Post Vacation

Our vacation this year was one of the best. We saw and did so much in just 2.5 weeks, even with a minor delay (the breakdown). It was quite fun even spending the night in the Autozone parking lot. A wonderful couple stopped and helped us on Sunday morning. They were on their way home from church and saw the kids running around outside (and saw us the night before) so figured we were broke down. They drove Mike to every automotive store in town and no one had the parts we needed. Mike ended up bleeding the brakes thinking maybe something just got stuck in the master cylinder. Well, that seemed to do the trick. I was so worried about getting the RV back home and the cost of towing it from PA. Mike decided we were only 3 hours from Hershey, PA so we would try it. Someone was watching over us...we made it and continued each day on our trip. The ride home took us 23 hours (well, more with the traffic in CT, that was crazy!). We made it with no problems.

We learned so much on our journey. It was great to be able to add the hours of educational stuff to our homeschooling hours. I can tell Nico did retain a lot of information as he still talks about some of the things and is now able to picture the things in his mind as we started back up on our lessons this week.

I cannot pick one favorite thing as it was all great. Each place had something special about it. The most special though, was visiting these places with my children and fiance. It brought back so many memories of when I was a kid and we went RVing for two weeks. There is no way we could have done all we did by flying at the amount we spent.

Luca absorbed so many new words (and no not curse words :-) by being with us all day and NO TV!!! (only DVD's while we were driving). He is speaking with 4-5 words sentences and clearly gets his point across now. We will begin weaning off the TV viewing at home while I am working with Nico and getting Luca to sit in the classroom and work on things as well. Yesterday he spent 1/2 hour doing puzzles and another 20 minutes stringing beads. He really doesn't watch that much TV and is home with me all day, but the time closer together made a big difference. It was hard to leave them again and go back to work.

I wish Brian could have traveled with us. He was recovering from his second jaw surgery (which went very well.) Here we are on Pennsylvania Ave. with the Capitol building behind us.

I took over 900 photos! I will be busy scrapbooking soon I hope! Here are only 4 of the photos. By camera or camera lens needs a serious cleaning. Every photo needs to be edited. I will pick 4 of my favorites and use them to decorate the house with. We like to use our own photos instead of spending a fortune on some beach scene we have never been to.

Nico took this one of Mike and me at Plymouth Bay.

These two photos are of us at the Gettysburg Battle Field. It gave me goose bumps as we drove through here. We took a guided tour. It was very informational and taught me more than I ever learned in school.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. We are off to Santa Clause, Indiana for three fun filled days of amusement park!!!