Howard County Fair

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is nearly a novel. But as I'm tired and want to go to bed, I think we'll just present a mostly visual tour of the Howard County Fair - I went with three different old friends and their respective kids, so we had one 17 year old boy, one nearly 13 year old girl, three 10 & 11 YO girls, three 7&8 YO boys and one 6 YO girl... And of course a handful of adults (5).















There were rides.



There was junk food (no one actually ate one of these, though between us we did eat hot dogs, pizza, bratwurst, chicken nuggets, funnel cakes, popcorn, caramel apples, candy floss, lemonade and a Philly cheese steak).





There were mutant vegetables.





There were handcrafts, including quilts.

















There were more rides.



No one got lost or sick; no one won a giant stuffed Spongebob or a goldfish; no one ended up having to wear a Republican election campaign sticker; it was, all in all, a successful outing.

Sunday...

Pancakes were eaten...



(International House of Pancakes)



Markets were browsed (French Market, Ellicott City)



Bubbles blown (Forget me not Factory, Ellicott City)



Cabooses examined (B&O Museum)



Fire engines admired (Firehouse Museum)



Chinese Checkers played (set courtesy of Mumbles and Squeaks - one of my favourite toy shops anywhere - and not just because the owner and I chatted about living in the UK and he gave us 10 per cent off - it's just such a treasure trove!)

Virginia Beach

Yesterday (Thursday) we headed down to Virginia Beach to have a look at the ocean - it was really, really hot - 100 degrees F - so those of us who weren't in the water the whole hour we were at the beach were really hot and got tired of being at the beach quite quickly. The kids (including the big male ones we had with us) had a good time, though!



As you can tell, the beach was fairly packed.



Given the heat, we had arranged to meet Susan and the kids at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach - which is a great museum. Here's Kevin admiring some seals in the tank outside...




Sarah and Kevin are checking out the long pointy fish (some sort of gar?)



Olivia, Brenda and Alex popped up into the viewing place to look for the Komodo dragon, which was off in a corner digging...



There was one of those tunnels you could walk through where the fish all swim around and above.



And a big tank where you could pet the rays - here's Brenda trying to reach one.



A big shark tank - and a sea turtle one as well, though no photo of that!



There's also a second pavillion to look at, which is great, although walking from one to the other in the (still almost 100 degree) heat was a bit awful. There were some nice seahorses, though.



After all that tourist stuff, we had one last dinner with Grandpa Andy before heading for home (in a thunderstorm). A really nice road trip!

Busch Gardens

Even from the carpark we knew it was going to be a fun day.. I gotta say, the ideal way to go to a big themepark is to a)be related to someone who works there so you can get free tickets in the first place and then b)go on a day where it's a little rainy in the morning, so lots of day trippers decide to do something else...



My brother and SIL took the girls off with them to ride big rides and do stuff (easier than trying to keep a party of 9 people together anyway) while Geoff, Mom, Andy and I took Alex around and went on some smaller rides - though Andy and I (and sometimes Geoff) went on some roller coasters. Andy used to work on this train, not driving it, but doing the loading and unloading of the passengers, etc, though now he works elsewhere in the park.



This is two different roller coasters, crossing each other. The Alpengeist, which is a hanging coaster, which I loved (my favourite kind of coaster) and the Gryphon, which I chickened out of because it had a 90 degree drop on it. My girls went on, though - twice!



Alex went on an airplane ride...



We watched a wolf show.

And there were lots other things that we did, too, of course. We topped the day off by going over to my (other) SIL's house to visit - she cooked ribs and corn on the cob, potato salad, etc - yum! Unfortunately, my stepbrother wasn't home as he's still out at sea for a few more weeks (he's in the Navy) but we did visit with Susan and the kids, which was great.

Road trip!

On Tuesday (blogging several days after the fact, as we had no internet connection while away - though my SIL did offer to let me check email at her place - if we'd been there another day, I think I would have had to succumb) we drove down to Hampton, Virginia, which is where my stepdad (technically my former stepdad, which is why he doesn't live in the same place as my mother - I know it's confusing) lives, as well as my stepbrother and his family. Andy (my stepdad) has a friend with a beach house, who kindly let us use it for free, which was great as there were quite a few of us and Andy's house isn't that big. Here are the kids on the beach which was 3 minutes walk from the house - this beach is on the Chesapeake Bay, not the ocean, but it was a lovely beach, so who's counting!









The house also had one of those great screen porches - although it wasn't really cool enough to be out there all the time - but at least we got to use it in the morning and the evening...

More DC

My sister-in-law, Christine (second from right), has never been to DC before, so we all trouped down to have a look at monuments and stuff. Obviously, we didn't see it all, but we did look at a lot of monuments. And stuff.



This is the World War II monument, which I'd never seen in person before,



And of course the Lincoln Memorial, which I had seen...





And the Korean War memorial, which I hadn't.



We also popped into the American history museum briefly, to check out the flag, and a few other important cultural items like the Big Dollhouse,



The Ruby Slippers,



and Kermit the Frog.



And here are Sarah and Alex on an old El (Chicago) train. Cool beans.