Bill paying and house cleaning

First thing on the schedule after William left: catching up on things we didn't take care off because we were obviously busy otherwise. Yes, things mentioned in the headline needed to be done.

One of our hydrangeas is showing some beautiful flowers. Some went into a vase. The other is a disappointment this year.

The weather this year is strange. Right now it is very hot and very humid. Our roses don't like it. I have to keep spraying them with a copper fungicide. Who seems to be striving this is are the Japanese Beetles. It seems to be our new hobby ... going outside everytime we think of it (and it is not raining) to see how many we can catch into a jar. 

Can't believe how much fun we still have playing "our" game almost every day. One day I have almost no "bad" points and James has three-figures. The next day we almost managed to come out undecided but then I lost at the last round.

The talk about the weather ... hot and humid ... look at these mushrooms. If we only knew whether we could eat them. 

Flowers on the front patio!

July 16 - Sunday! Happy Anniversary, Sarah and Wade. Hope you have a nice evening.

We met the 5 at the Science Museum at 2 pm with bags for the overnighter and the backpacks for camp the next day. We have a yearly membership and we never worry for how long or short we are going there. Having recently gone with William we knew there were new exhibits. I think this visit was a success too because we stayed until they closed at 5 pm and we only saw a little bit of what there is to see. Lots of it is hands-on which is perfect for our boys.

This is an enclosure were you have to crawl in underneath the walls. Caleb took my phone/camera to take this photo of the infinite mirroring of themselves.

This was interesting. You were supposed to stand at the wall and a bright light came on. When you moved away afterwards, your shadow was still there. Not sure how. Of course Papa and Omi made funny figures too. 

This one had a prism somewhere and it gave you shadows in different colors. 

This dark room was full with laser beams which of course would set off an alarm. So they tried to go over and under. 

Of course they always have to go into the wind tunnel.

This "hamstr wheel" is part of a new exhibition. Everybody had to take a turn. 

There was a whole section about space. Very interesting including a space capsule simulator where your mind could be tricked a little into feeling like floating in space. It's a traveling one so if you want to see it you better go soon.

Did I say we only left when they announced that they were closing? At our house Caleb wanted me to take this photo. He has something like a fitbit. He took 9,999 steps so far. 

They already had a busy weekend before they came to us and were soooooo tired. They actually wanted to go to bed early. 

After a good nights sleep we had to get ready to bring them to this week"s camp at a Nature Center. Tss, tss, Omi didn't have any of those individual cereal boxes. Next time, boys! But luckily we always can find something else.

To drop them off at their camp was quite a ways but we stopped on our way at a certain shop and "yeah", they had "German bread". Heavy bread with whole kernels. My favorite kind for "Tomatenschnitten". And there tomatoes were also very tasty. With salt, pepper, some diced onion and basil from my garden for me the perfect summer meal. 

Believe it or not: today we had our third lunch like that this week and the bread is all gone. 

Day 19 William is going home

Thursday July 6 -  Yes, William is going home today. We are just grateful that he visited us and trying not to dwell on his leaving.

We had plenty of time to pack (team work) and get ready. About 10 am a picture of William between the two flower pots of "sweet william". 

This is the above photo cropped. I-95 is famous for traffic jams between DC and Fredericksburg. But it was not too bad for us. It was never a parking lot. The traffic flowed. And we had plenty of time anyway.

Goal was to visit George Washington's Mount Vernon before going to Ronald Reagon Airport. It's on the way. He loves history.

Ha-ha, as soon as I saw this statue I remembered that I had already been here ?? years ago. I think it was with Kate and David when they visited.

There was a couple trying to take a selfie but didn't seem to manage very well. I asked whether they wanted me to do it. They were happy about it.

In return they took our photo.

When I texted the photo to William's parents it came back like that with the question what food we had given him. I am sure we picked him up from camp like that.

It doesn't matter to which place, museum, city or country you are going too, you always learn something new. This was very interesting again.

This guide showed us one photo after the other how the house had started out and all the stations of when something was added. Ha-ha, there is a historic house in Princeton Kenrucky which is called "Adsmore House" because an aunt of the honor commented that he always ads some more.

Every room/area had a different guide. Very efficient. The tourist flow was quite good.

Seems George Washington liked to show off how well he was doing. This green was very expensive paint.

In the entry hall is the very large key of the state prison on the east side of Paris known as the Bastille. It was demolished 1789-1790. The key was gifted to him by (I think) Lafayette and he was very proud of it. That's why it hangs in the most prominent place for visitors to see.

Underneath is a picture after the first stage of the demolition. 

The guide explained that the banister is one of the very few things we were allowed to touch. She said that she touches it every chance she gets thinking how many famous and historic people of touched it before her. It is also supposed to bring luck (she said). I couldn't help having the same feelings she has when I went up. Besides, James' company instilled in us ALWAYS to hold on when going up or down stairs. Safety regulations.

The Washingtons bed. It was specially made because he was so tall. Still looks short to me.

This chair at the table is not the original but he had one like it. A lot of his original things are in the Smithsonian Museum or so. It has footpedals which you only have to touch lighly to move the fan above. Yeah, no airconditioning yet.

The kitchen.

Oh oh, bad cloud coming.

And soon after we heard that we were not allowed to be anywhere outside because of a severe weather warning. We spent some time in the museum which was very interesting and very well done. Then we went into the cafeteria because our picnic lunch was in the car a bit far away on the parking lot.

Finally we could go to the car and headed towards the airport. We were on a nice road along the river and stopped at a roadside park. It was very wet though and we were not sure whether the rain was over.

Arrived at the airport, missed the entry to the parking of Terminal 2, drove the loop and into the parking house, found an empty spot and took a photo of where we parked.

We had been told that we needed to be at the check-in at least (at least!) two hours early because of the paperwork for an "unaccompanied minor". I must say that the American Airlines lady was very nice. Only one adult was supposed to go with him all the way to the gate but she asked her supervisor and we both got the papers to go with him. 

Of course you need those papers to go through security. But all went well. 

And then the waiting started.

There was a change of the gate number. No problem.

William wants to become a pilot and he knows a lot about airtravel already. He has a flight simulator on his computer at home he likes to use and he knows how to track flights. This one-way flight for him home as "unacompanied minor" was our birthday gift for him. He really wanted to do it. 

His phone didn't have any power left and he did not have a cord so he borrowed Papa's phone. He found from were "his" plane was coming (Fort Myers, FL) and that it was late and when it would finally arrive.

The gate attendant was very nice too and tried to keep us up to date. He told us about the tracker gate attendants use to get information about flights (he said the most reliable) but we already knew about it because that's what William is using. 

And there goes his plane! One hour late shortly before 8 pm. We were told not to leave before his plane was in the air. 

Btw, I also found another nice gate attendant who found a charging cord and let me use it for William's phone. So when he left he could use it again. Screenshots arrived  (texted) from William and Helen where the plane was on the map. It's the red one. Here it is soon over our townhouse.

Helen had the same on the other end, showing an ID and going through security to the gate. All actually very efficient. Needless to say she was happy to finally having her son back.

Gosh, how I like this smile!!!

Papa and I had trouble finding our car. Good thing we had that photo but there were no maps to show BG10. But then, we really needed some walking after all that sitting around.

We were home about 10 pm and decided that all had gone well and we were grateful. Thank you, Lord!