Travel

The girls and I had a great flight down on Monday. We got to spend a couple days of shopping, eating, and swimming in Dallas with Chad and Mom. Chloe loved The Magic Time Machine (Cinderella was our waitress). Yesterday we drove over to Mom's house in Bossier. Today has been a much needed rainy day to rest. I'll probably run down to Wal-Mart Supercenter a little later. I've got to take advantage of the good old Supercenter while I'm here. Maryland still won't allow them. That will change some day - it's inevitable. Right Rach?

Letterboxing

I checked the letterboxing site yesterday and was excited to see that a new box had been planted near us just last week. Big Rach, the girls, and I set out to find it today at the Union Mills Homestead. Once we got on the right trail, we didn't have much trouble. Just a bit of walking in the heat. In the end the location of the box was really neat. It was also very cool to be the first ones to find this box. Much to our surprise, when we opened it, we found a "hitchhiker" inside. This was a new twist in the game for us. Apparantly, a "hitchhiker" is a letterbox with no permanent home. The "hitchhiker" is carried from one box to another where it is left for some other person to find. When you find the "hitchhiker," you stamp it as you do any letterbox, but then carry it with you to be left at the next letterbox you find. The girls and I will be flying to Dallas next week to spend some time in Texas and Louisiana. The "hitchhiker" will be making the trip with us. Our plan is to find it a new temporary home in the south.

Movies

I am loving the free family movies that the Westminster Mall shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the summer. There are two shows playing each week, one G rated, and one PG. Last week we saw Babe 2 Pig in the City, today we watched Zathura. Both were fun. We will try to catch a few more before school starts. And, did I mention they're free?

NCR Trail

We have been having tons more summer fun these last couple of weeks. Our family went biking on the NCR Trail. The trail runs from Baltimore north to York, Pennsylvania. It follows the Gunpowder Falls River. So, you have the view of the river on one side of the trail and beautiful forrest and rock formations on the other. Hannah and Rachel rode well, and Chloe did great in her trailer. We rode 19 miles of the trail that day, and we can't wait to do it again.

List

Every spring Hannah begins to dream of all the fun things she will do during her summer break. Several years ago, I suggested she write up a "summer list" of things we wanted to do, which we posted of the fridge. The summer list has become an annual tradition in our household. The list always contains some new things as well as simple family activities that are hard to find time to do during the school year.This year was no different than the last few, and sometime in April or May Hannah's potential adventures showed up in written form in our kitchen.

This summer's list looks like this (minus her cool drawings, fonts, and colors):

Summer List

1. Washington DC National Zoo (pandas)
2. Bowling
3. Dutch Wonderland and/or Hershey Park
4. Go camping
5. Devil's Den
6. Cordoras Park swimming pool

We don't always get around to everything on the list, some years the list has been quite lengthy. So far this summer we spent a great week camping in North Carolina and Virginia and also went to the DC zoo. I'll keep updating on further summer adventures.