Travelog for: Plaid Moose

What a weekend I had! I went with Mara up to Baltimore to see the Red Sox play again. It wasn't my first baseball game, but this one was really special - Saturday night we saw Manny Ramirez hit his 500th home run! Here I am before the game on Saturday...

And here I am on Sunday (it's hard to see, but there are stats about the home run on the scoreboard behind me!)

It's been a big two days here - each day the mail has brought someone new! Yesterday we opened a package...

...and Snuggles popped out!

And today when we looked in the mail...

...it was Shirley Sheep who arrived!

I am so excited to be able to welcome them both! Hopefully we will get to go out this week and explore together!

What an amazing morning we had! Today was the National Race for the Cure, a huge 5K race to raise money for breast cancer research. There were 50,000 people (and four toy voyagers) that walked and ran in the race today! (and Mara says that there are usually more, but the crazy heat kept a lot of people at home) First, we had to get ready. I skipped the sunblock, but Snuggles helped me and Tipsy to pin our race numbers on...

Then it was time for the race. It was hard to take pictures because of how many people were there and the weather (it was really hot, and the morning started really foggy), but here I am at the finish line! (the building in the background is the one of the Smithsonian museums - The National Museum of the American Indian)

We were really proud of our race - here we all are on a bench afterwards...

...and here we are catching a moment of shade under a plant near the Smithsonian Castle!

Of course, before we got back in the car, I stopped for a picture in front of the Smithsonian Castle!

Oh, how I love when Toy Voyagers come to our house for a visit. So when Mara told us that a package arrived today, I was so excited! First, we tore off the tape...

And then out popped Muumipeikko!

But there was still noises in the traveling case...

It's Mausi! But there was one more surprise...

HitchaRideMo! Here we all are -

I told them all how hot it has been here in Virginia - over 100 degrees each day - so we have been keeping cool inside in the air conditioning. But it is finally starting to cool off a bit, so we will go on an outing with everyone soon!

I had a fun day yesterday! It was Father's Day, so we went to Mara's parents' house to celebrate. First, I helped her dad with the grill (can you see me? It was very sunny...)...

Then, I relaxed under the shade of the umbrella...

While we were waiting for lunch to cook, we all played hide-and-go-seek in her parents' yard. Can you find me in my hiding place?

And here we are afterwards relaxing on the front porch!

After we celebrated Fathers Day, we went with Mara and her husband to play softball. They couldn't take pictures during the game (since they were playing!), but here I am at the field!

I had such a fun weekend! I hopped into Mara's backpack with the other toy voyagers and we all went to a scrapbooking convention! Here I am at the entrance...

We started with some shopping. Here I am with Muumipeikko looking around at all the booths to shop at!

Then it was time to take some classes. Hitcharidemo and I looked at the class schedule and decided which ones we wanted to take.

Here I am making a summer album:

And here I am gluing the shapes we cut out onto a layout!

What a fun weekend!

We had a busy weekend here! Even though it was really hot, we all went to the Nationals-Orioles game! I've been to a Nationals game and I've been to an Orioles game, so it was fun to go to a game and see them play each other! Here I am in our seats, watching the baseball game:

And here I am in front of the scoreboard, which Mara said has one of the biggest HD screens in any stadium!

Hello! I am SO excited! Mara & her husband are off on vacation for their anniversary, and they took us with them! We are going to Williamsburg, which is exciting in itself, but even more exciting considering that I used to live there! (back when Mara was in college at William & Mary, I lived on her desk!) So I'm going to get to show my new friends around! We started our trip by driving to Williamsburg. We tried to help navigate...good thing they knew where they were going!

We spent the afternoon walking around Colonial Williamsburg - the colonial capital of Virginia, and where a lot of early US history took place. Here I am in front of the Governor's Palace:

And here I am in front of the Capital building:

Then we stopped for lunch...Mausi was so excited...The Cheese Shop! But I knew that it's known for having the best sandwiches in Williamsburg - Mara and I ate them all the time in college! We had a very yummy lunch!

Then we walked around the campus of William & Mary. It's the second oldest college in the US. Here I am in front of the Wren Building - the oldest building in continuous use on a college campus in the US. It's where Thomas Jefferson studied...and Mara took classes in this building too! (sorry for the shadows...it was very sunny!)

And here we all are at Crim Dell - one of the most romantic places on a college campus in the world!

We finished up at Mara's sorority house - where both Mara & I lived in college!

Once we were done sightseeing for the day, we went to check in at the hotel. Because they were celebrating, Mara & her husband stayed at Kingsmill, a nice resort with lots of really nice golf courses (pros play here!) on the James River. None of us play golf, but the resort is really nice! Here I am at the main resort building - you can see part of the golf course and the James River in the background!

And here we are on the balcony of our room!

After all that excitement, we were all ready to go to bed...all tucked in for a good night's sleep!

What a FANTASTIC day! We all went today to Busch Gardens! It was a rainy day, so we didn't take a lot of pictures, but, as Mara said, a rainy day at an amusement park is still a lot of fun! Here I am at the entrance...

Busch Gardens is divided up into countries from Europe, and each area is designed to look like that country. So here I am in front of Busch Gardens' version of Big Ben in London!

After taking the picture, we had to decide what to do first, so we helped with the map again (still, a good thing that Mara knows her way around!)

I didn't go on any of the rides (they were way too scary for a little Toy Voyager like me!), but here I am underneath one of the roller coasters - the Loch Ness Monster - which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year!

And here I am on one of the bridges overlooking the river and rides - you can see three of the park's roller coasters in the background, as well as the river cruise ride!

Our last day of vacation we spent in Yorktown - the site of the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. We started at the Victory Center, where there is a museum and a recreation of the Continental Army Encampment. Here I am listening to the artillery demonstration:

Then we looked at the supply tent:

And here is the tent where George Washington would have stayed and planned the attack:

Finally, we drove to the National Park site (where the actual battle took place) - here we are on one of the cannons:

I had a great trip, but I am glad to be going home (and glad to be getting some rest!)

Hi! Even though we can't find the pictures of us watching the All Star game (it was very late...Mara thinks she might have hit delete accidentally since we were up till 2 am!), we found a couple of other pictures of what we have been up to! It's been hot out, so we've been spending a lot of time inside. We've been playing cards...

And Muumipeikko taught us about the Moomins (he kept telling us that he was a Moomin, but we didn't know what that meant!)

We've also been reading a bunch of books. Mausi really likes this one - the mouse in it looks so much like him!

It was Mara's husband's birthday this week, so we decided to help out with the celebration! First, we needed to bake a cake. Of course, Muumipeikko is always being silly, and hid in the egg carton!

Of course, it didn't take long for us to find him!

Then I helped mix up the cake.

After the cake baked, it was time to decorate it. Here I am putting the happy birthday candles in:

And here we are with the finished cake!

Don't you think we did a good job? Mara must have, because she let us come along to the restaurant for dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant where they cook the dinner in front of you. I liked watching a lot - here I am with our chef!

What a fun night we had this week! We tagged along with Mara & her husband to a concert at Wolf Trap! Wolf Trap is a National Park - the only U.S. National Park for the Performing Arts. It's a very popular place here to see concerts/plays/etc. - it's an outdoor pavilion with a huge lawn behind it. Mara said that a lot of times they will sit on the lawn (since you can bring a picnic, and it's her favorite place to see a summer concert!). But since they were seeing a special performance by the National Symphony Orchestra as her birthday present to her husband, they decided to sit inside. It was hard to get a good picture of the entire thing, since I am such a small moose! But here I am at the top of the hill in front of the pavilion:

And here I am at the side before we went inside!

Can you see the trash cans at the very bottom? That should give you a good idea of how big the pavilion is! Here's a picture I found online of a good aerial shot of Wolf Trap:

And here I am before the show started. (sorry it's so fuzzy...you can't use a flash inside!) We saw Eric Idle performing with the NSO his new show, "Not the Messiah: He's a Very Naughty Boy".

What fun I have been having! Everyone here is very excited about the Olympics. So I have been getting to watch the games, especially the swimming. Swimming is the biggest story here in the US, as Michael Phelps is attempting to win 8 gold medals! Mara says he's from Baltimore (which is pretty close to here - I've been there a couple of times for baseball games!), and everyone is glued to the tv set to watch his races live. Here I am with Muumipeikko watching him get ready to race...

The most exciting race so far was the 4x100m relay where the US won at the very last second. Here we are watching it - you can see the swimmers cheering on their teammate and reacting to the win!

And here I am with Muumipeikko enjoying the games!