Yesterday, we started our 2014 vacation and took a long drive to Williamsburg, VA. As I said in my last post, my in-laws drove down as well in their own car and this allowed us to split the kids up between the two cars! For the first few hours, Shayna went in my in-laws car, and the boys were with us. For this part of the trip, the boys were amazing. They were each playing on their DS and having some sort of contest with each other. They were calm and mostly quiet. This allowed Marsha and me to actually talk! I cannot recall the last time we able to do that. We stopped in Delaware for lunch and Avi switched cars with Shayna. The rest of the trip was also fine. Shayna can get a bit giggly, but it was really fine. Marsha and I got to listen to a recording of the Billy Joel / Howard Stern interview that was on Sirius XM radio. If you have not heard this, get a copy of the recording and listen to it. It was incredible!
After a little bit of traffic, we made it to Williamsburg just in time for dinner. My cousin Stacey, who lives in Virginia Beach told us about this great restaurant in Williamsburg called “Food for Thought“. This place is amazing. The food is great, and they take vegetarian food seriously! They are not a vegetarian restaurant, but they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan selections, and they will often substitute vegan chicken for other proteins on the menu. I had Ahi Tuna which was a special that night (Ah-May-Zing!) but Marsha had Pad Thai with vegan chicken that was great too. The best was when they made vegan chicken parm for Noam even though it was not on the menu. Everyone loved the meal and perhaps we will go there again.
After dinner we checked into the hotel. The hotel is part of our time share company so we expected a nice place. We were not disappointed. The suite is smaller than we are used to from a time share resort, but it is very nice. Our two bedroom suite ended up being a three bedroom suite which was a very nice surprise. We unpacked and got the kids to bed and we got a chance to just relax for a couple of hours.
We did not set an alarm for this morning, but were awakened by some machine outside (leaf blower?). We still took our time and got over to Colonial Williamsburg by 11 or so. We picked up our tickets and saw two short intro movies about the city. It turns out that they have a little game called RevQuest for the kids. Basically, they get a folder with clues and cyphers and they get to play “spy”. Avi and Noam really got into this. So much so that at times, we did not get to do anything but let them play the game! We did get to see a few things and all in all, the kids were great. The boys got about half way through the game, and we ventured our way to the art museum where they had a kids activity about spy craft and they got to try cyphers and other things that spys would use. One thing that was good is that they sell re-fillable cups here that give you free refills for the entire season! We purchased two of them and there is even one place where they will fill it with ice cream or a slushy! Needless to say the kids enjoyed that.
After coming back to the resort Avi and Shayna got to have some time in the pool and I made some really good eggplant parmesan (of course that means plain pasta for Avi and pizza for Noam, but at least Shayna had the eggplant!)
That’s pretty much it for now. Tomorrow we are going back to Colonial Williamsburg to see some more and let the kids play more of the spy game. Hopefully, Marla won’t mind me copying her vacation trivia game. Today’s question is (without google) what was the name of the Revolutionary spy ring that Washington created, and what is the origin of the name?
Avi in the stockade!
Some of the citizens of Williamsburg
I love this! And no, I don’t mind at all! Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer. I went to my non-google history source – Rich! – and he doesn’t know either. So – good question! But, I’ll venture a guess…the ring was called “Oy vey”, and the origin is that is what Washington said when he realized he needed a spy ring!!! Am I close???
Have an awesome day tomorrow!
I could not remember the name of the spy ring, but I do remember going to Williamsburg and sitting in on the cypher activity. Our boys loved that as well. I think we still have our refillable Williamsburg mug somewhere. I wonder if it is still the same color. Sorry I did not think of it sooner or I would have given it to you.
No Marla, you are not close. The spy ring was called the Culper Ring. Washington wanted to call it the Culpepper ring, named after a town in Virginia. One of the main men in the spy ring did not like the name Culpepper, so he shortened it to Culper.