The new school year started in August with Cosette entering Kindergarten and Kyle in Second Grade.
Cosette still loves her horse riding lessons. Her instructor says Cosette may be ready for competition next year. Kyle is still in Karate and will be testing for his green belt in early 2006.
For the Labor Day weekend we met Maria's parents at Williamsburg, Virginia and toured the Colonial Town of Historic Williamsburg for a day. We were very fortunate that over the weekend hundreds of Revolutionary War re-enactors had set up camp in a re-enactment of the preparations for the attack on Yorktown in September, 1781. We got a glimpse of camp life during the period and even had a front row view during General Washington's address to the troops
Later in the day we saw a great demonstration of battlefield techniques on the green of Market square behind the courthouse.
We spent the next day at Busch Gardens amusment park. Maria and her parents wern't too keen on all of the rides, so Mark had to take the kids by himself. Everyone had a long and exhausting, but very enjoyable day. We saw lots of shows and the kids even got to ride one of the biggest roller coasters in the park (The Big Bad Wolf). They were a little nervous about it at first, but by the end of the ride they both wanted to go again. Fortunately for mom, she didn't know about it until after the fact.
For our Christmas vacation we took the opportunity to travel north to visit both sets of parents. The kids loved spending as much time as they possibly could playing in the snow. While at Mark's parents in Northern Virginia we took the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum Annex (right). The collection of aircraft and space items was impressive.
On Christmas day we spent the morning opening gifts and enjoying the holiday, but then after lunch we made the three-hour drive up to Pennsylvania to visit Maria's parents. We had even more snow for the kids (and the parents) to enjoy.
We hope that you and your families had a happy Christmas and Holiday Season.
We have now settled into our winter routine and we're looking forward to our annual Spring planting in our gardens, even though this winter in Charleston has been a pretty warm one.
We wish you the best and we'd love to hear from you.
