Vacation Part Two — PA, Statue of Liberty and Valley Forge

Sunday, Aug. 25. Kids and I are feeling much better! So glad to be back to normal. Trevor had class again today, even tho it’s Sunday. He doesn’t get any time off of classes for the weekend. It’s just 9 straight days. Poor guy. So I had church with the kids that morning. We finished up one of the YF quizzes we had been working on. Then we did a little school, even tho we shouldn’t have had to. But the days kind of blended together on this trip and with Trevor having to do his classes, I figured it wouldn’t hurt for us to do school as well. After school, the kids finished up their Junior Ranger Books and we went to the local Ranger Station to turn them in. They also had a Delaware River Badge the kids could earn, so we did that one as well. 2 more badges to add to our collection. There was an old timey village nearby, so I set out to find it. I didn’t have the address, so I couldn’t use “Bill” this time. I just went by the directions on the small map I had. After driving for about 30 mins on some back country, windy roads, and not finding the village, I decided to turn around. I was running low on gas, was in the middle of nowhere and had no clue of where the roads went. I didn’t want to end up lost and out of gas in some strange town, so we just headed back. On the way back I passed by the Ranger station where the kids got their badges, so I decided to go and ask where this village was. Apparently I was heading the right direction…but needed to keep going for about another 30 minutes. Well that figures. I should have asked them first. Sigh…oh well. We never did make it to that village. They are only open on the weekends.

After making it back to our room (and filling up with gas across the street….I wasn’t about to let the van get that low again!!) , the kids and I had lunch and tried to decide what to do next. Trevor would be in class until about 8 that evening, so we had a long day ahead of us. Zion decided he wanted to do some more thrift store shopping, so I hopped online to see if there were any in the area. Found a Salvation Army about 20 minutes away. Having the address this time, off we go with Bill to guide us. Bust! It was closed. Sigh…It was also a bit further away then we had thought.

We had passed a candy store on the way to the Salvation Army, so I decided to try and stop there on the way back to our room, so we’d at least have something to do. Between the hard to understand directions that Bill was giving me, and the crazy shaped roads, I managed to miss my road after turning around, and had to be rerouted, thus causing me to miss the road with the candy store on it all together. Arggg!! Thankfully, tho, we ended up back on the main road, so I now recognized where we were, and ended up going to a little Ice Cream Shop that was close to our Villa. We had to do SOMETHING to make the 1 hour drive worth it. I was done by the time we returned to our room. No more blind adventures for me! So we spent the rest of the afternoon playing games, reading and playing at the Villa Park.

Monday (the 26th) was another one of those days that we had to entertain ourselves. We did school, played at the park again and enjoyed watching the wildlife living at the Villa. Deer, Groundhogs, Geese, and Turkey are just some of the animals we saw every day.

Tuesday, August 27th. Trevor’s last day of class!! Whoo Hoo!! He had a total of 3 tests he had to take over the course of his 9 days in class. Today was his last test and final day of class. He passed all 3 of his tests!! He is now (something techy) certified. =)

His class ended at 11 so we decided to do something to celebrate. We had originally planned to go to New York City, and see the Statue of Liberty, on Wednesday. But because Trevor’s class was finished much earlier then we had thought, we decided to head to NYC today instead. It was only an hour and a half away. So we grabbed some lunch and headed out.

After doing some research, we found out that parking on the New Jersey side of “Liberty Island” was much less crowded and cheaper the parking on the NYC side. So that’s what we did! Now we can say we’ve been to New Jersey. =)

After parking, and getting our tickets, we boarded the Ferry and enjoyed the wonderful sunshine and beautiful scenery along the way. Here’s the kids with NYC in the background.

And here’s me and the kids…it was really bright outside…can’t you tell? haha

We made it!! The Statue was beautiful!! And much bigger then I imagined. It was really crowded on the island, so trying to get a good picture was hard. You kind of just had to find a spot and stand there until someone moved. But we managed. The kids also were able to do Junior Ranger Badges here, so that added #3 on this trip.

Trevor and I in front of “Lady Liberty”

We got to learn about how the Statue was made and the history behind it. That was pretty cool. Here is Azariah in front of the memorial of the man who designed the structure for the Statue of Liberty. Recognize the item he is holding up?? Yup! It’s Gustave Eiffel, the same guy who designed the Eiffel Tower. Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s my hand on the doorknob of the gift shop….

And here’s the hand of “Lady Liberty”.

We didn’t plan to have these pictures taken like this…it just happened. I found it rather funny when we got home and were looking through the pictures.

Saying good bye to Liberty Island!

This is Ellis Island. We weren’t able to see it. It’s been closed ever since the Hurricane came through. Apparently there was a lot of damage done.

After leaving Liberty Island, we headed back to our townhome in Bushkill for our last night.

Wednesday, (Aug. 28) we checked out of our townhome and headed to Lebanon, PA where we would spend a couple of days with Karl and Melissa.

On the way there, Trevor wanted to stop and see Valley Forge. It was in between Bushkill and Lebanon (roughly) so it would be an easy trip. Or so we thought….It started raining and rained the entire time we were there. =( Boo!! On a positive note, we were able to see just about everything from the van. So here’s some pictures of that little detour.

George Washington’s Headquarters. This was very cool to see. Even if we did have to get soaked in the process. Just seeing the small rooms that he ate in and slept in, is truly amazing. A lot of the stuff in the house is authentic, but there are several replicas as well.