Epic Road Trip (Day 22: September 14, 2016)


The bed at our Candlewood Suites was very comfy last night and that was a good thing because almost all of the Dennie kids were coughing. At one point, I did get up to give Graham Anderson’s breather and that helped him tremendously. A few minutes later I thought that since it helped Graham it would certainly help Keaton. She did the breather and it did help her coughing but what probably helped her more was scooting Reagan off of her.


I think that we all slept well last night and it didn’t take too long to pack up and eat our doughnuts this morning. Robby had made a late night run to Walmart and picked up some breakfast foods since our hotel didn’t have any. After leaving this morning, it was just a short drive to the MacArthur Memorial and burial site in Norfolk.


They tried to show us a movie but it didn’t work for the longest so we walked through some of the museum. Finally the movie was working again and we all sat to watch the movie. It was nearly 30 minutes long-my boys ate it all up but my girls were bored out of their minds. The movie was interesting though and so was our walk around the museum.


As we were leaving, I took Campbell and Keaton to the restroom. We walked down the steps to the bathroom and I asked them, “who was the man that we came here to learn about?” Keaton looked at me confused and then confidently answered, “God.” I guess she noticed the puzzled look on my face and tried again, “Jesus?” Good thing the museum was free.


We tried to drive near the Naval base but didn’t get very close so we just headed on towards Kitty Hawk. After we did our school, it was Anderson’s pick to watch a movie so he chose a Star Wars. That really kept no one’s interest at all so the car ride was a bit noisy.


We stopped at a rest stop for another late lunch. It seemed that we have been doing so well on staying on some type of decent food schedule but the last few days we haven’t done well today or yesterday at all. In fact, it is 8 right now and Robby is out looking for supper for us. At the rest stop, we pulled out our picnic stuff and everyone dug in. The boys played ball and even briefly lost the football under a board walk-I had to climb on my hands and knees to retrieve it.


From there it was just a short drive to the Wright Brothers National Memorial. We were last there in 2011-Campbell was in a stroller and I was pregnant with Keaton. We even recreated a video of the big 3 standing on the monument and Campbell in the now much too small stroller. We stopped and hiked up to the top of the monument and explored that area.


Then we went to the airplane statue and then finally we looked through the visitor’s center which is a little bit sad. Then outside to see exactly how far the Wright brother’s flights went. Reagan started running to flight number 4 which went over 800 feet. The others followed-Anderson and Graham made it but the others never did. Then the kids zoomed past us as the ran back towards us-I am sure that they will sleep well tonight.


After we left Wright Brother’s Memorial, we checked into our hotel which was right on the beach. By the time we could roll the cart in the room, the kids were coming back out of the room wearing their swimsuits. Our room looked over the beach but no one was content just to sit on the balcony and look at the ocean.


Soon we were downstairs on the beach. The waves seemed a bit larger today but even though they were larger, they broke before getting to us. The big 4 enjoyed playing in the waves-mostly running away from them. I was the one who started picking up shells or smooth pieces of broken shells. Keaton started helping me and soon everyone was collecting shells. We placed them in a circle far away from the surf but soon the water was approaching and the kids were digging moats trying to save the shells. It was lots of fun and I am sure that we were pretty noisy-the waves were louder though.

It was lots of fun and soon the sun was down and we were heading back to the room. I took Whitman upstairs to take a shower and the others swam for just a few more minutes. Then, everyone showered and we ate the food that Robby brought back (which hasn’t arrive just yet!)

Update: Robby arrived with BBQ from a nearby restaurant, chips, buns, mac and cheese and ice cream from the grocery store. The BBQ was delicious-Robby reminded me that NC is known for it's different kind of BBQ and I think that I might like it better than ours. Anderson agreeed with me. After finished our supper, we finished off a carton of ice cream. Laundry was being washed and soon it was bedtime for everyone!

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