We came back this week from visiting my sone Paul at his Air Force base in Virginia. The trip was sort of a little family vacation prior to sending Paul off to advanced training & then to Afghanistan. I won't get to see him again until he returns from Afghanistan.
In the tradition of our family vacations, there are always trips to museums, both science & history related. Here is Paul with Bill at Colonial Williamsburg - messing with some kind of period toy.
I have no pics of Paul in his uniform - he said he took leave to see us, so he didn't have to wear it.
Here's a pic of Paul & I at Williamsburg - it poured down rain most of the day. I'm wearing the shawl that I pulled off the blocking wires just before we left on this trip.
This was a really neat place & I'd like to come back & visit it more thoroughly when the weather is better.
Neat yarn store near here the Knitting Sisters. I got a lovely skein of Prism lace wool in a colorway called Thunderclap - purple, green & teal together (how could this be a bad thing)
Later in the evening we met up with some of his friends & went out to his favorite sushi place.
Next day we went to Virginia Beach for a little while - terribly windy like a sandstorm. I did get to see the ocean though, & walk to close to the surf so it got me wet to the knees.
I'm told this is the statue that all the Navy Seals come have their picture taken with.
On Sunday we spent the day at the National Mariners Museum from open to close. They have a huge exhibit on the USS Monitor where this was taken:
Part of the exhibit is a life size model of the Monitor. This is the turret of the ship. It was astonishingly small for how important it was in the Civil War.
This was taken outside the Mariners Museum before it opened. Bill was bouncing off the walls for the doors to open so I'm kind of amazed the picture turned out & isn't blurry!
I miss my son terribly already & he isn't even overseas yet. I hope he stays safe over there. As I write this, the news is talking about how things are heating up again.
We have a new member of the house. Paul's cat Lance. For some reason, the landlord would not let an unemployed housecat keep the lease on the apartment. It's his 5th full day in the house with our other cats. he has yet to make any friends, or say anything other than hssssss to them & he's started trying to climb things. Oh & he has evidently never heard the words NO or BAD KITTY as he has no concept of their meaning. As I understand it, this is his 4th home is 6 months (Paul got him from a friend 3-4 months ago) so I guess I'll cut him some slack. He is a cute little thing.
Oh - trip knitting - I worked on 2 little hoodies that will be holiday pressies for the 2 baby nephews William & Ethan. Nice small projects for in the car.
Lance is a beautiful cat, Lynne. He reminds me of Maia, one of my favorites during our more than 40 years of marriage. Hope Lance's behavior improves soon. Maia was an extremely outgoing cat. She would go to the neighbors' houses to watch TV with their kids or eat with their cats. She'd take naps on the neighbor kids' beds. If I remember correctly, she lived to be 19 years old.
Glad you had a good visit with Paul.
Posted by: Margaret | November 22, 2008 at 06:04 PM