Summer vacation 2018

My summer vacation started off at work.

We had a team building day in which we traveled into D.C..

It was very hot and my decision to go into the botanical gardens building was questionable but the union station food was very tasty.

I really like my co-workers. It was lots of fun.

Megan covered herself in shaving cream and became Captain Shaving Cream...

I worked on another shaker. I cracked it so this nice stain job here was not useful for anything other than learning abit more how to stain things...that was useful all by itself though.

Some Scearce;s and some Rumford;s got together in Hawaii.

Thank you so much Jenet and David for visiting dad and Mary

 

I began my vacation at Haven. I went early for Bardic because I wanted to see the Heavy fighting. The heavy fighting is a sort of martial arts thing wherein some dudes put on head arm leg and kidney protection and then wail away on each other and drink mead. It was good to watch but the thing I was most interested in haven martial arts wise was/is the archery. I am not terribly interested in getting hit by big dudes...well by anyone really. 

I love martial arts and I have done enough and watched enough to really enjoy the heavy fighting from the sidelines and I suspect I will go again when its not on a D&D night.

I lucked out archery-wise though because one of the guys there turned out to be the head of a local traditional archery group. He invited me to a practice and I didn't know that he was an in charge sort of guy until the very end of the conversation so I don't freak myself out about it.

He was very nice and I agreed to go.

I learned later that is is in charge of a number of things.

Many people at the Haven are members of a group called the Society For Creative Anachronism .

They are a group that is interested in the historical periods of Rome through just before the age of enlightenment ~late 1600s. They are not historical reenacotrs so much as historical enactors. Its a group I have known about since college but until meeting the people at the haven my impressions had not been very good.  

The people at Haven are so encouraging though that I thought I might give it a shot.

If all goes well I will do some historical enacting of my own soon.

At the bare minimum I am doing some archery.

A few months back maybe at the beginning of the year Kiernan told me that we never go anywhere that dosen't look like here. He said that he wanted to see some different biomes...

I looked far and wide for a cheaply and not too distantly available desert or artic but ot no avail.

Kelsey and Mariam at work reccomended a big city like New York. Kiernan loved that idea and told me that he had always wanted to go to see NYC.

So with the help of my city traveling friends I found a cheap comfortable bus with wfi for us to take.

Megan got on her fancy glittery best.

We rode for 4 hours.

They were amazed.

They were delighted.

They saw the some of the sights of the big city.

They played around and got used to the subway.

They got to spend a nice sleepover with Nana and mommy.

I was pretty exhaused by all the newness and noise and was pretty stoked to be in the hotel too.

We went up on Sunday moring and stayed until Monday midday.

We saw famous things and sad things.

We saw vibrant and happy things too.

 

We even took a water tour around the island.

Megan liked the boat and Kiernan did not like the chop.

They both loved the Statue of Liberty.

Kiernan said that he knows he sould not love New York City (I think because of the loud and the crowed) that in fact he loves it and he wants to move there when he is older.

He was happy and goofy for nearly the entire time.

By the end of our trip Monday the kids had taken a bus a taxi a boat the subway and walked a ton.

I got them a kids guide to NYC and mom showed them some videos before we went and Megan decided that her only bucket list item was to get a pretzel as big as her head.

We went to times square to see the real crowds.

This was the only time that Kiernan seemed unsettled.

We made an amazing 5 minuet dash to get daddy a slice of NY pizza (Kiernans promis to his father at the begining of this adventure). We really made it to the bus only 2 minutes before it was slated to leave but we made it.

Megan crawled to the floor of the bus and fell to sleep for 2.5 hours.

Kiernan got home snuggled his daddy and also crashed.

The next day was a stay at home and recover day but the day after we went to the library and the art gallery in Frederick.

It was beautiful and peaceful.

Then we got in the car and drove 4 hours in the other direction.

We went to Bracey to see my grandparents Rumford.

Grandpa had just had a rather unexpected bad heart day so when we got there he was all wired up with monitors.

The kids were super excited to ride in the golf cart and to go to the pool.

I read my new book from the library.

Mom told the kids about family history and presidential stuff. Here she was telling them about Betty Ford.

Both kids had their first go's of a diving board.

The next day was Friday and David come down and mom went up.

Yay for family all around. Yay particularly for David.

That night we watyched a huge hurricane bear down on Hawaii and we prayed for dad and Mary and the people on the islands.

The next morning we heard that they were fine and got ready to head out to the beach.

Look at how Kiernan is almost as tall as grandma!

We drove for 3ish hours and hit Nags head and pizza and Jockeys Ridge and felt pretty happy.

The weather was perfect and stayed that way the entire time we were down there.

 Jockeys Ridge is the largest sand dune on the Atlantic coast.

It looks like Laurence of Arabia should be rushing by on a camel.

Here we are on the aproach.

and here on the egress. There has been so much rain that there are giant sandy puddles at the bottom now.

Good for hot feet!

We rented a beach house with Uncle Chris and Aunt Pammy and cousin Kaleb and it was fantastic.

It even had a nearby bagel shop with chai!

We played on the ocean side and on the sound side.

Kaleb and Meg got on like a house on fire.

Kiernan had some anxiety but did well enough.

Megan lost her first tooth.

David got a nice tan and some beach time. This is a man who LOVES the ocean.

There was a great deal of sand building and digging and fortifying. 

I took Kiernan for a shady hike but the mosquitoes tried to eat us alive.

We saw the Buxton lighthouse.

We did more sand stuff.

I wound down in a way i can only do far away from work (although I did have a fair amount of school work with me).

This is also a thing I can only really do when David is around.

He takes such a load off my shoulders.

oh man...

We should really figure out a way to become independently wealthy.

I wish to have much more of this.

There was some pokemon and some magic the gathering at play.

The kids were down with it.

Some fort building.

Some candy

Some Elizabethan gardens

Some super loud cicadas 

Some fishing pier

Some beautiful sunset

Some nature for me to love

More nature for me to love

Even more

It was our 16th anniversary

copmplete with crazy children and beautiful sunsets

and important beach farts

and ephemeral beauty.

I impaled my poor tender foot on this particular walk and then rinsed it off in the ocean.

OUCH!

It was too beautiful to leave though.

I mean ...

The next morning we left for home.

With a stop at the bagel shop to flue up.

with some thundery rest areas in between.

We made it home for a long weekend.

We worked on Pokemon decks and edgy haircuts in preparation for school starting on Tuesday.

I went to the archery practice.

I need a lot more practice. The stuff I have been doing with the cub scout gear is insufficient.

Even the lightest bow they had was a good 15lbs heavier than I have been using.

I took off some skin but hit a few targets and over all felt really pleased with myself for braving it with strangers.

We did thrown weapons after ward.

Look at the tree behind that purple knife. That is a flying squirle that came dashing out of the hole right next to the knife.

Very startling.

here is the 2nd axe I got to stick.

Here is my hole in one shot.

hahah

I think I am about to order axes and bows form amazon...

After the weapons in the woods bit I went home and took a shower and was taken by my husband out for a private night of anniversary Indian food and 90's scifi and uninterrupted togetherness.

Tomorrow is the first day of school.

Whew! What a life!