End of March

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

While visiting my grandparents in eastern Virginia, we took 1 day to visit George Washington Birthplace National Monument, only about an hour & 1/2 away. 

I have driven past this park so many times before, as it is between one set of granparent's and another in Washington D.C.  I remember stopping here with dad, Josh, and maybe JD a long time ago, and on our last trip to VA Sarah, Jackson and I stopped, but in each of those cases it was only a short picnic stop. So, we definitely wanted to come back, visit the whole place, and check it off our list. 

This is a beautiful, small park in the rural, "Northern Neck" region of coastal Virginia.  I've written before about how much I love this area - it's not only beautiful and maintaining its rural character, but it is just about the "oldest" portion of our country, and is just oozing with history.  Within a 30 mile radius of this park, you also have the birthplaces of George Washington's mother, James Madison, Robert E. Lee, and so many others.  So manyof the Founding Fathers and signers of the Declaration of Independance lived in this area. 

We first went into the museum/interpretive center, where they have some very nice displays and exhibits.  As you might expect, they had lots of artifacts collected on sight.  They also had a video which was good, but Jackson was getting rammy so I didn't get to see the whole thing.

From the museum, you take a short, but pretty walk allong a path to see the actual buildings.  They have guided walks through each of the buildings every hour.  This was very interesting. 

The white house on the left is a reproduced kitchen, and the house in the backround is a reproduciton period house.  There's a long story about this, but essentially multiple groups for decades went back and forth over where exactly the house stood, and just after they finally settled on the location you see there, and actually completed construction, archaeologists found the original foundation, outlined in white stone in the foreground.

When you visit, you can certainly see why they chose this spot - its situated on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River on 1 side, and a creek (what many folks might call a slew) on the other.  You can just imagine how productive those waters used to be. 

My dream kitchen.

I just loved this beautiful tree.

Much of the park is a period working farm.  They had chickens, free ranging sheep, pigs, horses, etc.

We're not farmers yet, so Jackson got scared when these chickens suddenly flew.

There was lots of sheep poop around, so Jackson quickly learned the word "poopoo" and how to identify it.  He then proceeded to stop, point, and yell "poopoo!" at every pile until we acknowledged, "yes, Jackson, poopoo" on our long walk back to the museum.

We had a great time here.  It's a beautiful park and well worh the effort to get here.

Another Good Review

I'll get back to more posts as soon as I can, but in the mean time I came across yet another good review of Sarah's book!  Check it out for yourself here: http://vdeliz.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-bringing-down-high-blood.html

Alaska Trip - Day 8 (August 23, 2009)

Yes, I know how long it's been.  We've been so busy.  Too busy.  I'll just pick up where  left off and try to catch up over the next week or so since I have some time off.

Don't forget about Sarah's book, which you can pre-order (for a significant discount) here: http://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Down-High-Blood-Pressure/dp/1590771591/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261620016&sr=8-1

Also don't forget that this new version of blogger still doesn't allow me to upload video, so be sure tocome back later to these last serval posts once I'm able to upload them.

Today the weather continued to be kind of crappy - misty/drizzly with low hanging overcast skies.  Ed and Jeanette wanted to go White Water Rafting, and we did too, but it wasn't a good idea with Sarah being knocked up and all.  So, we dropped them off at the rfting company headquarters, then went back to the Denali NP "village", where they have a general store, showers, etc.  We each took much needed showers, and felt much better afterwards. 

Then we went back into town to check out the sites.  There were a lot of nice littel stores with unique things, but unfortunately, most of the stores were tourist traps filled with the exact same tainted "Made in China" crap as almost every other store on the strip.  The nice stores were a bit expensive, and we only splurged on a nice glass bowl. 

Sarah was shopping too long.

There were also some cool-looking places to eat in town, and Ed and I sampled some sausages - reindeer and something else, like musk ox or moose, or something.  Doesn't really matter - they were both good.

Ed and Jeanette had a great time rafting, but said they were freezing. 

On the way back into the park this afternoon we stopped at the other very nice park entrance sign to take pictures, and then saw thise cow moose fairly close to the road. 

Once we got back to camp, there was still plenty of daylight left, so we drove on the park road as far as you could go, which is only a couple miles farther in beyond our campsite.  We walked around there for a short while, and again around our camp site, but the weather was dreary, cold, and we were getting close to dinner time.  While we were walking we made a decision about the rest of the trip.  As much as we hated leaving the beautiful park after only seeing such a small part of it, we decided we'd get a lot more out of our trip if we drove the next day to Fairbanks, a few hours farther North in the Alaskan interior, than if we spent another day in dreary & wet conditions here in Denali, and that is what the weather was supposed to be like. 

I don't really remember this, but apparently we had a ramen noodle eating contest for dinner.  Looks like Jeanette won. 

Bringing Blood Pressure Down

Everyone,

  Sarah is now officially a published author.  She co-authored a book on blood prossure that will be coming out in early 2010.  You can read a good review of the book here: http://www.seo-writer.com/writers/

You can purchase the book just about anywhere, as you know, but if you pre-order it on Amazon.com (link below), you'll save a good bit of money.

http://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Down-High-Blood-Pressure/dp/1590771591/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251591231&sr=8-1

Please pass the word to you friends, family, and colleagues. We're very excited about this.  Thanks,

Jason

 
 
 

Sarah and Jackson in Birmingham

We couln't take Jackson to Alaska with us, so we left him with mom in Birmingham. I was pretty nervous about this, as was she. It's been a long time since she was around a baby and I know I'm ready to pull my hair out after 2 days alone with him. He's a great baby - it's just a lot! Anyway, here are some pictures from that trip.

Ok, this is still in our house in Philly, but just right before they left. He wasn't giving people hgs yet, but he had just started hugging Lincoln a lot.

He loves his new truck.

He loves his granny, too.