Spring Break 2014-Part 2

...our next stop was...

We talked about going to Jamestown and Yorktown but decided to spend our time exploring Colonial Williamsburg since the general consensus was that there was little to do at the other two locations.

We attended our church meetings at the Williamsburg Ward. Before attending, we found out that our niece, Liz had a friend from home serving her mission in the Williamsburg Ward. We made it a point to introduce ourselves to the sister missionaries. She said we looked familiar and we'd taken her home from Liz's house once, plus visited her home ward multiple times. 

I asked her companion where she was from and she said Bunkerville, NV. Well, I knew 1 person with her last name from Bunkerville...Bob. Turns out he is her DAD! He and I were in the same ward at BYU many, many, many moons ago. When she told me who her dad married, I recognized her mom's name too, also from the BYU 160th Ward. Fun to discover that I "knew" both sister missionaries. There might have been connections with the elders too, but we didn't visit with them to ask.

Of course, after the meeting ended, we took a couple snapshots with them to send to family and I emailed the one so she could share it with her parents too.

The sister from Idaho.

The one from Nevada. I'll have to go back to my old pictures so I can better seen the family resemblance.

While touring Colonial Williamsburg, listened to Patrick Henry & George Washington speak, participated in some group portrayals, learned some dances of the day, learned about the impact of slavery at the time, heard and judged some court cases, and enjoyed the warmer temperatures and sunshine. Both of us were even sent to the stocks.

Toured the barrel maker, weavers, woodworker, apothecary, church (that still holds weekly services), several homes, and the shoemaker.

We also visited the dressmaker/tailor's shop. He was so snooty that we didn't bother with any pictures of him, we were afraid that he might be offended and ruin the dress I ordered. ;)

Just outside the colonial part of Williamsburg were other shops that we strolled in and out of. There was a Scottish store with several tartan plaids. Whenever I see a store like that I go search for our family plaid. Someday I'll have a skirt made in our tartan but I have to do some saving before that becomes a reality.

The final portion of our Spring Break was spent closer to our home. My parents came to visit us at our place and we gave them the grand tour!

We headed over to Chocolate World to do some shopping for treats and take the ride that tells about the Milton S. Hershey story and how the Hershey company makes it's famous chocolate. Of course, we really took the tour for the end result, some free chocolate!

The four of us took a trolley tour that goes around town and talks about how Milton Hershey set up the town, where the factories were/are, and tells the story of the Milton Hershey School he started in 1909. Again, the information was great, but the chocolate they handed out along the way was the highlight.

One of our fellow houseparents let us take Mom and Dad into their empty student home so we could give them a better feel for how each house houses 12 students and the houseparents.

Mom and Dad stayed with us and enjoyed the view and our little farm house. Dad later told me that he thought it was a confusing layout; guess that means he needs to come back and spend more time so it feels more comfortable to him.

The last big thing we did was head over to Valley Forge and tour the historic site where the American soldiers camped for winter during the Revolutionary War. None of us had any idea what to expect and we only had a short amount of time to see everything before the park closed. We left pleasantly surprised and want to go back again.

One other thing on our agenda was go get Mom & Dad's paperwork all completed so that they can visit us again and stay with us next time. It's a requirement of the school for background checks to be done if people will be coming more than once a year. It took some doing for Dad to get his finger printing completed so the last background check could be completed. After a few attempts, we discovered that he no longer has fingerprints. Of course, we had a good time teasing him that he was really trying to hide his past from us.

It was an enjoyable few days with them and we look forward to their next visit. Hope it's sooner rather than later.

Spring Break 2014-Part 1

(Due to time and amount of info and pictures, this post will be broken up into 2 parts.)

It's been years since I've gone anywhere for spring break. When I returned to school a few years ago my break was all about working as many hours as I could. Since we had about 12 days off work, we decided to make the most of it. Without really trying, we filled our days off to the brim and had a great time.

First was a trip to Virginia Beach. Neither of us had been there but I'd heard good things from my family so I was really looking forward to it.

Dan and I trade off driving so the other can rest. I shut my eyes for a nap and woke up to our gps saying, "Turn around when possible." Uh-oh, Dan was busted. here we are, a few hours from home, and he decides to not pay attention to the gps. Not really a big deal except he wasn't using a map either. He knew we needed to get onto Delaware Highway-1 and saw Highway-1 signs for another state thinking that they would be the same. We learned that isn't the case. It wasn't too bad but funny since he gets after me for not listening to the gps when we're in places I know and he decides to ignore it when we're going somewhere new.

We selected a longer drive down to Virginia Beach to see more of the country than we would otherwise see. The drive even included time on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Not having any idea what to expect, we headed south and drove through some amazing countryside. The bay bridge-tunnel goes over the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and is just what it's called, part bridge and part tunnel.

Photo from here.

 We arrived there at night and it was a bit unnerving to drive across the bridge knowing we were surrounded by nothing but water. I don't think I breathed until we were safely on the other side of the Bay.

On the bridge section.

About to enter a tunnel section.

That's a tunnel section of the bridge from the beach side.

Glad we experienced that but not sure I'll worry about doing it again in the future.

We stayed at a great hotel a few miles from the beach, The Founder's Inn and Spa. Even though it didn't have beach access, we still liked it and enjoyed our stay there.The room was quaint, the tree outside our room window was beautiful, and the hotel was elegant and had beautiful grounds:

My expectation was to spend some time soaking up rays, stepping a toe or two into the Atlantic, and sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in. Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans, it was overcast, COLD and WINDY not conducive for relaxing on the beach at all. That meant we bundled up and tried to stay warm. Oh well, it was still fun and I got to see the Atlantic and hear the waves crashing on the sand.

Cold as it was we saw a few dedicated surfers trying to catch the waves.

These signs cracked us up. We wondered what the penalty was for using profanity but not enough curiosity to use some and find out the hard way.

Dan and his antiquated phones. All he could hear on this one was the ocean.

As we strolled around the beach, Dan struck up a conversation with some women in a booth on the pier. Of course, they weren't just hanging out, they were trying to get people to buy condos and Dan accepted an invitation to hear the pitch; it was only 90-minutes after all and we would get free stuff.

Well our 90-minute sales pitch ended up being 3-hours! Several people who started when we did and came in after us were leaving long before we were, our salesman would NOT. Shut. Up. I think he told us about each and every property the company owned in the whole WORLD! 

Of course they pulled out the book of properties and a contract ready for us to sign our lives away. Dan told them we weren't interested. Magically, the price lowered and free week offers grew. Again we said we weren't interested. The manager came and the price dropped even more with more free weeks, "it's the best we can offer." When that was refused, the manager sorted through his list of properties and magically found one even lower than what was previously offered. (With each lower offer the salesman would tell us what a great deal it was and how he'd never seen one so low.) We kept telling them "no," Dan would explain that our son was getting married in a few months and they countered with, "wouldn't it be great to give them free lodging at a resort of their choice anywhere in the world?!" (Sure it would be great but we aren't paying for them to fly to that "free" lodging and the kids can't afford it either.) Or, they would remind us that these properties can be deeded, so we can leave them as property in our wills. Our children for many generations can continue to enjoy our time share purchase. Still not interested. 

After 15-20 minutes of not being listened to, I explained that it was an amazing and tempting offer, however, we had other financial goals that needed to be accomplished before we felt comfortable taking on what they were presenting. We may leave and regret our decision to walk away, however, it is what we needed to do. FINALLY THEY ACCEPTED OUR ANSWER OF "NO!" Not sure if it was the silent one in the couple finally speaking up or that I was able to present our "no" in a manner they understood.

When we EVENTUALLY walked out the door, so did a few employees. Our salesman was persistent but certainly NOT paying attention to any verbal and non-verbal clues that we were done, ready to leave, and not interested which came out within the first 5 minutes of our being there. In fact I hit a point that the more he talked, the more determined I was to turn him down! Funniest part about it, we haven't given it another thought and don't regret our decision one bit.

One of the freebies we earned was dinner at a famous seafood buffet restaurant, Captain George's Seafood Restaurant. The restaurant was huge and could hold several hundred people at maximum capacity. It was also insanely busy, but we were able to have a "free" meal at a restaurant we probably wouldn't have chosen ourselves.

Just some of the seafood fare available at the buffet.

One of their two stained glass domed roofs. We didn't sit in either of the rooms, those must have been for the customers who purchased the properties for sale.

Another "free" gift was tickets to the Aquarium for us. We'd planned to go anyway and having the admission fee paid for was a nice bonus. We opted to do this our last day in town, so did everyone else in town. There needs to be more to do there when the weather isn't ideal. Regardless, we strolled through the exhibits and spent several hours seeing what lies under the sea.

The fish wouldn't hold still for pictures so some are fuzzy.

We have one more "free" gift, a 4-day/3-night stay at one of their properties. We haven't cashed this in yet and don't know when we will. We haven't read the fine print and are afraid our stay will somehow suck more time away from a vacation to sit through another sales pitch and end up costing us our limbs.

Before leaving the Virginia Beach area and heading to our next vacation destination, we stopped at a couple other must see items.First up, Old Cape Henry Lighthouse within Fort Story military base. After our car was searched and we were deemed safe visitors, we headed to the lighthouse.

At the base of the lighthouse is a gift shop and you can learn the history of the lighthouse from some very enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers. We paid our fee and headed up the 200+ steps to get a view from the top.

Back down we go...

...returned to the ground, safe and sound.

A few yards from the lighthouse is the Cape Henry Memorial Cross and First Landing State Park; where, in 1607, the English colonists first landed and erected a cross in gratitude for their safe journey. From a point in First Landing State Park you can capture the two lighthouses; the Old, built in 1772, which is no longer in use, and the new, built in 1881, still in use today.

After all this, it was time to leave the beach behind to turn our gps to other planned adventures elsewhere in Virginia. Our next destination was...

Does the Milk Drain Clockwise Here?

Milk is ordered for the student homes by boxes of 5 gallons. Depending on the house, it can take a little over a week for 12 students to drink a full box. However, it takes about 15 minutes to drain a full one into the sink...

(We weren't sure how long the milk had been waiting outside prior to being put back into the "cow"so we erred on the side of caution.)

A "cow." (Photo from here.)

More of April

For my birthday this year, we decided to use a one of our Joint Personal Days so that we could do what we wanted to celebrate. I decided that I wanted to go for brunch at Hershey Pantry and then drive to Washington DC to attend the Temple.

Dan let me stay home that morning and sleep in. (When we don't have to cover, only one of us has to go in for the morning portion of our schedule.) He arrived and we got ready for our outing. We did a late brunch at Hershey Pantry before heading out of town. Yum Yum!

We then got on the road. Because of the craziness of our work schedule, we get to the Temple about once every six weeks. Each time we go I take a picture of the grounds since we're capturing it seasonally. It's fun to see the changes to the landscape. Even if the trees are bare, the grounds are beautiful.

This trip was not exception to our grounds picture tradition. We decided to also take a selfie in front of the Temple. As you can see, they are not our forte.

They are all about having fun, right! At least we got a good laugh at ourselves.

The most embarrassing part is that we didn't do well with the selfies we took with our work iPad even with turning the camera to the front screen so we could see what we were doing.

Guess this one will have to do:

After completing our service in the Temple, we decided to drive into DC (hoping to miss the commute home traffic) and go to the Jefferson Memorial. Unbeknownest to us, it was smack in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Festival and we were heading straight towards all the blossoms! It was G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S.!!!

We then walked around the area and the Memorial. It was a peaceful and pleasant way to celebrate my birthday; maybe even a tradition in the making.

Dan insisted that since it was my birthday I had to be the only one in the pictures. Guess that's ok since I'm usually the one behind the camera.

The following weekend was the big Cancer Care Community Walk. It was a 24-hour relay walk sponsored by the school though anyone was welcome to attend. Several students stayed the full 24-hours and a few walked over 30 miles in that time frame.

Leading up to the walk the different student homes did unique and creative fundraisers to raise money for cancer research. Some of the ideas were bake sales, sports memorabilia auction, scrap metal recycling, car washes, t-shirts, restaurant percentages, etc. With the winners receiving dinner at a popular Amish buffet, the competition ran high.

The event started on Saturday late morning with everyone doing the first ceremonial  lap together lead by cancer survivors:

The stands then began to empty:

We held a special chapel service on Sunday to close the walk after doing the final lap together. After chapel was complete, we remained in our seats to see the preliminary final count of funds raised for cancer. Can I have a drum roll please....

That's $102,417! The most amazing parts were: (1) the fundraiser was a last minute decision and we only had about 4 weeks from start to finish. (2) The students came up with the ideas and did most of the work selling, cleaning, sorting, baking, etc. (3) The students were selling to the same population for 4 weeks straight-houseparents, students, teachers, administrators, etc. It was a remarkable and Herculean effort. The goal was $100,000 and when all was said and done the final number was closer to $120,000. What an amazing experience for everyone involved!

Spring Break then onto Summer fun!