After a short drive last night, we arrived in Washington, DC. We're staying at a very nice campground in College Park, Maryland, which is close to the Metro train station, and also to our luxury pet resort (the only local one) that Peanut is staying at while we visit the sites in the City.

We had to do an "interview" at the kennel last night when we got here, to make sure Peanut had the social skills to stay in the "open play" kennel where the dogs all roam together. He passed, so we were good to go, but it made for a late night.

We're looking forward to a fun time here in DC, but also to some downtime since we'll be here for 7 nights, and will be hanging out and doing as little as possible over the weekend.

Thursday Update:

We arose early, dropped the P-dawg off at the "resort" and headed on the Metro for the White House. We had a tour scheduled at 9:15am, and made it just in time. It was a great tour, and although you don't have full access to the house, it was very interesting to see this house of Presidents. Again, we were in awe to walk the same steps as so many dignitaries and Presidents. Faith especially loved the Red Room, and my favorite was the dining hall, specifically the inscription which is actually a prayer from John Adams that is engraved on the mantle.

Expecting rain for a few days (it's pouring now), we headed to the National Zoo to beat it, and couldn't have timed it better. We spent the afternoon at the zoo, then headed back for a little R&R in the hot tub.

Friday Update:

Today was a great day! We started the day early with a tour of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, and saw where they print the paper money for our country (they also have a facility in Fort Worth, TX.) It's a pretty extensive process, and we learned a lot. The most interesting thing I learned was that they no longer print any denominations above $100, so if you have a $1000 bill laying around, one sold recently for $1.2M.

We had some time between tours and stopped over at the National Holocaust Museum. This was an interesting and harrowing experience. We were amazed to see the horrors that the Jewish people experienced, and saddened by what Hilter did to the world. The museum provides a great opportunity to learn what the Holocaust was all about.

The afternoon was spent on a staff-led tour of the US Capital (courtesy of Denny Rehberg's office), and it was another great experience. We got to see the "under belly" of the US Capital, and how the Members get from their offices to the House, we got a full tour of the US Capital (which is an awesome building, btw), and then we got to sit in the gallery of the House of Representatives, watching the proceedings. We also found this interesting, but also a little irritating watching our elected officials acting a little like kids at lunch. The Speaker was attempting to get things to order, and everyone more or less just ignored him and went about their visiting, talking on cell phones, etc. I was not impressed with the overall behavior, but it's possible I just don't know how it works. Despite this, though, we really enjoyed our time at the capital.

Our last stop was the Air and Space Museum. We didn't stay as long as we wanted, I had to get back for a conference call, but we're planning on returning on Sunday for another visit. The kids really liked the "what makes it fly" part of the museum, which is all hands on stuff. I liked that too actually.

We're taking tomorrow off from sightseeing, we'll be here at the camper. We've got some laundry and other stuff to do, and just don't want to get up to an alarm.

Tuesday Update:

We ended up changing our schedule a bit and taking both Saturday and Sunday off completely from sightseeing. We spent the weekend just hanging out, doing laundry, catching up, etc. We enjoyed it a lot, actually.

Monday was spent on a whirlwind tour of many of the monuments and memorials in DC. We visited the FDR Memorial, the WWII, Korea, Vietnam Memorials, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and the Washington Monument. We actually got to go up into the top of the Washington Monument, which was pretty cool, and high. You can feel it swaying when you're up at 500 feet. All of them are really interesting, but Michelle and I really liked the Korean War Memorial the best, it seems to be the most moving. We also visited Arlington National Cemetery and saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and JFK's grave. We were fortunate to see the changing of the guard as well, which is a very cool military exercise in precision. This was a free tour through the National Park Service, set up by our Congressman's office (thanks Denny!)

Tuesday was spent doing some "clean up" touring. We started at the National Archives and visited the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They have a huge interactive area in the Archives that you could spend all day in. We decided you really could spend a full day in each of the museums and areas. We headed over to the Museum of Natural History, which has some interesting exhibits, lots of cool animals to see there (ex-animals I guess I should say). The last stops were a second visit to the Air and Space Museum and the American Indian Museum. This was a full and long day, and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

Philly here we come!

Faith's blog:

This week we were in D.C. I had a great time. We got to go in the White House. That was my favorite part of D.C. It turned out that Bush, Obama and McCain were there as well. We didn’t seem them, though. I loved D.C. Bye!

Kenzie's blog:

We got to go in the White House!!! It is beautiful. Have you ever seen the “Portrait of George Washington”?We got to see the original! It was saved by Dolley Madison in 1814 when the White House burned down. We also got to go into the Capital Building! Almost all the representatives were there. We got to go into Denny Rehberg’s office. Too bad he wasn’t there.I liked going into the Washington Monument.We were at 500 feet.This stop was REALLY COOL!

Photos:

Washington, DC

Video:

We took the longest drive of the trip today, and just arrived at the campground here in Williamsburg, Virginia. We're really looking forward to visiting the Colonial Williamsburg area and learning more about the lives of those that started this country. We expect it will be a little more exciting for the girls than Charleston, and more educational because of it.

Update:

We had a great time at Colonial Williamsburg, and we all learned a lot. The town itself offers an outstanding view of what life was like when our Founding Fathers walked the streets and occupied its buildings. It was pretty amazing to think that we were walking the same steps that men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson walked.

A couple of highlights were the seeing re-enactments of key events leading up to the Revolutionary War, seeing how it all came to pass, and also the buildings like the Governor's Mansion and Payton Randolph house.

Something completely unexpected that happened was that the Today Show was filming a segment from Williamsburg. We had an opportunity to see Al Roker and Matt Lauer, and we were surprised to see Matt Lauer come over to where we were standing (a bit out of the way) and shake our hands. He seemed like a great guy, and pretty generous with his time. It was neat for all of us to see this backstage type scene on how the show is filmed.

The girls will have more to add to this. We've had several packed days, so I'll keep my entry brief. More to follow soon.

Photos:

Williamsburg, Virginia

Video:

We drove a little over 400 miles today, up early and out of Disney before daylight. It's a strange thing, but the perspective on "long drive" has definitely changed after so many miles on the road. Today was almost 8 hours in the car, and surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. Monday will be just a tad longer, and it'll be the longest day of driving of the entire trip on our way to Williamsburg, VA.

The trip was relatively uneventful, other than a guy in front of us who forgot to tie down the couch in the back of his truck. A little factoid for those of you who don't tow trailers. It's substantially more difficult to avoid a couch in the middle of the highway at 60mph when you're towing 5000 pounds. On a good note, I didn't need to do any cardio today, my heart got all of the workout it needed in the span of about 10 seconds...

At any rate, we're here in Charleston for a couple of days. We'll be visiting a 400 year old plantation tomorrow, and just kind of hanging out. After 10 days in Disney, a little less activity is a nice thing, that place is crazy. With the weakness of the dollar, South America and Europe are well represented tourism-wise, I guessed probably 80% of the people we saw were non-English speaking foreign visitors.

Sunday Update:

We spent the day in Charleston, doing a quick overview of the area. We started at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, probably the most famous and oldest plantations in South Carolina. It's one of the top historical places on the registry.

It was an interesting place, and at over 350 years old, had some remarkable buildings and history to be seen. We felt like it was considerably overpriced, though, and the house "tour" was too brief to really be useful. I would have preferred a non-guided tour to look around at the house. The furnishings, and especially the 200 year old quilts were really cool. Everything was period authentic.

We also saw a slave house, and the extensive gardens (which the plantation is known for) throughout the 500 acre property. One highlight was the Biblical Garden, which featured all of the plants referenced in the Bible, complete with the reference verse. That was pretty cool.

We then headed downtown to the historic district to see the different buildings there, and also the original cobblestone streets. We saw a church cemetery with tombstones dating back pre-revolutionary war, plus a selection of very old buildings and architecture.

We enjoyed Charleston, despite the short time we were here. We're heading out tomorrow morning for Williamsburg, VA. It's our longest drive of the trip, so it should be interesting.

Faith's blog:
Yesterday we went to Charleston. We got to go to the Magnolia Plantation. It was owned by a family named the Draytons. The Draytons have passed down this plantation for over 350 years and it is still owned by the Draytons today. Since they Draytons were wealthy they owned slaves. And because they were wealthy the slaves got everything they needed except money. They had to get that during their free time. It was cool.

Kenzie's blog:
We went to Magnolia Plantation. It is about 350 years old. There were 3 houses on the property. The first was struck by lightning and was burned. The second was hit by cannonballs and also burned. We got to tour the 3^rd. The rugs in the house were over 100 years old! We also got to see the slave house. It was small with 3 beds. One for the adults and one for the kids and a tiny baby cradle. We saw alligators in the swampy gardens. That was my favorite part!

Photos:

Charleston, South Carolina

Video:

We arrived at Ft. Wilderness Campground today at Walt Disney World! It's awesome here, and even with the rain today, we are loving being here.

The entire family (myself included) will be taking a real vacation for the next 10 days (through the 20th), so we will just be doing a little email and moderate blog updates throughout this portion of the trip.

Thursday Update:

Today was spent at the Magic Kingdom, and what a blast we had. It was hot for most of the day, then around 4pm or so, the sky opened up...torrential downpour galore. Thank God we had our little ponchos and umbrella with us, we were prepared, and other than some very soaked shoes (did you know you can dry shoes in the microwave?), we did okay, and stuck around until about 7:30pm or so, then back to the camper and picked up Peanut at the kennel.

It was a fun day, and we were glad to be here at Disney. We're heading over to Universal Studios tomorrow, and I hope I can escape without Kenzie scaring me to death on some thrill ride...dads are supposed to be tough, and all of that stuff.

Sunday Update:

We've had a couple of more days of fun here, so I thought I'd post a bit. We spent yesterday at Disney's Hollywood studios, and we had a good time. This park has mostly shows and sit down type attractions, but our favorite attractions were the Aerosmith RocknRoll Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. They're way fun, despite the blistering heat at the park.

We spent today over at Islands of Adventure, the "other" Universal Studios park. Lots of rides here, and most of them are water-related rides. These guys don't hold back on the wet-factor, and our favorite ride, perfect for another terribly hot day was the Popeye ride which features a circular raft. Getting wet would be an understatement, you get as wet as if you jumped in the pool. Luckily, we prepared and came to the park with Crocs and swimsuits. We loved the ride so much we did it 5 times.

We've decided we like the family atmosphere that Disney gives much more than Universal. It just seems like Disney is better suited for us, but that's okay, we still had fun at Universal, and might even go back before we leave Orlando.

Wednesday Update:

It's been a few days since our last update, and man, we've been busy...having fun, that is.

We spent Monday at Animal Kingdom, and this time of year, the guidebooks couldn't be more right...it's HOT. There are very few attractions to be enjoyed inside, so most of the day is spent outside. Combine that with the shear size of the park, and you can work up a pretty good sweat just enjoying the park. We had a good time though, and enjoyed the animals, Expedition to Mt. Everest (wild roller coaster), and other attractions. One day was enough there though.

Tuesday was spent at Epcot, and it was great, lots and lots to do at this park, including rides and shows, and interactive stuff for the kids. We didn't feel like we got enough done there, so we'll be returning to do a "clean up" run on Friday. My favorite ride was TestTrack, which is a GM-sponsored (everything is sponsored at DisneyWorld it seems) attraction about testing cars and taking them through the paces, including a 65mph speed run, which was big fun. We also liked the SpaceShip Earth attraction, very cool inside that big golf ball looking thing. ;->

We're heading back to Magic Kingdom tomorrow, and plan to make a full day of it. We'll finish up on Friday morning at Epcot again, then back to Universal (both parks) for the rest of the day. We plan on being back here in the evening where the girls will do the Ft. Wilderness campfire, and I'll get us road ready. We leave for Charleston on Saturday morning, and have quite the drive.

Friday Update:

Well, after a great day yesterday, it seems we are "theme parked out". The girls and I stayed late last night to watch the Light Parade and the Fireworks over the castle. It was awesome, and I'll post some pics and video later on. We had a full day from 8am to 10pm, so we were tired today.

We finished up our Disney adventure today with a few more hours at Epcot (doing some of the interactive stuff, plus one of our favorites, Soarin') and then headed over to Universal again for some more water fun. This, as it turns out, was one notch too many on the old "fun knob." We were all tired, and since it was a little cooler today, after the Popeye ride, we were a little miserable. We all decided to pack up and head "home" to the campground and relax by the pool. Mom and the girls then went to the campfire and a movie at the campground while I readied the camper. We're all hooked up and ready to leave Ft. Wilderness early in the morning.

A note I forgot to mention, Peanut got "pet of the week" at the Ft. Wilderness kennel, and received a nice little disney dog dish. Pretty funny, he's a good boy! ;->

Faith's blog:
This week we went to Disneyworld! Disney has been the best place yet. We went to four parks, one world. It was really fun! We loved it a lot. There was a whole bunch of rides! We went on pretty much every one. It was awesome!

Kenzie's blog:
This was the best! There are 4 parts of it. Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. We went to all of them including Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. They aren’t Disney. My favorite was Epcot. It has different “countries” in it. Magic Kingdom has all rides. Animal Kingdom is partly a safari. It was fun!


Photos:

Disney World and Universal Studios

Video:

Today, we blasted off into the wonderful world of NASA! We spent the day at Kennedy Space Center, and we had a great time.

Michelle had always wanted to visit this complex, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the history of our space exploration agency and learning more about where we might be going later on as we continue look to the stars.

We saw an IMAX film on the International Space Station, which is being built currently and added to by 14 countries. We also experienced what a Space Shuttle launch is like in a huge simulator that shook, rattled, and rolled us through a launch sequence. We took a bus over to see the 2 launching pads and location of storage and build out for the space shuttle. The cool thing was that the 2 pads currently in use are the same ones they've been using since they sent the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo missions to the moon. We also saw the Saturn V itself, and I was surprise at how huge it was.

We learned about robots in space, Mars exploration, and the original struggles and triumphs faced in the "space race" and the Lunar missions. We also got to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis poised and ready for her October launch on launch pad B, and we saw the "crawler" coming back to it's home base after the delivery. These really are monster machines and amazing feats of technological advance.

I wasn't aware of this, but NASA is currently planning additional manned missions back to the moon (first since the Apollo program ended in 1972), plus manned missions to Mars and beyond. Pretty cool stuff.

It seems that our culture of high tech CGI in movies is less interested in the fact that we actually send people up into space and bring them back safely, but I was amazed at all that goes into making that happen.

If you get a chance, take a visit to the KSC.

We're so excited, on to see the MOUSE tomorrow! We've decided as a family to take a true vacation for the 10 days we're at Disney World/Universal, so I'll be limiting my work hours to email and maint stuff at night, and no school work for the kids. We'll keep the blog moderately updated as well, but won't re-engage fully until we're on our way to Charleston on the 20th.

Faith's blog:
Today we went to the Kennedy Space Center where they have launched many of the rockets that have been launched. The space center was named after our 35^th president John F. Kennedy. They have been sending robots to Mars to see if humans can live on Mars. I don’t know if we can but, there is life on Mars though. (water, plants)

Kenzie's blog:
I loved seeing the Kennedy Space Center. My favorite part was touching the moon! There was a moon rock that we could touch. We also saw a spaceship that has been in space. There were some rockets too. We took a bus tour that showed us a spaceship that is going to take off soon! It was fun!


Photos:

Kennedy Space Center

Video:

We're here in Daytona Beach, Florida for a couple of days of R&R.

Today we spent the afternoon playing on the beach, and the weather was very hot, but the water was awesome. We happened upon a bunch of manatees nearby who apparently were mating (we just saw them meandering about by themselves.) It was a cool site, and we were fortunate to see them.

We also saw some porpoises a little ways out from shore, dancing and playing. It was cool as well.

Monday Update:

Today was fairly low key, we did work and school work this morning after a nice brisk morning walk, then we headed into town to go to the beach. The girls and Peanut spent some time playing in the water while I worked from a nice shady spot.

We will be heading out early tomorrow for the Kennedy Space Center, and we're all looking forward to learning about our NASA program.

Faith's blog:
Today we went to Daytona Beach. I found dozens of full shells. My sister gave me a sand bath. We had a great time. It was really pretty. I had quite a few drinks of . . . blah! . . salt water. It was fun.

Kenzie's blog:
We had lots of fun at the beach! Me and Faith, my sister, collected seashells and oyster shells. Then we jumped waves (which really has no point to it!) and played a game where you have to sit in the water and try not to get washed up on shore by the strong waves. There were manatees in the swamps near by mating. It was really fun to play at the beach. To bad there’s none in Belgrade!

Photos:

Daytona Beach, FL

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Finally, Kenzie's most anticipated destination stop is here...Gainesville, Florida. Tomorrow, we'll be at Jungle Friends, the monkey sanctuary she's been waiting to see for months.

We'll be at Jungle Friends tomorrow for the day, then heading to Daytona on Sunday for a couple of days of relaxing by the beach (assuming Ike doesn't meet us there.)

Saturday Update:

What an awesome, sweaty, exhausting day! Kenzie will have her own perspective to write here, but as far as I'm concerned, today's visit to Jungle Friends met and exceeded our expectations. At 95 degrees and, oh, 130% humidity, I think I lost 10 pounds of water today, as we pulled weeds, planted plants and trees, washed monkey bowls, and cut up fruits and veggies for the monkeys. As volunteers, they really wanted us, specifically Kenzie, to get a real sense of what it's like care taking for these furry little friends.

We met some great young ladies whom are there to finish internships, volunteer, and work full time (some), and they all can work circles around us, often beginning at 6:30am and ending well after dark. I was impressed with all of their hard work and enthusiasm. They gave us some great information as well for Kenzie's potential educational and vocational paths.

The sanctuary is home to almost 120 monkeys, made up of rescued former pet monkeys (MONKEYS SHOULDN'T BE PETS, btw), retired lab monkeys, and other misc rescue monkeys from various back stories. Kenzie used her birthday present this year to adopt Chi Chi, a cute little Capuchin. Chi Chi is a former circus monkey, and was quite fun to watch. She does get a little handsy though, which Michelle learned by getting her pony-tail too close. It took help to get her loose.

One of my favorite parts was when Chi Chi's boyfriend, Jimmy Sr. got a little jealous of me being around, and began throwing stuff at me from behind the cage. He threw sticks, a plastic golf ball, leaves, but luckily...no poo! ;-> It was a fun game that got more fun when I pretended to "hit the deck" and cry...Jimmy absolutely went...I have to say it...APE! He was dancing around, squawking and crying and clapping. All the monkeys in the area joined in. It was a fun time.

Thank God for Blocker, an insect repellent. I had to make a run to town to pick this up, otherwise, my hot wife would have been reduced to one big bite. After applying the good stuff, though, we made it through the rest of the day without a 1000 different bites.

The girls spent the rest of the day at the pool, and just kicking back.

We had a great day, and the next time we're out this way, will definitely make a trip to see our friends (both furry and not so furry) again. Thanks Kari and Crew for a great time!

If you have a moment, please take a visit over at Jungle Friends, they do some great stuff for these little animals. They run off donations, so if you have some to spare, this would be a great place to give. They also sell art created by the monkeys and clothing too.

Faith's blog:
Today we went to Jungle Friends Sanctuary. We got to design/plant in a cage. It was fun. One of the monkeys dislikes men because a male took off some of his fingers but he was still funny. He threw stuff and when my dad ducked all the monkeys thought he was dead so they went crazy. I had a good time.

Kenzie's blog:
This time we got to go to Jungle Friends. It is a primate sanctuary. We got to fix up a cage for some of the monkeys. Although we sweated a lot, I loved it! Next, we cut up veggies to make “monkey soup”. I tore up broccoli and peppers .I then snapped peas. Finally, we washed the monkey dishes. It was all really hard work, but in the end…IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!!!!!


Photos:

Gainesville, Florida

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Schedule Update:

We received great news today that we are going to the White House! We were able to get our tour. Unfortunately, it's on the morning we were going to get to DC, so we're arriving a day earlier from VA. We'll be doing the White House, Capital, Engraving, and an all day Monument tour. Should be fun!

Hello from Atlanta, GA (actually, Red Top Mountain State Park, just North of Atlanta)!

After a pretty easy drive down the interstate, we're here for the next 3 nights, and will be doing a little sightseeing, although we don't have a lot planned, I think just the aquarium.

We'll also be visiting Scott Franks and family, a long time family friend of Michelle's. He's also a pastor of a church here, and we'll be attending mid-week services with them tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

Today is a day of work catchup, billing, and homework for the girls. They are working on Social Studies and reading I think, and it's more and more apparent that full-time homeschooling is not in the Davis Family future. ;-> I'm pretty sure I saw the makings of a picket sign under Michelle's bed this morning.

There's a lovely lake area here, so we'll get over there, and also head into Atlanta (probably tomorrow).

Nightly Update:

We learned tonight that there are small scorpions in Georgia. The girls found one in the sink in the bath house, plus some mutated grass hopper that looked like it was part T-Rex. Needless to say Dad had to help with shower time and killing all manner of bugs (I didn't kill the grass hopper, but did toss him aside...no love for the scorpion though...)

Wednesday Update:

Today was a busy day. We slept in a bit accidentally, still on Central time, and got a relatively late start. We headed down into downtown Atlanta, and visited the Coca Cola store, and also walked around Olympic Centennial park, where a majority of the 1996 activities took place. The Coke tour was pretty cool, with 4d movie, lots of coke stuff to look at obviously, and 64 different flavors of Coke to test from all around the world. Olympic Park was also cool with a great water feature/fountain made out of the 5 rings on the ground. The area is well patrolled, and despite the high number of homeless people around, we felt safe. We also saw the memorial area from the 1996 bombing there, which was relatively small news, presumably to keep the focus on the ceremonies of games.

We also stopped by a small science museum, which didn't have much too it, but that was fine since we didn't have much time.

Tomorrow will be just fun for the girls (after homework), and I'll be catching up on work. There's a lake beach here, and we'll head down there as well. We're heading to Gainesville on Friday and will have a great time at Jungle Friends on Saturday.

Thursday Update:

Today turned out to be mostly a work day for the whole family. The kids did school work for most of the day, and Michelle was the teacher, lunch lady, janitor, and mom. Big jobs, all of them. I caught up on some work, and got the trailer ready for tomorrow.

After school work, the girls spent a couple of hours at the lake beach here, which is very nice, and they had a great time. Kenzie got buried in the sand by Faith, and needed a bit of help to get out. We spent the evening cooking hot dogs and smores over the campfire.

We're heading out to Gainesville in the morning, and it's a fairly long drive of 6 hours. We'll hang out there tomorrow and then Saturday is the big Monkey day...should be a lot of fun.

Faith's blog:
Today we went to the Coca Cola factory. It was fun. We got to taste a whole lot of Coca Cola. It was goooood. We also got to see the cycle of which coca cola was made in. We got a free bottle of coca cola to take home too.

Kenzie's blog:
We got to see the World of Coke Museum. It was really cool! We saw coke being made and we got to taste 64 types of soda. We also saw where the Olympics were held. It was turned into a baseball field.


Photos:

Atlanta

Most of the photos and video are from the World of Coke, since that's where we spent most of our time.

Video: