In Richmond, school doesn't start until the Tuesday after Labor Day. So, we decided to head up to Philadelphia to see the new LDS temple during its open house. We drove up on a Friday night and got into the hotel super late. And then I remembered that our room only had one bed and I was supposed to bring sleeping bags for Sam and Afton. Oops. Fortunately, the staff was super nice and brought us some extra blankets (and a crib for Eli). I'm glad kids don't mind sleeping on floors.
Saturday morning we drove the last few miles to the city and took a tour of the temple. It was so beautiful inside and had lots of neat Philly touches like a mural of the founding fathers and a mural in the baptismal area of the Susquehanna River.
After our tour, we changed clothes and headed out to explore the city a bit. This is at the second bank in America's history.
Independence Hall. A big "thank you" to the kind mother who saw Dan taking our picture and insisted that we all be in it together. I like it when people do that.
This was about as close as we got to the Liberty Bell. The line was crazy long to go inside and see it close up.
Benjamin Franklin's grave.
Dan got an inside scoop from a colleague and Philadelphia native that Jim's is the place to go for a true Philly cheesesteak. If that's true, it is unfortunate. Mine was pretty disappointing. But Dan liked his. The stroller wouldn't fit in the restaurant so the kids and I stayed outside and I tried to divert their attention from questionable stores lining whatever street this was that we were on.
South Street maybe?
Anyway, after all that walking around and lunch, Dan and the kids (I was on a no-sugar thing) grabbed a DQ and then we drove back home. A quick trip, a beautiful temple! School started three days later.
The day after Afton's birthday, we loaded up the car and Dan came home a little bit early so that we could drive down to Atlantic Beach, NC for a family beach trip. We decided fairly last-minute to make a trip down to the same condo complex we stayed at last year - A Place at the Beach. It is just perfect for our family right now! So we headed down and got there pretty late Thursday night.
Both Friday and Saturday we spent the first half of the day at the beach. (Below: Afton and Dan watching Sam.)
Then we'd go back to the apartment for lunch and for Eli's nap. Dan would inevitably fall asleep, too. Next we'd hit up the pool for a few hours in the afternoon. Our apartment had a great view of the pool and we liked to sit out there on the deck and watch people as they went down the slide. We would try to guess whether they'd stick the landing or tip over.
Friday night we went back to the same delicious restaurant we ate at last year - Amos Mosquito's. SOOO good.
Then we came back to the beach to enjoy the sunset.
Saturday:
Sunday we attended sacrament meeting at the Morehead City ward before driving home. It was a great trip! I appreciate the simplicity of it - we basically hang out and play and eat food. Pretty low key.
I know I am way behind, but I wanted to skip ahead to this last weekend so I can write about it before I forget too much.
One of my favorite websites that I have used for finding hikes to do in Virginia/North Carolina is www.hikingupward.com. It gives great details about hikes and also ranks them on things like difficulty, views, solitude, water, etc. I was perusing it earlier this fall and saw a hike that sounded good - Stony Man, in Shenandoah National Park. Fall is obviously a beautiful time to hike in Virginia so Dan and I put our heads together to figure out how we could do it. Sam has soccer every Saturday smack dab in the middle of the day, so the only way we could work out to get hiking and still be home in time was to camp.
Dan suggested we backcountry camp. I was a little hesitant, but after trying to reserve a campsite in a typical campground and finding that they were all taken, I came around to the idea.
We left Friday around 4 and got to the trailhead of Stony Man at sunset.
We hiked in for about 3/4 of a mile and then found a campsite as it was getting dark. (Dan carried Eli in a baby hiking carrier thing, as well as some other stuff, I carried the tent and a few sleeping bags, and Sam and Afton each carried a sleeping bag and a full water bladder thing.) There were a few other campers who had taken the best spots. It was too late to really look around for a long time so we took what we could get. After we got set up, we walked a little ways away (so bears didn't come to our site) to have dinner - hot dogs.
It was getting pretty cold at this point so the kids and I all huddled up while Dan prepared dinner. After we ate, we basically just went to bed. I shared a 2-man tent with Sam, Afton, and Eli. Eli and I shared a sleeping bag. We were afraid that he would get cold otherwise. He was so hard to sleep with! He was noisy and kept moving around and I kept having to try and pull him back in. Worst night's sleep of my life. Dan slept outside the tent. Dan offered to switch with me several times, but I turned him down. Don't know what I was thinking!
The next morning we woke up bright and early, packed up some of our stuff, and hiked to the summit. We were the only ones there, which was great. The sun had just risen and the clouds were sweeping by. It was really pretty.
We headed back down to load up our gear and hike back to the car. This was where our campsite had been:
Then we drove over to the other hike for the day - Hawksbill, the tallest peak in Shenandoah (which isn't really saying much, but, you know...) It was much more steep than Stony Man and also much more crowded. Still, a beautiful view and a beautiful morning!
We drove home and got back just in time for Sam to play in his soccer game. I'm glad we were able to make a hike happen this fall. We bought a year-long pass so hopefully we can make it over there again soon!
