Busch Gardens - Spring Break Part 2

It's about time I get around to this. Yikes.

After we left Myrtle Beach (see below), we stopped in Williamsburg on the way home for our yearly trip to Busch Gardens. Anheiser Busch is very good to the military. Once a year we can go to one of their parks (Sesame World, Busch Gardens or Sea World) for free. This year, we cashed in some of Trent's accumulated hotel points from his trips to London, and we not only got our admission for free, we got our hotel for free. Hooray for that! That is why we don't have a problem paying for parking or for the over priced food in the park.

The last couple of years we went to Busch Gardens, it ended up being a cloudy and chilly day, and there was hardly anyone at the park. This time, it was warm, the sun was out, and there were more people. We still didn't wait horribly for anything though, so that was nice.

New as of last year, one of our first stops in the park is now the Forest of Fun which is designed for the little people and has a sesame street theme. The kids love the Grover roller coaster there and like the other rides as well. All three of them can and will ride them, so I didn't have to go on the Oscar ride or the Elmo spire, which was nice.

Ashley worked to make sure Sammy and Jon were buckled in and then found herself without an open seat.

She rode the next time around.

The girls on Oscar's whirly twirly ride. Jon tends to opt for more mellow things for the most part.

I love this bush. I think I should have one in my yard. No?

Among the characters we met were Cookie Monster, who at Busch Gardens is still the cookie monster and not the veggie monster.

and Grover

Zoe

and Abby Cadabby.

This year, Sammy finally hit the magic over 42 inch mark and had a purple bracelet. That opened up so many more options for her, and she has been long awaiting many of these options. Last year she was 41 inches and change. It was a disappointing blow for her and for Trent. This year, she put that purple wrist band on, and Trent finally has a roller coaster partner. She can't go on the really big ones yet, but she got right on Escape from Pompeii with her dad and loved every minute of it.

Going up

Coming down.

When we went into Ireland, we had an episode of tear inducing disappointment. Ashley's favorite ride at Busch Gardens was always Corkscrew Hill. It is one of those rides where you wear 3-D glasses and sit in a box type thing and they play a movie, and that the box shakes and moves around. The story that goes along with it is that you shrunk to the size of a leprechaun, and two boys pick up a box of little people and shake it around and take it up to the witch at the top of the hill etc. etc. Though I don't necessarily love it, it was Ashley's favorite. We went to that ride only to find it has been permanently closed. They are now using that space for a 3-D tour of Europe type ride. I think that sounds fun, but the experience made Ashley cry and then mope for the next 20 to 30 minutes. She kept explaining that Ireland was the wrong place to put that ride. They should put it in the England or France of Germany section. She repeatedly talked of writing a very angry letter to the manager etc. Trent took her on a similar 3-D motion ride called the Curse of Darkastle. That was enough to get rid of the moping. She did continue to talk about writing that letter though.


Did I mention one of the nicest parts of the kids being old enough to go on many of the rides themselves? It is not having to ride the teacup ride. :)


Trent made himself sick on the viking ship ride, so it was a nice time for the kids to go on some of the DaVinci kid rides they like so much. Jon was so excited about the flyers. The first time, he and Sammy were just far enough back in line that they had to settle for a sitting flyer. Jon was fine with that, but he got back in line with Ashley so that he could ride again on a laying down flyer. They were mindful of their manners and didn't push, and, as a result, rode in a sit down flyer. Jon spent the entire time with this head in his hands. I got in line with him one last time while the girls went on another ride. This time he didn't push, but he adopted some of the behavior he saw around him and ran as fast as he could through the gate and got on a laying down flyer. He was happy.





It was a great day. We spent 8 hours at Busch Gardens which is far more than we have before. I guess they are all old enough for that now. Ashley still hasn't written her letter, but I am not so sure she still won't.

Myrtle Beach - Spring Break Part 1

Months ago, we were invited to join other families we are friendly with and go camping in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for part of Spring Break. We looked at all of our options considering Trent was traveling to London the week prior and wouldn't get home until the day the others were traveling down to the Travel Park. Trent is particularly amazing for making it all work. He returned from London at about 4:30 Saturday afternoon to a cab driver who was at departures rather than arrivals. He finally got home shortly after 6:00 and was greeted by a happy family who also informed him we still needed to go out and get a few camping supplies. Throw into that mix the fact that I had the Young Women's General Broadcast that night, and that was a lot to deal with on top of jet lag and everything else. Trent was awesome. He dropped me off for the broadcast and got the rest of the supplies together. We packed up and drove down the next morning. I realized that with the exception of visiting my Dad and Stepmom in Texas and a short layover once in the Atlanta airport, I had never been as far south as we drove on this trip.

When we crossed into South Carolina, we called our friends who told us the night before had been exceptionally windy and who had made plans for us if we didn't beat the storm into camp. We knew from the weather forecast and from our own driving that we were racing a storm into camp. We did beat the storm, and Steve, Jerry, and Jason all helped Trent and I get the tent up right away before the rain started. Afterward, we had some awesome chili (it was the Krajewski's turn for dinner that night). The rain started up in earnest as we put the kids to bed, so we joined them. It rained for awhile, but it wasn't too bad. Jon woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and by that point it was just very very windy. The tent was shaking a bit, but it was obviously secure, so we weren't worried. Around 3:00-3:30 the rains joined with the crazy wind, and the thunderstorms came in. The lightening was close, and the thunder shook the ground. We figured we were fine as we were not on any tree roots and were quite low. Being one of only two tents we saw in the entire travel park also meant that all of the RVs and pop up campers were higher up than we were as well. The rain, however, was now coming down in torrents and was joined by very strong winds. Around 4:00 I told Trent I was getting wet. He told me it was just condensation and not to worry. A few minutes later, I felt a drop on my face and told him again I was getting wet. He reached over and felt my sleeping bag and told me the outside was all wet. The inside was still dry and warm, so I had no idea. We figured out later that what happened was that the wind blew the rain up under the fly of the tent and it would then drip down through the mesh. Our tent was pitched on the flattest part of our campsite which also happened to be the lowest. Water was pooling around the base of the tent in places. Trent and I talked through several options and at around 4:30 or so decided on the option that would get our kids out of the still pouring rain the fastest which meant getting our bags of clothes, pillows, sleeping bags and children and get them quickly into the car. We drove into town and parked in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel where we tried to rest until 6:00 when they opened and we went in for breakfast.

The inside of the Warner tent the following morning. Can you see the puddles?

As we were leaving the restaurant, a gentleman having breakfast gave each of our children a dollar bill and told Trent we had a cute family. Later that morning I wondered if he thought we could use it seeing as how we were sitting in the restaurant in pjs and sweatpants. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. We returned to camp with donuts for the others and got Trent's jet boil out to make hot chocolate. We were surprised we hadn't been missed yet until we got back and saw others in the process of trying to jury rig the Shamblen's shade tent which had partially come down in the wind. The awning on their camper was also victim to the storm.


We took the sleeping bags and the few clothes that got wet up to the laundromat and dried them in the dryers. One lady there asked me, "are you the people in the TENT?!" I thought it was kind of funny. The rain didn't stop until lunch time and then it was cloudy. We hung up the air mattresses and dried out the puddles in the tent, but we were nervous about things getting dry for the next night. We went out and ran a couple of errands. By the time we got back to camp, it wasn't only sunny, it was warm. The kids went down and played at the beach, and Trent and I verified that everything was drying beautifully. We got everything set up again and then noticed rolling dark clouds headed right our way. We moved our tent to a higher grassy area in our camp site and threw a large tarp over all of it and staked it down. The worst of the storm went around us, but we had some strong rain in the middle of the night. The great news is that with no wind, the Warners stayed nice and dry. The Shamblen's shade tent did not fare so well. The weight of the water did it in, and the guys took it down and then bunched it up for trash pick up.

The rain is gone. The sun is out. The tide is out. Let's play on the beach! The tide at Myrtle Beach was fascinating. When the tide was high, there was about 5 to 6 feet of beach. When the tide was out, there were about 30 feet or so of beach.

Tuesday morning dismantling of the Shamblen's destroyed shade tent.

How the frame ended up

Tuesday was gorgeous. The morning was full of beach play and in the afternoon at low tide, Ashley and I joined others for a 3 mile walk down the beach and did some shelling. Ashley collected A LOT of shells but also found 2 fully intact sand dollars. That was impressive. One broke, but one made it home. Now we just have to figure out what to do with all of her shells. Trent took Sam and Jon miniature golfing. We all met up as Tuesday night was the Warners turn to fix dinner. We did BBQ ribs in the dutch oven and a raspberry cobbler. We messed up the cobbler and made a chocolate raspberry cake instead. It still tasted good but wasn't cobbler. The ribs were great. It was funny to see our friends react to dutch oven cooking as they hadn't really seen it done before. We were told we could come camping with all of them again if we brought ribs again.

Sammy's unsuccessful but fun attempt at body boarding

Every sand castle needs a moat

Ashley collecting shells Tuesday afternoon

About half the shells she ended up bringing home

We left the next day for part two of our adventure, but all in all we had a great time. There was lots of fun around the camp fire of course, but most of that doesn't translate if you weren't there. I am sure if you've sat around a fire laughing with friends, you know what I am talking about. I am not sure what all of this does for our "the Warners are hard core campers" reputation, but we had a great time.

A Lamb, A Lion, or a Flash

We returned from our Spring Break traveling this past Thursday night. As I was unpacking, I was thinking about when to fit in coloring eggs with the kids and it occurred to me; I had not only not made martenitsas with them, I hadn't even THOUGHT about martenitsas until that moment. This really gave me pause to realize how quickly March came and went. Never mind whether it came in like a lamb or a lion. I am not sure I could remember to be honest. It came and went like a flash of lightening. Now that I am thinking back on it, I realize we were busy because we had so much going on, but it all just jumbled together into one busy after another. As a result, before I really realized we had started, it was gone.

Skipping martenitsas is really no big deal. It is something from Bulgaria. Baba Mart and the martenitsas that everyone bought and sold and made and wore were one of my favorite things when Trent and I were living in Bulgaria, and it is something I like to remember still (not this year apparently). What really made me pause wasn't that I didn't make martenitsas this year. It was that I hadn't even thought about it until the 1st of April. We had 4-H twice. Ashley had the MSA exams at school and plenty of girl drama as well (yuck to the latter). I was the guest reader in Ashley's class once this month. I had my first New Beginnings Program as the Young Women's President. Trent went to London for a week for work, so we celebrated my birthday early. I actually ended up celebrating my birthday for nearly a week. (I admit that I love birthdays though.) We had the youth temple trip, the fundraiser for summer camp and all of our regular meetings, and we had Spring Break. In all of that, I somehow kind of forgot that the month of March was happening. I am so good about birthday cards. I like to send them, and I really like remembering family and friends and all of our nieces and nephews particularly because we don't see them that often. I bought cards this month but never mailed one. I guess that means I am not sending cards for this year now. That is sad. O.k., I didn't really forget, but it made it feel like it came and went in a flash before I really realized it.

I hope everyone had a great month. I hope everyone is enjoying Spring. Chestita Baba Mart to you all.