Thanksgiving, but mostly a Battleship

Remember when I used to average 80 posts a year? 2013 yielded 26. That’s how awesome I’ve become.
Really, there are 3 reasons I haven’t been blogging. 1: I am busy (but don’t have much to show for it), 2: I don’t take pictures anymore, and 3: I’m a tad lazy

Well… “Wendy, I’m home…. Heeere’s Johnny” (said with the same enthusiasm, but not as much fright)
After reports of poor innocent people logging onto my blog disappointed at finding Halloween pictures for the past 2 months, I figured I would update. And I’m making another public vow to post more. Haha, we know how well I follow through.

Anyways, let me take you back to Thanksgiving. It sounds so long ago… it was. And perhaps you don’t know me very well, but if you did, you would know that I have the worst memory on Earth. It’s actually really frightening,  but we won’t go into that now. Lets just say, I will do my best at documenting this. We’ll have to let the pictures do a lot of the talking.

We got the greatest surprise when we found out that Shawn’s parents were coming out here for Thanksgiving. It was the best week ever!
Shawn was able to take some time off work. We did the tour of his clinic and parts of the base. The kids were still in school, so we pretty much got to relax an do whatever we wanted to during the day. It was lovely.

Here we are on Thanksgiving Day. That morning we went to the movies and saw “Frozen”. Then we came home, visited, and ate. Peggy and I made the most delicious meal, and we had enough food to feed an army. I think we may have just finished the leftovers this month.  

One day we took a day trip to Wilmington and visited the USS North Carolina. This battleship fought in WWII and now it’s retired just a couple hours from us.


We had to go see it of course. The weather was cold and rainy, but that never seems to discourage my kids.
Here’s Jefferson, totally unaware that it’s raining. I mean, he’s holding a machine gun, there is nothing that could phase him right now.

This tour is Boy Heaven. Just look at those smiles

And this sucker is HUGE! As in, 9 levels of exploring. It took us 2 hours to walk through the whole thing!
Up stairs, down stairs, up, then up, then down, down, down, up…. it was a major workout.
 

I don’t remember everything we saw (I really need to blog the day after we do something so I don’t forget), but I do remember being pretty fascinated. I have a lot of pictures of things, and I don’t know what they are. For example, this thing….
I think it was a contraption that peeled potatoes? Whatever it was, it was picture worthy.


And this…
I think it was the barrels of gun powder that filled a missile?

Shawn, in front of something
(I know… I should be a tour guide)

The boys loved this control panel. I think they could have stayed here the entire time. Yes, this is a picture of them fighting over the controls….

My favorite part was finding the bunks, because we all got a much needed rest. I look unusually happy to be lying in total filth. Those mattresses probably haven’t been washed since the ship was commissioned in 1941. And is Grant actually biting the mattress? Lovely


Sitting in the same place where hundreds of sailors ate. And from what we read, they were fed pretty good.

Kennedy made an appearance up on deck


Everyone… cold, wet, and tired


and my little family. I just noticed Jefferson on his tippy-toes, weird.

It really was amazing. I had no idea how big battleships were. I mean, just look at Shawn’s dad in the bottom right of this picture…. he’s an ant compared to those cannons! The kids enjoyed themselves, and we learned a ton of facts (which I promptly forgot)

We really spent most of our visit just enjoying each other’s company. Monty and Peggy took each of my kid’s out for individual dates, which was special. And they got acquainted with Kennedy… she just loved them! But who wouldn’t?
 

Oh, we also took a day trip to Raleigh and visited the Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum. We spent hours getting really educated. It was a lot of fun. Here is everyone with their 3D glasses on before a dinosaur show…


Thank you for coming to visit us! You made the holiday special and brightened up our home while you were here. We were truly sad to see you leave. A couple of us may have cried (but I won’t name names).