Virginia

Bryson had the entire week of the 4th of July off, so we decided to take a trip to Virginia to visit my mom's side of the family. I LOVE visiting Virginia and spending time with Granny & Papa, Auntie, Tickie and my cousins and now even my sister lives there. Lots of family, a lot to do and see there and always a great time!

Our flight left SFO at 6am, so we drove into the city the night before and stayed in a hotel. Our kids were so excited, they didn't fall asleep until around 11pm, and we were up at 3am to catch the shuttle to the airport from the hotel...so we were all running on very little sleep by the time we got to the airport. I was prepared for the absolute worst (haha), but our kids were amazing and slept for the majority of the first leg of the flight, which was a 5hr flight. I was so proud of them - and relieved to say the least haha. We worked it out that Gavin got his own seat (since we were flying Southwest), which was perfect. I found that taking the car seat on the plane was the BEST thing we could have done - Ava had her own seat of course, because she's over 2...so we put her car seat in her seat and strapped her in. Then, we only had to deal with ONE kid (Gavin) climbing all over the place. When he got too wiggly, we would strap him into the car seat and Ava sat in the other seat.

Once we arrived in Richmond, Auntie Kait was there to pick us up! Ava was SOO excited and spent the entire next several days at Kaitlyn's side nonstop! Kaitlyn took us to her beautiful apartment and to dinner at Mellow Mushroom and showed us a little around Carrytown and downtown Richmond, where she lives. 

We went to Jamestown, Williamsburg, DC to visit my aunt and cousins (all about that on another post!), Busch Gardens several times, and Virginia Beach. And of course we spent time at Granny's house in Newport News. We even had a good ol' Southern cook-out hosted by my sweet Granny. What a fun, fun time! 

We LOVED our time in Virginia! Ava ADORED her sweet 2nd cousins, Leah and Amy. They were SO good to her and Gavin. Such good babysitter girls! I definitely felt like our trip wasn't long enough. It's always hard to leave family, especially my sister!! She is waaaay too far away from me, being all the way across the country! But we are so glad and grateful that we were able to visit for those 9 days! Hopefully we will get back there sooner than later! 

Jamestown

Colonial Williamsburg

My cousin's backyard treehouse!

Fun with my cousins!