4th of July with Gretchen and work on her basement

We spent the 4th of July weekend at Gretchen's house. On the 4th she had a party with a bunch of friends, some of who we had not met. After the party we all went to fireworks in Blacksburg. They put on a great show. Jean and I had not been to any fireworks for years.

On Saturday and Sunday we worked on Gretchen's basement. She is finishing the basement with a den, bedroom, full bath and laundry/mud room. Our tasks for the days was to put the cable TV cable and the telephone lines in. This involved pulling wires over walls, through beams and studs etc. etc. We got them all in. Only putting the wires in the boxes remains.

Next came finishing the last electric circuits, connecting to the breaker box and testing a three switch circuit (Gretchen got it to work after a few wire changes). She has far more skill with wiring than John.

We had a great time, got a lot accomplished and had fun with Mason too.

Baby sitting the grandsons

We had a great week at Jill's house baby sitting Colin and Ryan. Dave was out of town training and Jill went to St. Louis for a Sports Medicine Conference for 5 days. What a treat for us.

Besides having the boys to ourselves and all that comes with a 3 3/4 year old and a 17 month old we had some away from home adventures too.

We took Colin to gymnastics and Ryan to The Little Gym. They both really like the fun and it was fun to see their level of coordination (or lack there of).

You can't be near the beach and not go there, so we all went to Back Bay Wildlife Refuge which is on a barrier island south of Virginia Beach. We had fun on the bay side looking for birds and bugs. The ocean side is great in that there is a great beach with nearly nobody on it. We all enjoyed digging in the sand, checking out the hundreds of little clams and the birds.

Next is was on to the Children's Museum in Portsmouth. This is one place that we go nearly everytime we go to visit. There is lots of hands on things as well as trains to play with and a great model train collection and layouts. After the museum we took a ferry ride from Portsmouth to Norfolk. We passed huge dry docks and a tall master boat. We then had lunch at a park in Old Town. Great fun.

All the fun was not away from home as one afternoon great play with Grandma on the deck with play dough.

This was the first time Jill had been gone for more than one night away from the boys and our first time baby sitting for more than one night. It was great!!! :)

Shenandoah National Park

In May we spent 4 days in western Virginia in and around Shenandoah National Park. We had the opportunity to stay at our time share for a few days which is nearby. Our goal was to do some hiking in the park and also to take some pictures. The hiking is great but every trail begins on the top of Skyline Drive (on the ridgeline) so the last half of the hike is uphill to your car. We had good weather and were able to get some good pictures.