeting our oldest son and his family. We can hardly wait to see all of them!