On to NOVA!

Shane and I drove to NOVA today! We finished Redwall and The Terrible Two Go Wild on the drive up and stopped at Wegmans for lunch at noon.

It was a late start for a road trip day. Part of it was I had to take care of Loki and the horses. Part of it was Jama wasn't due to get back from a doctor's appointment until noon. My sisters and I all planned to meet up at Jama's to check on her and let the kids run around.

The twins and Jama ended up running late. Shane and I ended up hunting down peppermint oil for Carrie, so we stayed busy until we met just before 1 PM  (Carrie was dealing with mice! They'd been nesting in Shane's room. She called pest control and spent the afternoon cleaning up!).

We timed it so well that we all pulled up around the same time!

Stu's crew had been up in Maryland visiting his branch of their family. The stop in NOVA was a way to break up the journey.

B is still a NOVA native. His grandma is in town and was probably thrilled we didn't descend on Megan's house!

He was a little shorter and walked a little funnier than I remembered...

Ed's daughter pulled up with Jama and Ed as we were gathering in the parking lot. Cole was feeling motion sick from the drive, so Shane and I stayed with him while everyone else went in.

Cole felt better when it was clear there was fun afoot (I don't think it was from Shane "talking him through it!" Ha!). 

The Woodlands had the train out when we made it inside.

Anything that says, "Don't touch" is a lot of temptation for little hands! The kids all looked like a pack of ducks following Kathleen wherever she went.

We set up shop in a side room and rooted for Jama to pee. Relief was victory and victory was relief!

Kathleen went upstairs with Jama to fix Alexa 'ignoring her' while Megan, Stu, and I stayed with the merry horde. The kids separate into packs for younger and older.

Pichu's special attacks knocked over chairs and produced a cacophony of sound effects.

Evelyn was a lot more eloquent! I hadn't seen her since Patrick's wedding, so the speech progress was a lot more noticeable.

I could hear and understand her over all the racket the boys were making!

Sammy wandered over and joined the boy's club.

Sometimes. He always bounced back to check on Megan. He's a mommy's boy!

Jama was happy that Kathleen figured out what was up with Alexa. Somehow, Alexa had been set to "Do not listen."

I didn't want to be useless, so I followed the older boys to the game room as they ran off. "Do you remember?" Shane asked. "This is the room we played Mario Kart in on Nana's switch!"

The game room had been upgraded since we last visited. The boys liked the shuffleboard table (No injuries until B got a smashed thumb much later).

There was a ping pong table and a pool table, too. I tried to hop in and get the boys to play table tennis, but gave up and did my best to allow them to play without damaging anything.

Megan and I took the boys up to look for ice cream in Jama's room afterward.

She carried Sammy. The boys ran up and down the halls, but we wouldn't let them in Jama's room to keep the footfalls from bothering her downstairs neighbor.

We brought some of the spoils down to the girls.

Megan headed out first. Kathleen and her crew went next. Shane and Cole tried to sneak off to watch commercials, but they weren't hard to find.

We said our goodbye's to Jama, so that she could nap and then headed off to our next stop: The library. 

Shane ate a blue candy cane on the drive over and his mouth showed it!

John was working the evening shift, but it wouldn't have been a NOVA visit without checking in on him. The 3D printer was going when we arrived.

John had some examples of articulated pieces out that could move. I found it fascinating. If Shane shows an interest in tech I'll probably end up buying our own 3D printer one day.

John was working, so we couldn't monopolize his time. A tech person had come to fix a computer and then a patron reported it wasn't working minutes after he left. John deduced the tech never installed the drivers for the touchscreen, but without an admin password there wasn't much he could do about it.

He came over to talk when he was off desk duty and trying to remove the Eiffel Tower from the printer pad.

We headed back into the staff area to check on John's desk improvements and his spray project.

John had sprayed some models before work and was letting them dry out back.

Shane's interest lasted until he realized he could use the delivery dock to hop on top the wall!

Shane was shocked when jumped off the wall itself to hop on top. He dropped down and tried it himself without success.

We went back inside where Shane noticed John's desk neighbor, Carly, had a 3D printed dragon and Vaporeon. John and I did our best to reassemble her desk before heading out front to say our farewells.

The Jeffer's was our final stop for the night. It took nearly an hour to go from Jama's, to the library, and then backtrack to the house (There was a wreck on 66 East, so I stuck to the lights on Hwy 50).

Bill, Jill, and Ben were in town for the holiday. Diane invited us in and let Shane serve himself dinner alongside them!

Ben and Shane hit it off. Literally. They were drumming and making noise together merrily.

Which worked out great for the adults. I got to talk and Shane got to play and not get in trouble (He did get a little crazy with the remote for the tree lights, but that's no big deal!). Shane and I got included in a group photo before Bill and Jill had to pack up for their ride home to New Jersey.

Shane and I left just before they did. It takes us a little longer to make the drive now that we're in Scottsville. We grabbed Arby's for dinner (Shane's choice) and got gas from Costco as we passed through Cville. We made it home just before 9 PM.

The horses all came running as we pulled up. I saw that the hay wasn't out and realized Carrie must have fallen asleep early! We came into the house quietly and found her crashed on the couch. She woke up long enough to help put Shane to bed while I ran out to do horse chores. I came back in to a quiet house.

Everyone needed to get their sleep, because we had some more fun planned for the morrow. I would have loved to have spent more time in NOVA and planned to go back up soon. Renee's due date had come and gone and I hoped that we could drive up to welcome to the new cousin to the world before break was over (Plus I wanted to see Cammy, Goetz, and John rescued Shane's Pichu that he left in the library!).