Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Spring Break Part 2: From Ohio to Pennsylvania to Maryland to Virginia

Let's start with a weather rant.

It snowed on April 18th in OH and PA.

The middle of April.

I mean, come on.

And the GPS took us the "fastest" route through the most mountainous highway I've ever been on.  We could smell the brakes on our big Ford Transit burning up.  It was actually quite scary for an hour.  We must remember that the fastest route isn't always the best route.  Life lesson.



On Easter Monday, we drove from Ohio to Pennsylvania to visit with Phil's brother Bob and his family.  My sister-in-law, Larisa, is my hero, having naturally birthed eight children and she homeschools them all from preschool through high school.  Me?  I'm over here getting epidurals and cursing my kids' Catholic schools for every homework assignment and project I need to assist with.  Saint Colleen I am not.  But we do have a lot of fun hanging out, despite our differences in child bearing and rearing.  We dream of living near each other one day, but for now it's family vacations and events that bring us together.  We stayed cozy inside with lots of food and games.  Look at all those kin created by two brothers...


The two college kids were missing, so we *only* had 13 children between us.

We took the kids bowling and out for ice cream and had such a nice time staying with them for a night.

The next day we drove back to Maryland, and got to spend time with Phil's sister Kelly and her kiddos (yes we both come from big families and have tons of nephews and nieces and yes it's super chaotic and super fun!).  Kelly's family got a mini goldendoodle and we have a regular goldendoodle and though I love our Lucy, is there anything cuter than a mini puppy?  Again, no photos because I was enjoying the family time too much.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

On Wednesday morning we packed up the car and headed to Williamsburg, Virginia!  We hit the local Publix (Maggie said it was the nicest grocery store she has ever seen!) and checked into our four-bedroom condo, which was actually two connecting two-bedroom condos, and the space was lovely:



Some of us enjoyed the master tub:


And some of us enjoyed the pool (both indoor and outdoor) and hot tub: 



Then we drove to Colonial Williamsburg and walked all around in the warm and welcomed sunshine.  The College of William and Mary is right next to historic Williamsburg and we couldn't get over the beautiful campus.  Virginia is for Lovers, and we all loved Virginia.  I'll let the pictures do the talking...























Next up... Busch Gardens!

12 comments:

  1. What an amazing trip!! Just our kind of fun, visiting with family (our guys have tons of cousins, too, all over the country!). So glad you got to enjoy some time in our beautiful adopted home state, VA. ❤️

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    1. Colleen, this comment was actually from me! For some reason I had logging in to comment. (Still a tech newbie here!)

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    2. I gigured as much from your "adopted home state" comment :) Virginia really is gorgeous!!

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  2. This looks like so much fun. That condo is swanky and being outside wandering around in the sunshine seems perfect to me. I'm glad y'all got to do this.

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    1. Thank you, it was much needed and enjoyed :)

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  3. Such fun. The wide range of weather must've made packing challenging. You are just as much a rock star as your sister in law. We all have our strengths, personally pain tolerance isn't one of mine so I was all about the epidural. t's great that you get along so well. We did Williamsburg years ago and really enjoyed it. Laughing that Maggie commented on the grocery store.

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    1. Williamsburg is so beautiful and has so much to do! I would definitely stay in the same condo again, not too expensive for the space and amenities we had. I've had three natural births and four with epidurals, and there are definitely pros and cons of both, but I tend to lean on side epidural the more babies I had!

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  4. Wow! You had a great trip. I am about to go hit part 1 but I am so excited you had time together as a family and got to see more family!

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  5. Looks like a great vacation! We had snow here as well (it's melted mostly now).

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    1. It's crazy! Though maybe a little more expected where you are :)

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  6. Hey Queen-Love the fun family photos. Snow in April should be against the law! You guys really know how to pack in a family trip with lots of stops/visits. I can't even imagine all the planning that goes into a trip with that many people; I have a hard time planning for just the two (now) of us.

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    1. That's Queen Colleen to you. Kidding, kidding! We actually didn't pack as smart as we should have because we had to drag everyone's luggage out of the car at each stop. We should have brought an overnight bag and packed it, and repacked it, with what we needed each night. Oh well, you live, you learn!

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