Click on the photos below to make them bigger.........
Monday and Tuesday (29-30 Aug) Sara did normal stuff. James and Sara went for a short run of only 1.5 miles. Jamie and Sara played some volleyballin the backyard. Sara got alot of bug bites on her legs... They ate at Church's Fried Chicken.
On Wed (31 Aug), Jamie, Sara and James went for a run. Jamie turned around pretty quick and Sara and James went for about 2.75 miles. Sara tripped and fell and tore some skin off the palm of her hand. She has a nice scab but she is OK. It hurts but she is doing well.
Later on Wed, Sara went Robinson school and receive her schedule and locker. She will be taking:
IB Philosophy
Human Anatomy
Pre-Calculus
Gourmet Foods
US and Virginia History
English 11
Guitar I
It will be a tough schedule for her but she is a very smart young lady and we will ensure that she does well!! She met some of her teachers and likes them.
Thursday (1 Sep), she went back for her New Student Orientation. Later that night, Sara went to her first American high school football game. Robinson was ranked #17 in Virginia and Stone Bridge was ranked #2. It was a very good game but Robinson lost 0-3 in the last minute. Sara saw the High School band perform at halftime. It was a very interesting first High School event.
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| Robinson Football Game - Robinson is in Blue and Gold!!! GO RAMS!! |
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| Robinson Marching Band performing at Halftime |
To read about the game - go to this link
http://www.robinsonathletics.com/index.cfm?action=main.teamarticle&articleID=227403&id=26622
On Friday afternoon 2 Sep, we departed Fairfax for Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We stayed at Skyland Lodge.
http://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/driving-skyline-drive.htm
On Saturday 3 Sep, we got up early and drove to Lexington, Virginia to go thru the drive thru safari. This is a zoo you can drive through in your car and freed the animals. They also have a small petting zoo and some animals in fenced areas. Sara was a little scared at first to feed the animals but later felt comfortable. They fed llamas, osterich, Emu, Elk, deer, and a few others. The car got feed all over it and the paint on the rear passengar door is scratched from elk antlers.
http://www.virginiasafaripark.com/geninfo.html
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| Feeding a Llama |
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| Feeding TWO llama's |
After the zoo, we drove to Staunton for lunch at Wrights Drive In. It was too hot to eat outside so we ate inside - typical hamburger and hotdogs. Then we went to the Shakespeare Theater to see a performance of Hamlet. It was very good especially the actors that played Hamlet and Ophelia.
http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/
After the performance we went to dinner at Mill St Restaurant. It was a very nice restaurant and I recommend it. We drove back to the lodge. There is no air conditioner and it was quite warm and muggy night.
http://millstreetgrill.com/
On Sunday morning (4 Sep), Jamie, James and Sara departed at 0730 for our 6 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail.
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/ 100m into the hike we saw 4 deer and then about 12 wild turkeys. It was really nice cool walk. As we passed the horse stables, one of the horses made a loud sound. I told the girls it was an Elk so I make the Elk sound that we made up in Washington St. I went "EEEEEEEEEERRRRGHHHHKKKK!! Then there was a very loud rustling in the big oak tree about 10 yards from us. I immediately thought it was alot of turkey's leaving the tree but there were no turkeys. Then I thought squirrels but it was too large. Then I remembered that bears climb trees and must, at some point, come down. Just then the large black face with black ears appeared from around the tree about 40 feet up and looked at us. I told the girls to walk slowly backwards. I did not know if it was a mother bear with cubs or not. The bear came down the tree about 10m (30ft) from us and looked and ran away. It stopped quick enough for a photo and went on. We kept walking, ate breakfast about 1 hour into the hike, saw more deer and turkeys and right at the end a grey fox. It was an exciting and fun hike. It was hotter than in the past and there were not as many wild flowers. We ate lunch and went back to the room for a shower!! We spent the rest of the day playing Monopoly deal card game and had dinner.
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| Turkey's |
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| One black bear |
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| Sara with a deer |
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| Silver Fox - Look int he opening in the middle of the right hand side |
5 Sep Monday, we got up and had breakfast and went to Luray Caverns.
http://www.luraycaverns.com/ The girls took a tour of the caves and then went through the maze. They had a good time. Weather cancelled the rest of the day so we headed back to Fairfax. It was a very fun day and trip and we had a great time.
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| Getting Lost in the Maze |
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| in Luray Caverns |
