Space shuttle

One of the great things about living in O-town is being able to see the space shuttle go up. The back of our house faces west so we go up on our second floor balcony to watch it go up. Lucky for us, the shuttle was scrubbed on Monday and Tuesday and was rescheduled for Friday at midnight. Although we were all tired from our first week back to school we decided to stay up and watch it. Night launches are some of the best ones to see. It lighted the sky up, we could see when the boosters fell off and watched the shuttle for about 5 minutes before it disappeared. We only have a few more chances to watch the shuttle before they are retired.
This is video taken from our balcony of a shuttle launch in March.

First Day of School

August 24th arrived and school has begun again. The exciting thing about this school year is that Joo started kindergarten. She is going to BME with Min and I. She is in Mrs. J's class and LOVES it!!!! I have never seen her sooo happy and I'm thrilled. She can't stop talking about school and how much fun it is. Min started third grade and is finding the workload much different that what he is used to. He already got the talk from mom and dad about taking school seriously and taking his time when doing his work. We'll see how it goes. As for me, I am enjoying my classes this year, but have been staying late quite often with an over-the-top workload. Thank goodness I am not taking a graduate class this semester. I would have never survived.

Yum!

Mr. Cash and I were talking about homemade ice cream the other day and he said he had never made it before, whereas homemade ice cream was a regular occurrence in my childhood summers. We spent most of Saturday afternoon in the pool and decided that we would make some ice cream then. We did the very simple plastic bag kind. You fill a gallon bag half full with ice and put some rock salt in it. In a quart size bag, you mix the ice cream ingredients: half and half, sugar, and vanilla. Put the small bag in the large bag and shake until the ingredients freeze, then eat. It is delicious and so simple. We liked it so much today we are going to try and make chocolate ice cream.

Historical Road Trip

After we left the kids with Grandma and Papa, Mr. Cash and I were on the road again. Our first stop was Gettysburg, PA. We stayed in a historical bed and breakfast called the Brickhouse Inn, which was very nice and cozy, right in downtown. The downtown area was very touristy, loud and congested, but our room, the Ohio room, was at the back of the house so it was pretty quiet. We walked the downtown area that evening,many of the buildings were there during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. We even saw one that still had the bullet holes in it from the battle. The next day we visited the Gettysburg National Park. Everyone we talked to had recommended getting a personal guide for the tour of the battlefield so we did that first thing. Our guide drove our car and took us to the important sites on the battlefield. First, let me just say, the battlefield was huge!! I had no idea it was so big!! It's a good thing that we did the personal tour, we never would have seen it all or learned so much! Every state that was in the battle has monuments for their men. We saw the eternal flame and many statues of commanders in the battle. We also visited the cemetery where unknown soldiers are buried and saw where President Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address. It was a very interesting, informative and sad day when you remember all of those men who died in that battle.Mr. Cash and me in front of the eternal flame monument.Statue and monument of Robert E. Lee.

The next stop on our trip was Philadelphia. Neither of us had been there so we didn't quite know what to expect. We stayed in the Omni right by Independence Park so we could walk to all of the different buildings. Philadelphia was interesting, the city is built all around the historical sites so when you are walking to the different areas you are walking in an urban area with lots of cars and buildings. Now I know that Philadelphia's motto is "Brotherly Love", but we didn't see much love for the tourists or maybe I'm just not a big city girl. Anyway, the sites are scattered all over the downtown area so we walked a lot that day. We went and got our tickets for Independence Hall first and got that out of the way, while in Independence park, we also saw the Congress House and the building where the first Supreme Court sat. We saw Betsy Ross' house, Benjamin Franklin's grave and square, where his residence and shops were. We saw the Liberty Bell, the First Bank and Second Bank of the United States, and Carpenter's Hall, where the First Continental Congress met. We saw the house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and Elfreth's Alley, which is the oldest continously occupied street in the United States. For lunch, we ate at the City Tavern, which serves authentic 18th century dishes. I had Martha Washington's Turkey Pot Pie. It was a busy and tiring day.

Independence Hall at about 8:00 in the morning, notice no people, it doesn't stay that way. The modern buildings in the background ruin the historical effect.

Me at Elfreth's Alley. For my fifth grade teacher friends, this is the same alley that is in the social studies textbook.

No explanation needed.

The next day, we went to the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic site (house) in Philadelphia. We had to drive to his house so we went there on the way out of town. Poe lived in the house for about a year. The thing we remember about this house is the basement was really creepy and reminded Mr. Cash of one of his short stories. After that we headed to the Valley Forge National Park, which was the site of the American winter camp of 1777-78 during the American Revolution. This site was also huge!! What was really neat about this park is it has walking and biking trails throughout as well as horseback riding. We did the self guided driving tour. There are rebuilt cabins, monuments to the men who stayed there and, my favorite, George Washington's headquarters, which was the actual building that he stayed in. Unfortunately, what I remember about this park was that someone ran into my car with their bike while we were looking at a monument and scratched up my bumper.

Monument to soldiers.

Washington's headquarters.

Statue of Von Steuben, who trained the soldiers at Valley Forge.

Then we finally got to leave the state of Pennsylvania. I really did not care for the state. The roads were horrible!!! We were on our way to Charlottesville, VA. We stayed in the historical part of town and drove by the University of Virginia, which was founded by Thomas Jefferson. The next day we got up and went to Monticello, which was Thomas Jefferson's estate. It was really pretty and one of my favorite parts of our trip. He was really forward thinking for his time when it came to building his house.

After touring Monticello, we headed for home. We were on the road for 12 days, drove over 3,000 miles and through 11 states so it felt good to get back home. Visiting all of those places made us realize how much we like where we live and that we have no desire to move anywhere else.

Family Road Trip

The kids usually spend 1-2 weeks every summer with their grandparents in Ohio/Michigan. We decided that we would take a week to drive them up there and do some sightseeing along the way.

Day one we spent driving from Florida to Franklin, North Carolina. It was about a nine hour drive to the mountains. Once we got there, the weather was perfect, nice and cool, and the views were beautiful.

Day two we went mining for gems. There are several ways that people can mine. You can actually go out in the mountain, get a bucket of dirt, bring it back, run it through the water and hope that you get something. You continue this until you do get something. Now our children, like most, want that instant gratification so we opted for the enriched buckets that you will produce results. We bought two 2 1/2 gallon buckets of dirt and started panning away. Here's how you do it: 1. Put a scoop of dirt in the strainer (container with small holes) 2. Put the strainer in the running water and wash the dirt away.

3. Determine which rocks are gems and which are just rocks. Luckily, there was an expert there to help us with this. It's very hard to figure out what is a rock and what is a gem. Rocks go into the throw away bins and gems on the tray. Continue to do this until the dirt is gone.

The kids loved this and both got a quart size ziploc bags of gems, ranging from quartz to emeralds and rubies.

Joo holding up citrine that she found.

Min holding up amethyst he found

The mine that we went to had a special for tourmaline. They would polish and cut a one carat piece for a ring or necklace included with the purchase of our buckets. It's really neat to see a black rock that you found be turned into a pretty green gem.

After mining, we toured the mountains a bit then headed towards Tennessee.

Min loved climbing on the rocks.

We took this really beautiful scenic route that followed a river for most of the way. This river was used in the summer Olympics that were in Atlanta for the whitewater kayaking events. We stopped at the visitor center and watched all of the whitewater rafters running the rapids. We saw a couple of people get flipped out of the raft and the rescuers trying to pull them back in.

Day three was spent at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee and Georgia. We went to Ruby Falls, which is an underground cavern system that has a huge waterfall.

We also went to Rock City, which is an outcropping of large rock formations that a family made into a park with walking trails over the rocks and in between the rocks. It was a really neat park. When you get to the top of the mountain, you can see seven states.

Day four was spent at King's Island, an amusement park in Mason (close to Cincinnati) Ohio. They have the best kids' area of all the parks that we have been too. Min and Joo love that park. I love the food in that park. Cheese fries and elephant ears, yum!!! We left the camera at the hotel that day (we had just been there the previous August and had taken a bunch of pictures then), but we did buy a great family picture of us going down the hill on one of the water rides there.

Day five we drove to Columbus to see our good friend, and my former college roommate, Mrs. Jones and to stock up on our buckeye gear for the upcoming college football season. We also had to show the kids Ohio Stadium! Go Bucks!!
Min took this picture of us in front of Mike Nugent's Buckeye tree in Buckeye Grove. Every Ohio State player that is an All-American gets a Buckeye tree planted in the grove in his honor.

Day six was supposed to be spent at Kelley's Island in Lake Erie but the weather didn't cooperate and it rained so we went to Fort Meigs in Perrysburg, Ohio instead. This was a fort that was used in the War of 1812.

We had a great family road trip, the kids were well behaved in the car and they got to see and do things that were new to them.

Day seven the kids were with Grandma Sue and Papa, and Mr. Cash and I were on our way to visit several historical sites on the way back home. More on that later. . .