Tuesday, July 27, 2010

July family vacation



We took a trip to Holiday World and Splashin' Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana last week with Ryan's side of the family.  We had a lot of fun.  Alex and Nicolas each took their first roller coaster rides.  Nicolas was okay with just one, but Alex returned several times for more. 



We rode the Pilgrim's Plunge, the world's tallest water ride.  (Nicolas sat this one out.)  We all rode the Wildebeast, the world's longest water coaster.  We all enjoyed that one so much we would've ridden again had the line not been an hour and a half wait!  Nicolas really liked the water rides and Alex liked the Revolution (think human centrifuge.)


Ryan in the far left, then his sister, then our neice, next is Nicolas, then Alex and then Jodi

After our fun was over, we turned the rest of the trip into field trips.  We went to the Santa Claus, Indiana post office and the boys mailed themselves postcards from Holiday World and wrote about their roller coaster experiences.



We stopped at Abraham Lincoln's Boyhood Home National Memorial.  The boys each took the Junior Ranger test and passed.


This was Abe Lincoln's house when is was 7 years old until 21 years old.



We stopped at Spring Mill State Park to camp for 2 nights.  They have a boat cave tour that we took.  It felt very good after the high heat and humidity to be in 54 degrees in the cave.






This is a picture of our campsite at Spring Mill.

The park hosted Gus Grissom day on Saturday.  Gus Grissom was from Mitchell, Indiana, where the park is located.  Grissom Air Force Base is very close to where we live.  There is a Grissom Memorial in the park.  Outside the memorial the Stargazers Club had special telescopes set up during the day to view the sun.  We saw 2 sun spots and solar flares.  They also had their telescopes set up after dark where we viewed a binary star system.  The 2 stars were yellow and blue in color.  We also saw a nebula.  The moon was very bright, so the nebula was a little blurry, but it was still neat to see these things.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Summer Camps

To catch up with my blogging on our summer activities, I'm posting some pictures from the boys' summer camps.  They each went to scout camp and church camp this month.




Alex at Camp Buffalo




Nicolas at Cary Camp, Cub Adventure camp


Nicolas at Junior Bible Camp (his roommate wasn't there yet.)


Alex at Junior Bible Camp with his cousin, Matthew.