Holiday pictures, round 2

Whew! This is a massive entry! I'll have one more to post, most likely tomorrow...

This is our cabin in First Landing State Park. Pretty rustic, eh? No phone, tv or internet connection. We enjoyed being "off the grid", so to speak, for almost a week. Thankfully, we did have power, water and heat.

On the evening we arrived, "Pee-Paw" came to visit, bringing Sadie a Barney doll. Sigh. Sadie loves her some Barney. She also was happy to see "Pee-Paw". She's been walking around saying "Pee-Paw" for the past few days. She's said "Pee-Paw GONE", "Pee-Paw play", and something about Pee-Paw and a helicopter and an airplane, which I'm still trying to decipher.

Dad feeds Sadie a fortune cookie. We got Chinese take-out. Yes, it's rustic there, but as soon as you leave the park, you're in Virginia Beach. One of our fortunes said "Enjoy your meal? Order one to take home!" I was saddened.


Sadie poses in front of the fireplace, which we dared not use. See the cinder block walls?

The next day, we met Marsha, Robert, Lily and Lucas at the Portsmouth Children's Museum. I feel like the grand patron of children's museums everywhere. This one has been around for years and is quite impressive.

Here's one of the "grocery stores" you find in these museums. Special on Aisle three on eggs and Sadies!

Sadie and Lily climb into a bus. They both look somewhat bemused.

Daddy and Sadie, inside a real vintage Portsmouth fire truck.

Sadie, motorcycle mama, atop a police chopper.

This is really cool. You stand inside this circle, lift the ring, and are inside a bubble. For some reason, the bubble didn't show up.

Sadie contemplates yet another slide experience.

Yay! Train tables! This room had several of them and was like a kind of Shangri-La for the kids. Sadie, Lucas and Lily have fun playing with trains.


Next, we wandered down the road to a building that hosted the old Coleman's Nursery animatronic figures. When I was a child, it was a Tidewater tradition to visit Coleman's Nursery every Christmas and wander through their Christmas land. They've been around at least since the early sixties. There were swaying elves, Santae that bobbed, and nodding penguins. As a child, the display was grand and magical. When Coleman's Nursery closed, the displays were orphaned, so the Courthouse Galleries downtown took on the collection. I so wish more of these pictures came out- most were blurry. The elves, particularly, were Kafka-esque. So many of these displays are almost kind of creepy now.

A waxy Santa peruses a Christmas list while bobbing back and forth.

Please blow up this picture. These carolers look positively maniacal. They look like lost dead souls screaming in agony.

This is supposed to be a boy who has slipped on his ice skates, falling down, but it looks rather gruesome to me.


Penguins with igloo and a rather wee seal. Sadie kept saying "BABY penguin". She's fascinated with babies. Anything smaller than another similar object is a baby. Therefore, we see "baby" sticks, "baby" boats and "baby" airplanes.

We did quite a bit of hiking in the park. Here are a few pictures of our first hike on the Bald Cypress Trail. First Landing State Park is the northernmost location for Bald Cypress swamps.





We stopped for an outing at a playground in Virginia Beach. Our girl has to have a regular dose of swings and slides and things to climb.


Meanwhile, back in the cabin, Sadie kept climbing into this cabinet, closing the door and saying "Bye Bye!"

We had Robert, Marsha, the twins, and Redmond's best friend Donald over for a cookout. Here, the three kids are amused as Daddy and Robert make faces at them...

Sadie rode quite a bit in her new Radio Flyer wagon.


We visited the Virginia Beach Aquarium, where we promptly forgot to take pictures inside. However, we walked along their nature trail and captured a few images there.

Sadie by the water.


This is the back of the aquarium. We've been going to it since the early 1990's, when we attended training to become part of their stranding team. Unfortunately, we moved to Montana before we could complete our training. The stranding team rescues beached whales, injured or orphaned wildlife, and oil slicked birds and sea animals.
Pretty view of the river.
We hiked with Dad and Sadie on a trail in First Landing that replicated a Powhatan village from the 14th-16th century. I was amazed at the tiny living quarters. Here is what would be the chief's residence. It's supposed to be an "executive home".

Here is a typical fishing camp.

We also strolled on the beach.
Here's the Virginia Beach boardwalk. I've always preferred more natural, less inhabited beaches, but there's something compelling about Virginia Beach in the winter. All the buildings seem empty and stark; somewhat lonely, and there are few visitors.
Okay- one more entry tomorrow! Whew!