The biggest caverns in the East!

After the bike ride, we drove the four hours to see Luray Caverns. B and I have been in them before and loved them, so we took the offspring. We were not let down. They were as beautiful as we remembered them being. What I didn't remember was a lot of people when we went before. This time there was line of humanity that was really long. I didn't time how long we had to stand in line, but it felt really long. They only let a certain number if people in the cave at a time.  Of course little B wouldn't stand in line, so I followed him around while B took one for the team and held our spot in line. There was another little boy that was about the same age as little B. He saw little B walking around and started to follow him. Little B noticed this kid following him and kept walking. He would look over his shoulder to see if he was still being followed. He was, so he would walk faster. The follower would pick up his step too. After about 15 seconds of being followed, little B looked over his shoulder, saw that he was still being pursued, burst into tears and ran to B's legs to be picked up. For some reason he really didn't like the idea of someone his same size following him. We finally made it into the caves and loved every minute inside!

This is right at the bottom of the staircase we had to walk down to get to the start of the cave. F.Y.I- the caverns were found in 1878. A guy was walking in the mountains and felt cold air blowing up from the ground. He started to dig and five hours later he was inside the cave.

This looks like these are in the process of growing together, but they aren't. It's actually a pond that's only 20 inches deep. It's just a perfect reflection of the stalactites that are on the ceiling. The picture is foggy, but in real life, it's really cool looking!

Look how big this stalactite is! Pretty awesome if you ask me! Don't panic, they didn't touch, they just stood in it.We didn't want the oils in our skin to make it stop growing. 

We were told when the tour started that if you felt a drop of water on your skin while you were in the cave, it was a kiss from the cave and that it would bring a year of good luck. We hope that it's a year of good luck per drop, then all of us are going to have at least four or five years of good luck! K said that he felt 100 drops. That may or may not be an exaggeration. ;)

Aren't they cute? What's not to love about a cave that has these three little people inside of it?!

Let's go ride a bike

Hip Hip Hooray! School is finally out! I truly love summer and having the little's around. To celebrate that they were finally free, we decided to go to Virginia and try this awesome bike trail called the Virginia Creeper. The whole trail is actually 34 miles long, we only did half. Yes half of 34 is 17, so we rode 17 miles on our bikes. The trail is all downhill. We took a shuttle up to the top, that in and of itself is a beautiful thing! To not have to ride up was real swell! There are some crazies out there that ride up and then ride down again. We didn't want to join that elite team. 17 miles! Our amazing older little's did the whole thing! They didn't complain that it was too long or that they wanted to stop. They just kept peddling on. As we rode to the top the weather was a little cloudy. We were hoping that it wouldn't rain on us. Alas, that was not to be. Right as we got to the top of the trail, it started to rain. Not a light drizzle, no no, full on down pour. It was not great. The shuttle man unloaded our bikes, told us good luck and left two adults and three smalls standing in the rain. There was a teeny tiny bite sized bathroom that had an overhang that we stood under. M was crying saying that she didn't want to go down in the rain. We all used the bathroom and then took a picture

This picture doesn't do the weather justice. It truly was raining hard enough that you could almost see the cats and dogs falling from the sky. After we took this picture, we said a prayer that the rain would stop and we would be able to ride down without getting wet. We said amen, put on little B's helmet and the rain was just a drizzle. We put him in his seat and it was just a drop here and there. By the time he was buckled in, the rain had totally stopped. It was so awesome to have an answer to our prayer so quickly. We told the offspring to say a thank you prayer and tell Heavenly Father thanks for such a quick answer to prayer, and off we rode.(After another quick picture of course!)

When we first started out, it was pretty cold. I kept praying in my head that the kiddos wouldn't get too cold. Another answer to prayer was when the clouds parted and the sun started to shine. It stayed out long enough to warm us up and then it got cloudy again. So, then we got to go on a beautiful trial and not cook or freeze. It was awesome!

If that isn't beautiful, I don't know what is!

The only annoying thing was that K's peddles kept falling off. We hadn't brought a wrench, odd I know, but we didn't have one. So, we had to stop often and tighten his peddles. I will say that it was pretty funny to be behind him and see him peddle and then all the sudden his foot wouldn't have anywhere to go because the peddle was on the ground, so his foot would fly out to the side. Every time it happened you would hear,"Oh dear, lost a peddle!" 

The trail used to be a railroad line. The train was taken out in 1956 and now it's a beautiful, downhill trail. We went on a Thursday, so four people passed us, but other than that, we were alone. Truly, M, K and little B did awesome! 

The trail was pretty bumpy, but little B didn't seem bothered by it and he took a quick little nap . *Helmet disclaimer. He started out with a helmet, but it kept sliding down over his eyes and he didn't totally love that, so we took it off.

This was on the side of the trail. We decided it would be good to stop and walk around for a minute. We only stayed at this spot for about five minutes, but it was long enough that K was able to throw rocks into the water and little B was able to get out of his seat. M liked the waterfall, but was nervous that it was going to start to rain again and if it rains, then she thinks there will be lightning and if there's lightning, death is soon to follow. So, as to keep the peace, we didn't linger too long.

Look how gorgeous that is! There were a lot of bridges that we got to go over, but this one was the coolest. All the other ones were just flat like this one,

Sometimes we were really high up and could see the tops of the trees and the water below. Heavenly Father has made some pretty amazing places!

K is pointing to the starting point and M is pointing and the finish point. 17 miles! They did it! It took us four hours to do the whole thing. I have been proud of our kids before, but to do 17 miles on a bike and like it made me extra proud of them! After K's peddles had fallen off a thousand times he did say that it was annoying, but he was smiling while he said it. M said that her bum hurt from the bike seat, but she didn't say anything until we were done. We all loved the creeper trail and think that we might try doing it again in the fall when the leaves are changing color.

The happenings when nothing's happening

So, it's been a couple weeks since I've done anything on this here blog. The reason being that nothing's been happening. The millipedes are in full force in our house. We don't know how they get in, but they do. They crawl around with their hundreds of millions of little legs and give me the willies! When I have to come downstairs at night to get medicine for sick off spring, stepping on a millipede is my number one concern. Nasty! We did go camping over Memorial Day weekend with four other families from our ward. It was really fun except for the spiders that came out at night. They were in the bathroom and they were as big as my hand. No that's not an exaggeration. They were big enough that when we would shine a flashlight on them, their eyes would glow greenish yellow like a cats. They were truly awful! We tried to get a picture, but we weren't willing to get close enough to put something next to them(there was more than one. I know, NASTY!) so you could see how big they were. Full body chills is what happened when I saw the spiders every night. One odd lady came into the bathroom while I was standing there with my mouth open staring at the spider. She came over and asked what I was looking at. I couldn't speak. I just pointed to them. She counted the legs and then said,"Oh good." and walked away. I asked her what was good and she said,"spiders that have 8 legs aren't usually poisonous." Now, I'm no spiderologist, but don't all spiders have 8 legs?

Here's proof of the camping experience. We love camping! We loved it in Utah, but since moving we have realized that Utah has no trees. Truly. My older brother told us that Utah has no trees after he moved back east and I didn't believe him. I would look around and see a tree or two and think, we have trees here! It's true, there are a couple of trees in Utah. But nothing like here! It's beautiful here! There are so many trees that you can't see the campground next to you. It's awesome! The campground that we stayed at is kind of weird. You can't park at your campsite. You park in the parking lot and have to haul your stuff in. Thankfully we had taken our bikes so we had the bike trailer that we could use to load our crap in.

He loved riding with all of the stuff, unless of course it slid into him. Then he didn't totally love it, but he wouldn't complain!

What else has been going on, lets see here. Oh! Little B walks, kind of. He was doing awesome! We went to a ward picnic on Saturday and he walked all over the place. But then he got sick and only wanted to be held. But, I have pictures of him walking!(Of course I have pictures of him walking! I take pictures of everything!)

He walks in a line for a minute and then he walks in circles and laughs and laughs.

He comes down the stairs from the playroom into the living room, uses the couch to stand up and then walks across the room. When he walks from one side of the room to the other he gets really excited. He loves to hit his hands on the other couch and then turn around, 

 and walk back to the stairs so the he can go up into the playroom. 

I know it's not a walking picture, but it's cute and should be on here!

We have nothing else to report. No major callings, no broken bones or major sicknesses. School's not out yet, I know, it should be illegal to still be in school. We still have over a week left. Every morning when the alarm goes off I want to cry. The annoying part is that they did end of year testing 2 1/2 weeks ago. So since then school has just been parties and field trips. Of course they love it and are excited to go to their camping day at school or their chef day where they make yummy treats. To me, I want them to be out and be home with me. But, I can't pull them out, because they still take attendance and here if you miss too many days of school you have to do mandatory summer school. That's worse than taking them to school for the last month and a half just so they can play. I will say that we have a couple pretty awesome trips planned in the next few weeks. I know I probably shouldn't have said anything because now you probably won't be able to sleep from the excitement of waiting for another post. All I can say to that is, take some Benadryl that should help! 

No fun

This poor little thing didn't feel well this last weekend. We had planned on going down to the temple but M got an ear infection on Friday morning. Ear infections, those are something I wish there was an over the counter antibiotic for. When she started screaming at 1:00 in the morning, I instantly knew what was wrong. When she was a baby she always had ear infections. She has an ear infection cry, so no need to take her to the Dr. I already knew what was wrong. Alas, there are no antibiotics over the counter, so to the Dr we went. She had it Friday and by Saturday night, he had a fever and his eyes gave it away that he didn't feel well.

His fever stayed around 103 for two full days. We gave him luke warm baths, pumped him full of Tylenol and Ibuprofen. We took him to Urgent Care and they gave him an antibiotic just in case it was an infection. B gave him a blessing and we all prayed that he would get better soon. His fever finally broke this morning. Now he's just grumpy and tired from not feeling good for three days. We are all glad that he's feeling better and hope that he's not cranky for too long.