traveling...

... to visit my only sibling. He lives in Virginia, sort of in a suburb of Richmond. I tell people they are between the new capitol and the old one, situated on the east side of Richmond which is a short drive through farmland and wooded by-ways from the early colonial capitol of Willamsburg. I enjoy seeing the brother and his wife, as well as having opportunity to witness their amusing, constantly-in-motion grandchildren. It is possible that I am even more fond of my amusing sister-in-law than my sib.

It was my intention to come up in the spring, when things were blooming, and bursting with color. Having been in the past when tulips were glorious and forsythia was at it's brilliant yellow best, I know spring is a joy to see. But somehow did not make plans in time to get here back in March or early April. Even though they have had abundant rains and there are a thousand shades of green, the temp and humidity are proof it is already summer.

We went downtown to go on a trolley tour of the historic parts of the city, and were swamped with facts, information and trivia from the past two-hundred years. The tour guide on the trolley was a fount of knowledge. When he said he was a retired professor, I just assumed 'history' guy, but his expertise in academia was business and finance. Very informative.

We had lunch downtown at a local pizza stop (the dough is a secret recipe), and went to retrieve the peeps from daycare.Which as you might imagine, with two small people under the age of five was mostly chaos.  We first went to a small neighborhood playground to wear them out. Causing all three adults to be exhausted due to trying to keep up with two pre-schoolers.

Then onto a shopping area to meet their parents for a meal, with the hope of entertaining the kids until parents arrived. Marginally successful due to a loaf of perfectly good bread we had to feed some monstrous carp in a large retaining pond. Those hundreds of greedy fish with gaping mouths as were a little intimidating. Thankfully they were fish, and could not get out of the water to chase us down, and beat us up like a gang of thieves.

The dad finally showed up to rescue us, and take them home. I hope the peeps slept as well as I did last night - wiped out from too much fun. I've often heard the old saw about how it God gives children to young people as they are the only ones with the stamina and energy to keep up with their busyness. Too True!