Jellystone Gloucester/Yorktown/Jamestowne in Pictures

Jellystone Time!

So Nonna and DaddyO left on Wednesday, and Friday we planned to head out for our biggest family vacation yet:  Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Jellystone Park.  The boys were so excited.  Alan and I were so exhausted, but somehow we pulled it off –sort of….

We called it our Williamsburg trip, and we totally thought we’d get to see Melody while we were there, but we knew we couldn’t commit, our tribe being what it is…  And we were right, we never even made it to Williamsburg.

We were staying at Jellystone Park, and the boys loved it so incredibly much that we had a really hard time pulling them away long enough to do anything else.  All we managed was a glimpse at Yorktown Saturday night for dinner.  Then we pulled out early Sunday and squeezed in Jamestown.  Maybe Williamsburg next year???

Something very new happened on this vaca though.  First, of all, yes, it was an insane amount of work and a lot of “tag teaming”.  I spent a lot of the time with JD, while Alan spent a lot of it with the three oldest.

I asked Alan which he thought was more difficult, and we agreed, that one baby is still probably harder than three little boys.  With the baby, we just felt a little more stuck at the cabin, and crying babies can be unnerving at times.

I didn’t mind being stuck at the cabin.  I finally got a little more sleep!  OH!  And JD decided to give me two bonus nights of returning to sleeping through the night.  It was like a Christmas miracle!!!

Oh!  The something new that happened!

Everywhere we went we attracted a lot of attention.  I mean once you get pregnant, you are accepting your role as public spectacle for quite a few years.  People love to watch babies, toddlers, preschoolers, even big boys can be hilarious, so we’ve always attracted a little attention…not all of it positive probably…but THIS year we got……compliments!

It was so exciting.  I know this may be the norm for some of you, but to take four little boys out in public and get lots of compliments, well, it was rather exciting for us.

We also heard a lot of, “Well, is that one…*glance at baby*…  Oh…..yes, he’s a boy too.”  *chuckles*

Saturday night we chose a swanky looking, white tablecloth kind of place, a seafood restaurant, on the water, in Yorktown.  Alan and I looked at each other like, “Are we completely crazy to try this???”  Joshua and Caleb, believe it or not, were….dare I say it…perfect little gentlemen.

Joshua said, “Ooo, I like these cool glasses.”  (stemware)

Caleb said, “Can we clink our glasses together?”  They wanted to do “cheers” over and over again, but don’t worry, we only let them do it two or three times.

Dan was great too, until right at the end, when he started trying to wander….

JD was super fab until…..the food came, of course!

Alan and I were on our game and remained calm though.

 Alan handled Dan’s bathroom break, and we took turns eating and holding the baby.

Alan said, “You know you could just feed him right here.  You have your blanket, and you don’t know these people.”

The thing was we were, thankfully, in a corner of the outside patio, but the three tables beside us had no children.  There was one very chatty middle-aged couple, clearly on a Match.com date.  There was one retired couple, and then behind us was a whole family of folks, but all older people.

For a while, I had no idea what they thought of this big family of little boys invading their quiet dinner night out on the water.  We were behaving, but let’s face it, we were still kind of different.

I told Alan, as I stood there rocking JD back and forth, “Nah, I know I could just feed him here, but I feel as though I’ve made enough spectacle of myself without adding that.”

As we got ready to leave, one by one, someone from every single one of those tables made it a point to tell us how good our children were and marvel at the size of our two month old (gigantic, but cute).

Isn’t it wonderful when people are nice?

This was a very good weekend for us.  I finally got a little more sleep.  We all spent lots of time together, and we absolutely loved seeing Jamestown.  Alan and I share an interest in American history, so I guess for us this was like a theme park is for some people–really fun!