Ah, North Country, otherwise known as upstate New York, in the 1000 Islands region. Where signs like this are common, including "beware falling ice" and "road slippery when wet or frozen".
One of the Amish strongholds.
Apparently also the birthplace of the tree shaped car fresheners....
And now our home.
We wanted to do a longer trip up the east coast, but having just gone down to GA we decided to make it a shorter trip and just hit Philly. While finding our hotel we were greeted by the city hall (I think) at night, which is lit up reminiscent of Gotham.
We also saw Independence Hall, where they wrote the constitution, they have the famous chair of George Washington there with the half sun motif.
And to top it off we checked out the ole' "pass and stow", otherwise known as the liberty bell.
The other thing we knew we wanted to do in GA was visit the coke museum. It was a big hit of course, and though we don't even drink coke for the most part, we had to go if only to see what they had to offer from other countries. I'll admit, some of it was absolutely horrid, I don't know whats wrong with Italians, but a country that supports a drink like Beverly (I think thats what it was called) needs to seriously rethink its views on beverages. It was like taking a drink of grapefruit juice where they managed to take even the natural sugars out... BLEGH!!!
They had themed giant bottles around everywhere, I though you would appreciate this one dad :D
One of the reasons we wanted to go to Atlanta was to see the aquarium and compare it with Churaumi in Okinawa. They had some pretty cool stuff, some animals we hadn't seen yet, and it was certainly 'decorated' cool; however, I like the layout of Churaumi better, and it was more of a 'day' thing in Oki than in GA. It only took us two hours to see everything here, even though it has the 'biggest' aquarium. Not to mention the dining area in Oki is waaaay cooler, can't sit and watch the fish while you're eating in GA.
we took a mini-vacay down to georgia, mostly because we're hoping VA the furthest 'south' we end up living. (we're not really heat people) This peach tower is actually in South Carolina... as is a lot of the 'peach farm' stuff we saw.
At lunch the kids were entertained by a lizard!
Some olympic torch shots....
Super fun times to be had at water parks in the middle of summer!
wave pool! always a favorite...
we even took them on a family watertube slide... it was totally fun, and though Carter shook the whole time, he wasn't scared, it was just adrenaline. Does that make him an adrenaline junkie?
fun with goggles!
Graduation from main class...
Fourth of July!
chocolate pudding goatee! of course he rubbed half of it off when he was screaming and crying at me because I laughed at him when I saw what he had done to his face... it seriously upset him!
We heard that a dear friend was coming our way to see her daughter's retirement, and thought it would be a good time to visit the beach since it was a two hour drive there. So we had lunch with Judy, (Coryn had slightly forgotten how to say her name so she became Sister Brownie that day) but they both love her still and Carter tried to make her 'grandma' when he saw me going through pictures to make the blog!
Here's one thing we never saw in the oceans around Okinawa... dolphins! It was pretty cool seeing them go up and down the coast, playing with some people in boats. 
Poor Carter forgot how beach water moves, and spent a good half an hour being afraid of the water until I convinced him it was a fun game to pop the 'bubbles' of ocean froth.
Another fun to watch not seen by us before... pelicans. They fish so funnily! All graceful looking until they dive into the water, which isn't really a dive, more of a smack the water and don't go under, I'm surprised they manage to survive... :D
With the help of some adventurous fellow CLC3 attendees we found out about the gardens in Richmond, and were able to go several times during the summer before we left for colder pastures. This year they had a special art exhibit in conjunction with the garden, a glass sculpture by the name of Hans Godo Frabel had quite a variety of works on display, starting with this cube.
There were also several really well done renditions of flowers, from orchids to this pitcher plant as well as some more on the fantastical side that reminded me a good deal of Georgia O'Keeffe.
There were several pure whimsey as well, figures dancing, stick figures on a bicycle, and these jesters on balls in the water who Coryn decided were "playing beach ball".
Carter buried some dinosaurs.
Look ma! I tried to break my leg! yeah, he jumped off a friend's bed and landed funny on it, was pretty sad for two days especially during the x-rays, and ended up with a precautionary cast for 10 days. Thankfully, he got to keep it off after further review with more x-rays. As you can see though, it didn't slow him down after the first little bit.
Obviously, the kids favorite part was getting put in the stocks.
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