Sesame Place/Frying Pan Park/Great Falls

After we left Utah, we had a week left in Connecticut to pack up the rest of the house and get everything moved into storage before we moved--talk about a stressful week. We were lucky enough to have Eric's mom and brother come to help the last 2 days with moving the rest of the stuff into storage and I had a wonderful friend that helped me clean our house the day we moved out. Thank you so much Emily, I don't know what I would have done without you. Also, we were lucky enough to have another wonderful friend let us crash at her house-she was out of town--Thank you Jessica--you are the best. Even though the whole moving process was so stressful, we were so lucky to have such supportive family and friends to help us through. It also made it hard to leave Connecticut, because we did have so many great friends there. I have to admit that I really miss good 'ol "rotten Groton." The two years we lived there are filled with so many fond memories and happy times. Anyways, after we moved out, we headed down to Washington, D.C. On our way down, we stopped at Sesame Place in Pennsylvania for the day and had a blast. Personally, I never Sesame Place existed until we had friends that went. Apparently it has been around since the 80's. Ethan is such a huge Elmo lover and being military we could get in free, so it worked out perfectly. We had such a fun time, even though the weather was a little rainy. Ethan was just in heaven riding rides, seeing Elmo everywhere, etc. It was so fun to watch how excited he got about everything. One funny story, we were there the Saturday before Halloween, so a lot of the kids were dressed up in their costumes. Ethan saw one little boy dressed up as Elmo and kept following him around saying, "Elmo, Elmo" and trying to touch him. It was so funny. There were a lot of fun rides and as soon as the ride was over, Ethan would get off and want to ride it again, so we went on the rides over and over. We also went and had dinner with the Sesame Street characters which was so much fun. They had a great buffet dinner and then all the sesame characters walked around and would come sit at your table for awhile. Ernie took a real liking to Kailey and would not leave us alone and when he was holding her did not want to give her back to me--she is just so cute, so I don't really blame him. During dinner, the characters would periodically get together and sing a song and dance around; it was very entertaining and Ethan loved it. Overall, we had such a fun time and it is such a great place to take little kids. If you have a chance to go, I would highly recommend it!

After we left Sesame Place, we finished driving to Washington, D.C. The next day, we spent hiking around Great Falls, which is a national park with great whitewater rapids, in fact the U.S. Kayak team use to practice there a long time ago. Eric had never been there and it was one of my favorite places to visit growing up because it is so scenic and has some great hikes. After we hiked around there, we headed to one of my other childhood haunts--Frying Pan Park. When I was growing up, we would bike over to this park all the time as a family. It is only a couple of miles from my old house and has horses, pigs, sheep, rabbits, etc. On the weekends they use to have really fun horse shows we would ride over and watch. Needless to say, this was another hit with Ethan. He is such an animal lover that he was in heaven watching all the "moo-cows" and trying to feed the sheep, etc. His favorite part was riding on the tractors. He would not get off of the tractors and probably would have stayed there all day driving them if we had let him. It brought back so many memories being back in my old 'hood. I loved living in Northern Virginia and have so many wonderful memories. I am sure if we stay in the Navy, we will end up in D.C. for at least one or more tours. I would love for my kids to experience such a great area.

Anyways, after visiting D.C.--we had to drive through there so Eric could meet with his commanding officer, we headed out to St. Louis. We ended up splitting it up into 2 days and have to say that it was pretty uneventful and the kids did great. I have to say that a portable DVD player is a lifesaver!! Ethan loved watching "Curious George" and "Elmo" while we drove and it made the drive a lot more pleasant for Eric and I! We ended up arriving at my parents house earlier than we thought we would and had planned on surprising my mom, however, she surprised us by not being home!! Our neighbor had seen us pull into the driveway and knew that she was gone, so called her on her cell phone to tell her to hurry home!! When we pulled up to our house, it was so exciting to see this sign on the garage:

Can you tell my parents are SOOOOOO excited to have their grandkids living with them for awhile??

Well, I still have tons to update, but will work on it later!! Just keep anticipating what is to come--just kidding--it is not that exciting!