Wanderings on the East Coast

We continued our way up the coast.  We went to Pennsylvania to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  We stopped to visit Kristie's sister at her family's new home in Clinton New Jersey.  It is an adorable town where you can walk from their home to dinner, ice cream, school, etc...  We drove further North to New Hampshire where we visited with our good friends, the Flakne Family, who had moved out there a year ago from Cincinnati.  We had a great time catching up with them.  Finally, we stopped overnight at Niagara Falls to show the boys the amazing sites there.  They loved riding The Maid of the Mist and getting wet!

Washington D.C. Wanderings

We went to our nation's capitol for 3 nights.  102 degree heat for touring the monuments was a bit tough, but we hung in there and managed to see quite a bit.  We decided we are coming back in a few years when the boys are bigger and better able to walk further and old enough to read all the information in the museums.  Nicholas' favorite part was riding the metro from our hotel in Alexandria, VA to D.C.!

Beach Wanderings

We parted ways with our friends.  The Schepmanns stayed on for a few days in Orlando to see Disney World, but we headed up the coast to explore.  Our first stop was Hilton Head Island for one night.  The boys were thrilled with the tide pools and all the crabs!  We got to see a plantation house along the road.  Then we went to Myrtle Beach for one night.  We really enjoyed it.  Great beach to look for shells.  Only problem we ran into was a jellyfish sting for Thomas.  Got him on the chest.  He was tough, but was bright red for a couple days.

Orlando Wanderings

We went to Orlando for a couple days.  We had a fun day at Universal Studios!  The main objective was to see the Harry Potter section since all of except Nicholas have read the books and watched the movies and really enjoyed them.  We all loved the Butterbeer-yummy!  Nicholas loved the Dr. Seuss section and all of us big enough to ride the coasters thought they were great!  The only mishap was when Thomas lost his hat in the lake and a snapping turtle came after it!  Sad to lose the hat, but made for an unusual story...  The boys also enjoyed going to the Lego store and seeing the creations.  Of course now they all want to build legos for the Lego store someday as a career!

Panama City Beach Wanderings in the Water

We set off from Michigan on a three week adventure!  We went to Cincinnati and met our renters for our house (very nice former NASA employees who moved here to work at GE), and to visit with friends from our neighborhood.  After spending a day at the pool with the neighbors, we started driving the next day at 6:00 am.  Our first big stop was Panama City Beach with our friends Erick and Paula Schepmann and their kiddos, Jake and Maggie, for a week of fun in the sun.  We had great fun playing in the waves, walking the beach, swimming in the pool, hunting for sand crabs at night on the beach, went to see the Blue Angels fly in Pensacola, and the favorite activity:  building sand castles.  Here are a few of our favorite pics from the week.

Fun at Bear Lake, MI with Kristie's Parents at their cottage

After returning from Wisconsin, we spent a week Up North at Bear Lake, playing with Grammie and PaPa on the lake.  We had fun skiing, tubing, tipping over the canoe, watching fireworks from the boat in the middle of the lake on the 4th, fishing (the boys actually discovered they love rock bass after catching them in the lake and eating them pan-fried).  We also took a night for ourselves for our 15th anniversary (July 6th) and spent it at a beautiful bed and breakfast/winery on Old Mission Penninsula near Traverse City, MI.  We went wine-tasting for two days and enjoyed our adult style vacation!

These pictures are a mix of Bear Lake photos and a few from our anniversary trip.