To the Beach and Back!

We have safely returned from our travels! We had a wonderful week away visiting with friends and family. Here's a recap of our week.
We set out early Saturday morning for Jen and Mario's house in VA. Pennsylvania is never a thrill, in my opinion. It seems to take forever to drive through and the ups/downs/turns can make even the best rider car sick. The roads in some areas were snow covered so travel was a bit slow but we did make it through. We enjoyed a nice supper and time to visit in the evening. Jennifer has been bitten by the stamping bug so there was fun stuff to talk about, Mario just rolled his eyes! Sunday we headed for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in VA. WOW!! It was stuffed with cool planes, gliders, space stuff and more. There were planes suspended from the ceiling so every turn had something new to look at. Greg actually got choked up at the sight of the SR-71! We saw the Enola Gay, a Concord jet, early helicopters and military planes. I was amazed at what the human mind can conceive! That someone designed some of these early flying machines and then was daring enough to test them out boggles my mind, lol!
Here is a collage of some of our visit to the museum. Click on the photo to get a bigger view.

Early Monday morning we set out for our final destination...the Viele's house in Myrtle Beach. I will say that they boys were such troopers in the car. Those video players are worth their weight in gold! No fighting or arguing the whole way. It was so good to see Mike, Elissa and the kids. They are growing up so fast! We moved here before they moved south so it didn't really hit me that they lived there until we saw it for ourselves. It is such a great house and they were so gracious to give us their bedroom for our visit! We didn't go with any plans so it was nice to relax without an agenda. We went to the beach twice and one afternoon we visited the aquarium. They had some cool fish there. We all had a chance to touch a stingray and Greg and Josh held a horseshoe crab. Again, I was amazed at God's creation! The sea is just filled with interesting (and some ugly) creatures. We enjoyed a great seafood meal on the inlet...yummy hush puppies! We stayed up late playing dominoes. We laughed and played and just spent time together. Wonderful! Below is a collage of our visit.

We took a ton of pictures but I was so disappointed when I got home and realized we didn't take any of Jen and Mario or Mike and Elissa! What were we thinking??
Here is a photo Elissa took at dinner Thursday night.

This photo looks like it was taken outside, but it was actually inside the aquarium. Aren't my guys good lookin'?

At one point on our drive, Greg and I commented how glad we were to actually be following through on our trip. So often we dream up plans and don't follow through due to money, time or some other reason. But not this time. What a blessed time it was!