Jamestown Settlement

We met up with more Blacksburg friends at Jamestown and enjoyed the afternoon exploring Jamestown Settlement.  The kids were so happy to see their good friends Nick and Luke and to hang out with the Lucas'.  Little Joel stuck to Raquel like gum on a shoe, he was so sad to leave when they had to go home. We had lots of fun with our guests and hope we get more visitors soon.

Inside a Powhatan Indian Hut

Carving a Canoe
(Tess, Enna, Natalya, Marcus, Raquel)

Resting on the Susan Constant

Our family

Paul, Enna, Natalya, Joel, Raquel, Luke, Marcus, Nick, Erik and Tess
hanging out in a canoe

Soldier Erik

Natalya and Raquel trying on armor inside the Jamestown Fort

Nick, Luke and Jessica joined us for dinner after a fun day at Jamestown Settlement.

Beach & Fort Monroe with Friends

Our friends the Lucas' came from Blacksburg to visit over Labor Day weekend.  We had lots of fun showing them around and playing. We spent most of one day at the beach and I think most of us came away with a sunburn.  But the kids sure had fun playing with their friends in the water and sand. We also took in a little history exploring Fort Monroe.

Beach Boy Erik

Natalya, Marcus & Raquel

Building sand castles

Playing in the water with Paul, Joel, Tess and Mike

Time for snacks

Natalya enjoying the water

Raquel, Paul and Tess

At the top of Fort Monroe

Raquel at Ft. Monroe

Piano

The girls started piano lessons and we didn't have a piano. After looking on Craigslist we found one and picked it up the night of their first lesson.  Of course it started pouring rain when we were loading it into the back of our truck.  Luckily we were pretty close to our house and it didn't get damaged from the water.  Mike and I were able to unload it and bring it into the house ourselves and the kids have had fun playing on it ever since.

Playing or more like pounding on the piano

Champs

The girls both qualified to swim at champs. They had to get a certain time to be able to swim at the meet. Raquel swam breaststroke and Natalya backstroke. They swam with the best who qualified from 12 different swim teams. Raquel placed 13th out of 29 with a time of 27.38 sec. and Natalya tied for 14th out of 24 with a time of 34.81 sec. 

To think the swim coaches didn't even want to put Natalya on the team because she was only 5 and here she swam at Champs. 

So proud of both out girls!