Raising Them Up: Williamsburg, VA

We just returned home from a whirlwind of a weekend getaway to Williamsburg, VA. B and I took the kids on a much needed escape from real life - just for 2 days (and 2 LONG nights). Truthfully, I was a little sad that we had neither the time nor the money to go on a week long vacation to the beach, but as it turns out, God has it all planned just perfectly. We were very ready to come home after the second day of little sleep and cramped quarters. :-)

First on our agenda was to drive to Williamsburg and check into our one bedroom suite. See, we figured if we had a separate bedroom to put the kids to bed in, then they would go to sleep and we could stay up in the living room and watch TV (thus avoiding having to go to bed ourselves at 7pm). Oh, how that ended up being wishful thinking! The kids were still up at 9:15 and refused to go to sleep unless we went to bed too.

After checking in to the hotel, we headed in to Williamsburg to check out the downtown area. It was really awesome to see the old historic buildings and to imagine what it would have been like to live on the main street. The actors all dressed in colonial clothes were cool to see and then the Fife and Drum show was entertaining as well. The kids were afraid of the loud gunshots from the Colonial militia and Army though. Oh well. I guess they are a little too young to understand what was going on, haha.

After a late night in the hotel on Friday night, we were off to Busch Gardens on Saturday morning. The weather was PERFECT and we were all set for a great day. I can't help but give credit where credit is due...thanks to Busch Gardens for inviting us to your park and giving us a day full of family fun with your Here's to the Heros program. We wouldn't have been able to go here without this blessing!

Saying that we had a fun day would be an understatement. We had a ball! Getting there early was great since we got to ride a lot of rides before the holiday weekend crowds built up. I was amazed at how organized the park was and how many rides they had for young children. Both our kids had a blast all day long. We completely wore our little man out and by the end of the day, he was perfectly content to lay shirtless in the shade of the stroller. After a full 6 hours inside the park, and the crowds beginning to become rather unbearable, we decided to head back to the hotel for a quick clean-up and some rest. D got a 30 minute power nap and both kids got a bath before we went out to dinner and then did a little shopping at the Yankee Candle Village and the outlet mall for some shoes.

By the end of this day, all 4 of us were completely exhausted and ready for a nice night's rest :-)

Only to be woken up at 5am by the fire alarm in our hotel. I lay there with D sleeping soundly next to me (we gave up on the pack n' play sometime during the night after rocking D no less than 10 times to get him to stay asleep) just praying that the loud sound I was hearing was NOT what I suspected it was. But after B got up and went out in the hallway, it was clear. It was the fire alarm and the whole hotel was evacuating. AHHH!

I jumped up, found my glasses and did a quick unsuccessful in-the-dark search for my bra, before giving up and realized that I was going to have to go outside braless. Not shirtless...just braless. I found my flip flops as B found his shoes and slipped on a shirt. At this point we still had no idea if this was a real fire or a poorly planned fire drill, so we were hurrying as quickly as possible. B grabbed our phones and his wallet (notice how I didn't say, "room key") as we ran into the bedroom and each scooped up a limp sleeping child. As we headed out the door and down 4 flights of stairs we were joined with all the other pajama-clad hotel patrons. Quite a sight! We waited outside for about 25 minutes before being allowed to return inside after the fire department cleared whatever set the alarm off on the second floor. We were all grateful that it wasn't a real fire, but now our day was set off very early.

Most people probably came back in an went back to sleep. Not us! D was up and ready to go for breakfast and juice and a full day of adventure. C however, crawled right back in bed and slept for about an hour and half! B and I watched her sleep with envy...oh how I wish I could have slept instead of being up with Mr. Crabby Pants (our son!) at 6am. On vacation.

Either way, we still had a great 4th of July downtown in Williamsburg before we headed back home. We saw "some" of a great show (from a distance since the kids were still afraid of the gunshots), ate lunch a a cute cafe, wandered all around the town, and then finished off with some ice cream. D fell asleep in the stroller and then stayed asleep through a diaper change and a transfer to the car seat, He then slept for 2 hours, woke up, and then fell back asleep for another hour. He was making up for all the lost sleep he missed over the whole weekend.

B and I have yet to make up for all the lost sleep. I am SO glad we did this wonderful vacation though. I had tons of fun, and we made so many great memories! I hope you enjoy seeing a few of our pictures as much as we enjoyed living them!

We made it to Williamsburg on Friday afternoon.