Hitting the Road for Spring Break

Yesterday the kids and I hit the road for Williamsburg, VA for a mini-spring break vacation. It was a long drive, but we managed to visit the Virginia Air & Space Museum for a couple hours before they closed. It was fun and the kids enjoyed it. In additional to the planes and space stuff they had a “Grossology” exhibit all about the human body (burping, farting, sneezing, coughing, body odor, etc.). On the other hand, I was happy to see a life-size section of an A-6 plane, which is the plane my father flew in Vietnam.

Once done there we drove to the hotel and checked in. I did my now-standard check of the bedbug registry in order to find a good hotel. Our room is nice, but CootieGirl is obviously used to better accommodation because upon entering the room she wrinkled her nose disapprovingly and said, “Uh, where’s the KITCHEN?”

We chilled for a few minutes and then headed out to get some dinner. After some searching on Yelp, we opted for Food for Thought which was only a few minutes from the hotel. The reviews were right on target – it was a good meal for a good price, and the kids ate every bite. That’s rare for them to do, so I knew that 1) they were hungry and 2) the food was good.

Then it was back to the hotel for the night. By now it was 9:30 p.m. so I had the kids get ready for bed. We watched the tail end of an episode of Extreme Couponing on TLC about a woman who got $1100 of groceries for about $0.00. Yep, you read that right. INSANE. She bought something like 100 bottles of pain reliever. Getting groceries is her job now – she spends 30-35 hours a week working on couponing. I think that’s crazy, but the good news is that she gives a lot of those groceries to charity, so it’s not like she’s creating some wacky “Blast from the Past” bomb shelter with enough groceries to last a couple decades of post nuclear bomb survival.

We got a good night’s sleep (well, THEY did – at some point CootieBoy had pushed me so far over to the edge of the bed that my head was not-so-comfortably resting on the night stand next to the bed. I’m hoping sleeping with CootieGirl tonight will result in happier rest for me). This morning we have enjoyed breakfast here in the hotel, and will be leaving in about 10 minutes to go visit Colonial Williamsburg, which is less than a mile away. I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk the kids into getting in costume, but I have a feeling they’ll really enjoy the experience. I know I will – I’ve been listening to Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington and am happy that I’ll be able to visit the area where so much of Washington’s political career got started!

Tomorrow we’ll be hitting up the Jamestown Settlement which is also nearby, before heading up to Marmie & Pop’s for Easter weekend. We plan on celebrating CootieGirl’s birthday (and Denis’s) while we’re there as well. All in all I’d say it’ll be a fun vacation for the kids! Hopefully I’ll feel the same way when all is said and done. *lol*