First, a little background:
Every other year for the last 30 years the Christian Family has come together for a family reunion. Thirty years ago, the party consisted of my grandfather and his siblings (he was one of 7 children), along with their spouses, and all the ensuing kids and grandkids gathered together in Yorktown, Virginia. Of the original generation, only my grandfather's sister, Aunt Evelyn, and a husband of another one of his sisters, Uncle St. John, remain. On the up side, there is a whole new generation of kiddos in the family.
We'd planned on making this trip for a while, so we were excited to finally get under way!
Thursday morning, me with the start of a stuffy head cold, Fred, Charlotte, and I picked up Ernest from my parents house (so we could all take just two cars) and drove to the airport park and ride. We were running a little behind and although we've loved ParkingCents Park and Ride in the past, I ended up wanting to bite my nails off. In the past when we've used them, they have had a bus for each terminal at the lot where they direct everyone to park. This day, not so much. We had to wait for a shuttle and then, yes, you guessed it, we were headed to the last terminal they hit; I was all the more frustrated when the driver drove PAST our terminal to go to another one first.
Alas, we made our flight and were on our way! Charlotte was good and slept and played with a minimal amount of fussing as the plane landed. In fact, because of my head cold, I think I fussed more on the way down! One of my ears did not pop until the next day, which means I couldn't hear much for the rest of the day.
Charlotte slept the whole way as we drove from Norfolk to the Duke of York Motel on the York River in Yorktown. Every reunion that we've spent in Yorktown over the past 30 years has been at this motel. The best part of the motel? The 4th floor opens up around a big lawn on top of a hill overlooking the river. We hang out under the trees and catch up until the wee hours of the morning as we watch the boats, often big Navy ships, go by.
On Friday Fred went golfing while Charlotte and I joined my uncle and two aunts, along with my sister Michele, our two cousins and their 4 kids to visit Williamsburg. Getting there turned out be be an unexpected adventure. We first thought we could take a trolley from the hotel to historic Williamsburg. That turned into a trolley and a bus, which turned into a trolley and 3 buses.
Every other year for the last 30 years the Christian Family has come together for a family reunion. Thirty years ago, the party consisted of my grandfather and his siblings (he was one of 7 children), along with their spouses, and all the ensuing kids and grandkids gathered together in Yorktown, Virginia. Of the original generation, only my grandfather's sister, Aunt Evelyn, and a husband of another one of his sisters, Uncle St. John, remain. On the up side, there is a whole new generation of kiddos in the family.
The 4th Generation:
We'd planned on making this trip for a while, so we were excited to finally get under way!
Thursday morning, me with the start of a stuffy head cold, Fred, Charlotte, and I picked up Ernest from my parents house (so we could all take just two cars) and drove to the airport park and ride. We were running a little behind and although we've loved ParkingCents Park and Ride in the past, I ended up wanting to bite my nails off. In the past when we've used them, they have had a bus for each terminal at the lot where they direct everyone to park. This day, not so much. We had to wait for a shuttle and then, yes, you guessed it, we were headed to the last terminal they hit; I was all the more frustrated when the driver drove PAST our terminal to go to another one first.
Alas, we made our flight and were on our way! Charlotte was good and slept and played with a minimal amount of fussing as the plane landed. In fact, because of my head cold, I think I fussed more on the way down! One of my ears did not pop until the next day, which means I couldn't hear much for the rest of the day.
Charlotte slept the whole way as we drove from Norfolk to the Duke of York Motel on the York River in Yorktown. Every reunion that we've spent in Yorktown over the past 30 years has been at this motel. The best part of the motel? The 4th floor opens up around a big lawn on top of a hill overlooking the river. We hang out under the trees and catch up until the wee hours of the morning as we watch the boats, often big Navy ships, go by.
On Friday Fred went golfing while Charlotte and I joined my uncle and two aunts, along with my sister Michele, our two cousins and their 4 kids to visit Williamsburg. Getting there turned out be be an unexpected adventure. We first thought we could take a trolley from the hotel to historic Williamsburg. That turned into a trolley and a bus, which turned into a trolley and 3 buses.
Charlotte showed her excitement at finally arriving by promptly falling asleep.
The kids got their photo taken in the stockade!
Unfortunately, once we got there, we could not spend a lot of time checking things out, because we had to catch the last buses back before they stopped running.
After laughing at cousin Betty, Charlotte played on the grass with some of her second cousins.
We spent Saturday playing on the lawn and swimming in the pool before heading off for the big event of the reunion in Charles City County. On the way to dinner at Yeardly on the James River, my family stopped by Bethany Presbyterian Church to visit my Grandfather's grave.
Most of his grandkids and great-grandkids took this shot at his grave. You can read more about that here.
Dinner was very yummy, and a huge thanks to my cousins who planned it, Molly and Gordon. Another thanks to our cousins Ned and Jack, and their wives, Sharon and Peggy, for taking time to make sure everything was set up - they share ownership of Yeardly, which was once their father's home.
Charlotte in the air:
After dinner we had the Christan family meeting - to talk about things like taxes for the property we did not sell when we sold Woodbourne. The property keeps the Christian name on the property tax books - maintaining something over 300 years of recorded living in Virginia.I love this photo just because its like a "where's waldo?" kind of shot! Where's Charlotte?
Sunday before leaving Virginia, we visited another graveyard - something we all used to complain about as my Dad drug us to them all the time as kids. This one is pretty cool though, next to a church erected in 1689, and has the gravestone of one of our ancestors on my father's side, George Read. He is the grandfather of Thomas Nelson, who fought in the Revolutionary War. I love that my roots in this country go as deep as pre-revolutionary.
Fred took this photo by the grave:
After the graveyard, we went to the Yorktown Victory Center , went through the exhibit, went through the replica farm where we learned how the farmers made linen, and saw a revolutionary soldier camp complete with a mortar demonstration. It was loud, and Charlotte did not blink.
Fred took this great shot of the tobacco crops growing:
After the Victory Center, we headed back to Norfolk and back to Houston. We all had a great time and hope to stay a little longer next time!
1 comment:
So cool! It looks like it was beautiful while you guys were there, and how fun it must have been!
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