Oak Mountain State Park, Birmingham Alabama

Our last night camping in Birmingham, Alabama went smoothly. The kids all slept well the whole week. (Kinda surprised me, with us all in the same room pretty much.) The next day we made a B-line to Dallas, Texas. The trip was amazing. We came away from this trip feeling closer to each other. I will forever remember this special week and the fun things we did together. A few of things that added to the fun was a couple of games that I forgot to mention. We played a license plate game. The kids would look at all of the licence plates and mark them off of the map that I taped to the wall. We found all but ten (I think) of the states. We even found Hawaii and Alaska! I also made up a scavenger hunt. When the kids found a certain number of items, they got to open up a surprise (usually candy, some little games). These two games were a big hit. They spent a lot of time looking out the windows and that is what we hoped. It's fun to be a family and to be able to spend time together. (The pictures of Quincey and Boston are when they were bouncing on the bed in the back while Daddy was driving down a bouncy road. Then it turned into a wrestling match.)

Oak Mountain State Park, Birmingham Alabama

Here we are at WalMart waiting for our tire to get fixed. I just had to document it all. The family was thrilled.

Atlanta History Center

We visited The Atlanta History Center. It took about three hours to see all that was there. They had a huge museum, two historic houses to tour. One was a farm house and the other a plantation house.

Returning to his roots (well, sort of =) )

Next we visited the house that Daddy lived in when he was born. It was Grandma and Grandpa Dittman's house and Daddy's parents, Paul and Dion lived with them for the summer when Tag was born. He only lived there for a few weeks, but it was fun to see. Then we drove by the hospital that he was born in. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Playing at the Temple Grounds

The Atlanta Temple sits on this really cool hill. We couldn't resist playing on it and running up and down. It got out some energy and made it a super fun memory.

On to ATLANTA!

First stop in Atlanta was the temple. It was beautiful. Piper had fun posing with the flowers.

Cotton Patch Gold Mine

While driving to our next camp ground we had the pleasure of having a blowout. =) The back tires are dualies, so that we were able to just drive the RV to the nearest WalMart and get it fixed. While at WalMart, the kids had fun spending their money that they had earned on the trip if they were able to get along and make good choices. We paid them $5 a day and if they made a bad choice, they would loose $1 at a time. This helped a lot with the kids. They tried extra hard to be nice and treat the family members with respect. It was worth the money. After the tire was fixed we headed to the Cotton patch Gold Mine and Campground, which was located in Charlotte, North Carolina. With the time we spent at WalMart, we got there too late to tour the gold mine or go panning. But after we got the RV all hooked up, Daddy took the kids for a walk and they met a man at the campground who had found some gold that day panning. He brought it to our RV to show the kids. Boston and Sarger got the gold fever and spent the whole evening outside the RV breaking rocks open in hopes to find gold inside. They had fun doing that.

The Ships

I am amazed at the living conditions that people endured in this time of the world. I hope that seeing these things and learning about their lives will help our children appreciate what they have and the comforts that we enjoy. (By the way, Sarger is laying in the Captains bed. The rest of the crew slept below on top of the cargo.

Jamestown

I don't know if it is just me, but when I saw my husband wearing that helmet, I laughed so hard!

Jamestown

The kids loved all of the things about Jamestown. The boys really liked the armour that they wore and their weapons. They fired a musket and Briggs took off like a scared rabbit. We were giggling at that.

Jamestown

Williamsburg, Virginia's Historic Jamestown

Our next stop was Williamsburg, Virginia. This is where the historic settlement of Jamestown was located. Jamestown was the first English settlement in America. We toured a place that had examples of what an Indian village, an Englishman's village and two ships that are replicas of the original ships that brought the English across the ocean to America. Our first stop was the Indian Village.

As You Wish- DELAWARE ...Done!

We love to set and accomplish goals. One of our family goals is to see all of the United States. This trip helped that goal because we were able to see 13 of the states. As we drove down the road, I was looking at my atlas and deciding when we would go to see the other areas of the country. As I planned, I ran into a problem. DELAWARE, when will be able to go to Delaware? It is a small, out of the way state. WE MUST GO TO DELAWARE and checked that baby off the list. Our goal would not ever be complete if we do not see Delaware! I told Taggart about this dilemma in hopes that he would see what it is that we MUST DO. My sweet husband knows me too well, "Yes Love, we will go to Delaware." He woke up at 4:30 in the morning to drive an extra 4 hours that day so that we could check off Delaware. We dipped into Delaware, filled up the RV and headed south to Virginia.

Our Last Site in DC. Can you tell what it is?

This is THE PENTAGON! We caught a cab (a nice cab driver let us cram 7 people in his cab =) )and had him drive us around The Pentagon. We were tapped out on touring and enjoyed the ride to see it. He then dropped us off at a mall where we ate at the food court and caught the train back to our Cherry Hill camp ground. What an amazing two days of seeing our Nations Capitol. I thank my sweet husband for making it all happen. I love you! I will treasure these memories forever.