Yep- Still Running (Slowly)

I HATE running in the heat.  However, I am trying to keep going and power through the summer months.  It has not been easy so far, and as things heat up I imagine that they will get much harder.  I find that if I make myself register for races then I'll keep training because I don't want to be dead last when I run them.  In June I ran two 5Ks.  The first one was "Run for the Pies".  It's so named because if you run fast enough, you get a free pie.  I did not get a pie.  This race is also the Nike 5K championship.  The championship race took place before mine, and it was neat to see some really fast runners do their thing.  As for me, I did okay- 26:07 (29 of 119 in age group).  This is a good time for me considering the heat.  The other race that I've run this month is the Spirit of Liberty 5K.  I had a very hard time with this race.  The heat and humidity were horrible.  I finished in 27:10 (which is actually a little faster than I finished the same race last year).  I was the only one in my age group, so I won that by default.  My friend Carrie was at this race cheering for her husband, Mat- who also won his age group.  Next up- Peachtree Road Race.

Sky VBS

 The kids had a great time at Vacation Bible School this year.  Our theme was "Sky" and the general message was "Trust God".  Olivia and Owen learned so much at VBS, and continue to sing the songs and talk about the lessons that they learned.  Olivia got to move up to the group with the bigger kids this year.  I was happy about this because this made Owen come out of his shell a little.  The mission project for VBS was to raise money to buy mosquito nets for kids in Mali, Africa.  The kids had an opportunity each day to contribute to the fund.  With each contribution, they were able to pin a "mosquito" clip on a net.  Here are a few pictures of our week at VBS.  (First two pictures courtesy of Haley Ragsdale).

Go, Dog, Go!

Attending the children's play of the Peach State Summer Theater Series with Granny Mel has been one of the highlights of our summer for several years now.  It seems that the performances get better and better each year.  This year, the kid's play was "Go, Dog, Go!".  This is based on the book of the same name by P.D. Eastman.  We have this book at home, and we've read it a number of times.  There's not much going on in the book, so I wasn't sure how on earth they were going to make an entire performance out of it.  Let me just say that the play was incredibly entertaining.  The actors were hilarious, and the kids were grinning from ear to ear the whole time.  Once the play was over, the kids had the chance to meet the actors and get their autographs.  They were all so excited to meet the different "dogs".  Ava summed up the experience nicely when she declared that the play was "definitely worth driving all the way to Valdosta to see".

Sight and Sound

 After hearing my Aunt Connie rave about the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, we decided to check it out for ourselves.  The mission of this theater is to bring people the Word of God through  large-scale productions of Biblical stories.  When I say that this is a large-scale production, I mean it.   The special effects, costumes, and sets are out-of-this-world.  They even use live animals in the story telling.  The "story" that is being presented this year is Jonah and the Whale.  I've always thought of Jonah as a kid-friendly book of the Bible, so I figured it would be a good play for the kids.  I must say that the actors did an excellent job of presenting the message and made me think about the Book of Jonah in a way that I'd never thought about it before.  I like that the production made the story "come alive" for everyone.  Well, almost everyone- poor Owen slept through the first act, but he enjoyed the second one.  Olivia was awake and alert the whole time. We were all impressed with this musical and with this theater in general.  Even Poppy liked the show (and this is definitely NOT his type of thing).

 

Return to Dutch Wonderland

Last year Barb and I took the kids to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to see the Amish.  While we were there, we took the kids to a little amusement park called Dutch Wonderland.  I absolutely loved everything about the Lancaster area, and vowed that I would return again this year.  So, once again Barb and I loaded up the kids and made the drive to Lancaster.  We weren't alone- Brian and Poppy decided to come, too.  I guess they didn't want to miss out on all the fun two years in a row.  Just like last year, we saw lots of Amish working the fields with their horses on the drive in and once again I was in awe at the beauty of this area of the country.  After an early lunch, we made a bee line for Dutch Wonderland.  This is one of Amusement Today's golden ticket recipients for "top 5" parks for kids.  It really is a nice park for young kids.  We spent a couple of hours riding the rides.  The kids were tall enough to ride everything this year- including the large "Kingdom Coaster".  We even got Poppy on some of the rides.  The kids also saw Princess Brooke and Prince Patrick (who has apparently died his hair brown- it was blonde last year...hmmm).   It was too cold to go to the water play area, but the kids still had a great time.  Dutch Wonderland definitely delivered- again. 

The National Mall

 By the time we left the Natural History Museum, it was getting pretty late.  Since we were right there at the National Mall, we decided to walk around and let the kids check it out.  Olivia was confused by the word "mall" and kept asking where the stores were.  We had to tell her it wasn't that type of "mall".  Since the Washington Monument was the largest thing around, we started walking toward it.  We kept going and saw the new World War II Memorial.  It was cool to be here on this day because the following day was June 6th,  D-day.  It looked like they were setting up for something in the grassy area by this memorial.  We didn't go down to the Lincoln Memorial because the reflecting pool was being renovated and they had blocked off a lot of the sidewalks.  Instead we walked toward the White House, but we couldn't get that close because there was some kind of event taking place.  We could see a lot of people milling about on the lawn, and there were snipers on the roof.  As we were walking toward the White House,  Brian commented that it looked like the President was having a party (to which Olivia whined "Mama, I don't want to go to that party").  Don't worry, Olivia, I doubt we're invited.  We ended up having supper at the Hard Rock and were surprised to see that it was right next to Ford's Theater.  We hadn't planned to see that, so we didn't go in.  It didn't look like it was open anyway.  Still, we were excited to see the outside of this historic building.  This turned out to be a nice afternoon, and we were so glad to have Brandon as our personal tour guide.
 

 

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

After we left the zoo last Tuesday, we met up with Uncle Brandon and he showed us the "sights" in Washington D.C.  Our first stop was the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  Brian and I both loved visiting this museum as kids, and I think Olivia and Owen liked it, too.  We didn't go through the stuffed mammal area because we had spent the whole morning at the zoo seeing live animals.  Instead, we focused on the Ocean, Gemstone, Egypt, and Fossil (dinosaur) areas.  The kids enjoyed seeing all of the exhibits.  Olivia especially liked the "gem" gallery.  She wanted me to take a picture of every crown, necklace, and precious stone in the room.  I think she was mentally making a list of things to ask for for her birthday- like that will happen.  I practically had to drag her out of that section of the museum.  I wish that we would have had more time in D.C.- I would have liked to visit the Air and Space Museum.  Oh, well.  I guess there's always next year.

 

The National Zoo

Uncle Brandon is currently completing an intership in Washington D.C. as part of his Master's degree program, so while we were in Delaware last week we made a day trip to D.C. to visit him on his "home turf".  Since we weren't meeting up with him until early afternoon, we decided to pass our morning at the National Zoo.  This zoo is run by the Smithsonian Institute and is free (my preferred price range).  This was an excellent zoo.  The exhibits were large- probably the largest I've ever seen in a zoo, and there was a wide variety of animals.  Brian and I commented several times that they had animals at this zoo that we'd never seen before.  The premier exhibit at the zoo was the Giant Panda exhibit.  The National Zoo is one of only four zoos in the U.S. that has Pandas, so there were lots of people at this exhibit .  We enjoyed many different areas of the park- including the Great Ape and Large Cat exhibits.  I don't know why, but the kids always love the reptile house, so spent quite a bit of time here.  I really liked the way that the zoo was organized because anmials were grouped by their similarity to each other (birds, small mammals, large cats, etc...) and not by where they are found geographically. Here are some pictures from the zoo.