Children's Museum of Virginia

We had a busy and fun weekend. On Saturday we went to the Children's Museum of Virginia. It wasn't really worth the price, but it did keep Joey occupied for a while.
And Earl too, apparently.

They had a massive collection of trains and tracks. They had these bubbles that you could go into and be inside the train track. Joey loved them.

His favorite part was the bubbles section. He got to stand inside while his Dad made a bubble around him, so he was inside a bubble.

They had this little kid town set up, with a bank, market, bus, firetruck, motorcycle, doctor/dentist office where they got to go in and play pretend.

Summer's End

I'm bummed that summer is almost over. Last Tuesday, we were lucky enough to work out a day where Angela and her girls, our friends from Camp Lejeune, who now live in Quantico, VA, could meet us at a beach in between our cities. Well, it was a much longer drive for them. We missed them so much and are so happy we had a chance to catch up and enjoy the beach, one of our favorite things to do together back at Lejeune.

This particular beach we went to was called Buckroe Beach in Hampton, VA. It has a playground right behind the beach, so that was handy. Joey loved that more than the beach, actually.

These pictures are out of order, but I'm having trouble moving them around here on Blogger today, so they'll have to stay that way. This is the kids after showers and a change of clothes. We spent all day at the beach. We left around 5:30 that afternoon.

Adison, Joey and Allie.

One of the playground toys.

Me and Angela.

The kids picked up as though they've never spent a day apart. They moved from Lejeune before us, in Feb. I think, so it's been a long while since we've seen them.

The playground from our spot on the beach.

It wasn't very crowded at all. This beach rents paddle boats and kayaks, too, but we didn't do that.

Joey's swimming trunks were a little big around the waist, so he was constantly mooning people without meaning to.

Wrapped up before the showers.

Yesterday, Joey and I found a couple playgrounds nearby to try out.

This was at the first one, but it was pretty small. But another little girl showed up and Joey and her started playing together right away.

Then we headed to the city park, which was much bigger (and much less shaded...so hot).

This was the area Joey was running to when he tripped and fell right there on the concrete sidewalk. Joey trips and falls alot, and has always had a knack for putting punk knots on his head, but this bump on the head was so loud, it seemed to echo in the trees around us. It scared me pretty bad. I've never heard a sound like that. Poor guy. He didn't cry for long, but I took him to the doctor's office just to get him checked out and make sure he was really okay. And he was. Whew.

Joey can now write his name. Well, the Y in Joey ends up looking like a T, but the JOE are unmistakeable. He's really getting there! He starts preschool on Sept 9th, and his first soccer practice is that same night. We're going to have a blast this fall. He'll have 1 practice a week, then a game almost every saturday. Can't wait to post pictures of him in action. :)

Sweet Sleeping and a Water Park

Joey rarely falls asleep watching TV or laying/sitting around the house, so when he does, it's so funny, I can't seem to stop taking pictures of it.

Look at those lashes! I want to gobble up his cheeks too.

Earl tried to trim up his hair, around his ears and stuff, but Joey refused. He says he likes it long.

There in the corner of the chair is his beloved toy hamster. It usually stays in it's ball, but I guess he was letting it out for a few minutes.

There are a few water parks here, but unfortunately there's only a couple weeks left of the season before they all close down. So I plan to visit as much as possible this month to make up for being away from water all summer while we were waiting for the house to sell. At this park, called Gator Water Park on one of the bases around here (called Little Creek), the kids can't wear their own floatation devices, they have to use life jackets if they can't swim yet.

This is one half of the park. This is where Joey and I spent our time because the slides are much smaller. It only cost $5 each to get in here.

At the end of every hour, for 15 minutes, they have adult swim. So the kids all go to the baby pool.

I couldn't actually take pics of Joey sliding or in the big water, because I had to be in there with him. But the blue slide above Joey loved.

This boat slide was very very slow, for tiny kids. That, and the fact that Joey only weighs 26.6 lbs meant he had to scoot down it. But he loved it. He spent most of his time in the back of it, playing with the boat props.

This log slide was much bigger and faster and he went over and over again.

This useless "eflant" squirts a very small stream of water into the pool. It's not a cool, misting spray, it's a painful stream of water.

Baby pool.

Getting tired...just hanging out at the drain lid.

Joey's on the right, at the drain lid. Also, the baby pool smelled a lot like urine. Yuck.

Maybe we'll try a new water park tomorrow--there's at least 2 others that I know of.

Motor World

There's a small amusement park here called Motor World (because it's mostly go-karts). But there's a small selection of things Joey-sized kids can do. We didn't know how the weather would hold out today, so we went there instead of a water park, which was our first plan.
Joey loved the bumper boats--not because he loved boating, or bumping, but because there was a sprayer of water that he loved making Earl drive him under to get wet.

They have these kiddie go-karts (Joey calls "Go Cars") that go in a circle, and the kids can steer to make them go right and left. Joey loved making it go all the way left and "bang" in inside bars.

They didn't have to press the gas or anything, just steer if they want and enjoy the ride. The park is mostly for older kids, so the kiddie parts were pretty empty. (But way overpriced! $6 per itsy bitsy ride!!) But Joey had a blast, so it was worth it. I bet you can imagine what it was like trying to drag him away from there.

Boating, with a bell that really worked!

This says it was for 36", but he was having to hold on tight because nothing kept him snug in that seat and it went pretty fast.

Earl rode the roller coaster with Joey, even though Joey would have been fine without it. The bigger kids behind them were terrified the whole time. Joey just laughed and threw up his hands.

He had a yummy strawberry milkshake with lots of whipped cream for the ride home. It was a fun day! Maybe tomorrow we can do a water park!

Some of the funny things Joey says now: He usually "definitely" in sentences now (and uses it correctly!--"It's definitely raining mom!"). He still says "aminals," instead of animals and I can't bring myself to correct him, it's so cute. And elephants are "eflants" to him. He loves to draw--mostly the same things over and over: a smiley face with 2 legs coming from it and says it's either him, or mommy when she was a little girl, or daddy. And if he puts a lot of legs on there, he says its an "optotus" (instead of octopus).