{"id":716,"date":"2012-03-22T01:28:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/03\/spring-break-road-trip-2012-part-1-west-virginia-and-a-circus.html"},"modified":"2012-03-22T01:28:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:28:00","slug":"spring-break-road-trip-2012-part-1-west-virginia-and-a-circus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/03\/spring-break-road-trip-2012-part-1-west-virginia-and-a-circus.html","title":{"rendered":"Spring Break Road Trip 2012, Part 1: West Virginia and a Circus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was the kids’ Spring Break.  The family headed up to West Virginia to visit my parents, thanks to their offer for us to take their riding lawn mower.  My Dad bought it 1-2 years ago, but they don’t use it much.  I guess they felt sorry for us with our larger-than-necessary lawn…which I discussed last year when I measured how many miles I had walked to cut my lawn with our 22″ wide mower<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We drove a VERY long day on Saturday.  Thanks to some Choice Hotel loyalty points<\/a>, we got a free hotel room in Roanoke and were at my parents by Sunday at lunchtime.<\/p>\n

My parents had arranged a nice surprise for the boys: a trip to the circus!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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This is a circus that set up in a gymnasium.  Small, but for the kids, it was a lot of fun!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Walker Brothers Circus<\/a> travels around the eastern United States.  It’s a very small operation, with the ringmaster taking our tickets at the front door, and the acrobats selling concessions when they aren’t actively performing.  The entire event is very small, unlike the larger Ringling Brothers circuses, so there were several chances to personally interact with the performers.<\/p>\n

Ever see those free tickets at local grocery stores?  That’s the type of circus we went to.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

The boys enjoyed the bouncy house before the circus, and the assorted acts.  My parents got them cotton candy and toy light sabers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Waiting for the show to start.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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He loves cotton candy!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The ringleader blew fireballs!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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This is Gianni — balancing on tubes. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A hula hoop act.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I was having a hard time with the camera from the distance we were sitting, so I stopped after this point.<\/p>\n

The rest of our visit, we relaxed and hung out.  Dave and Timmy went to the Baltimore area to visit one of Dave’s friends’ train stores, and he met a friend for lunch.  Jacob and I spent a day shopping with my Mom, which was fun.  Jacob desperately needed some new running shoes, so he was stuck with us girls for the day.<\/p>\n

We also drove out to the Washington, D.C. suburbs to visit some friends for dinner, but that’s for another post.<\/p>\n

Timmy and my parents all got sick during our visit.  That was pretty icky, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

Mid-week, we loaded my parents’ lawn mower on a U-Haul trailer and made the drive down to North Carolina, where we visited with my sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Parked at a Cracker Barrel on the way down to central NC.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was the kids’ Spring Break.  The family headed up to West Virginia to visit my parents, thanks to their offer for us to take their riding lawn mower.  My Dad bought it 1-2 years ago, but they don’t use it much.  I guess they felt sorry for us with our larger-than-necessary lawn…which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[201,30,163,37,202],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-by","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1139,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/06\/road-trip-2012-ii-part-2-west-virginia.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":0},"title":"Road Trip 2012 II, Part 2: West Virginia","date":"25 June 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Since Debby is keeping her distance from northwest Florida, I can safely resume my blogging about our road trip. After visiting with Dave's side of the family in Pennsylvania, we said our goodbyes -- especially to Jacob, who is visiting with Dave's parents for a couple weeks -- and headed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"kids\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/DelGrossoSign.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":717,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/03\/spring-break-road-trip-2012-part-2-north-carolina.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":1},"title":"Spring Break Road Trip 2012, Part 2: North Carolina","date":"22 March 12","format":false,"excerpt":"This picture was taken minutes before we headed to our truck and started our drive home.After hooking up the lawn mower to our truck in WV, we headed back down I-81 and U.S. 29 towards my sister's house in central North Carolina. \u00a0I blew through her place -- stopping overnight\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/--R7f-huTBrM\/T2NJPRkDW7I\/AAAAAAABfsM\/4x83lhJGRqY\/s640\/IMG_1789.JPG?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":647,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/09\/a-geeky-experiment-converting-mowing-the-huge-lawn-into-mileage-and-calories.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":2},"title":"A Geeky Experiment: Converting Mowing the Huge Lawn into Mileage and Calories","date":"09 September 11","format":false,"excerpt":"This is about 1\/2 of the backyard in view here. \u00a0You can also see our backyard on our weather webcam here. \u00a0For some reason the homeowner removed every...single...tree...and...shrub from his lawn. \u00a0On Google maps you could see an area of pine trees in the middle of the backyard, but no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"back to school\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-kAbDrYzODiI\/TMdME5M7HlI\/AAAAAAABNJ0\/rFfF1EmOTcA\/s640\/IMG_4889.JPG?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":358,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/06\/road-trip-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":3},"title":"ROAD TRIP!","date":"12 June 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow morning we leave on vacation.\"Whoo hoo! It's about friggin' time! You haven't really had a real vacation in a couple years, have you?\"No, I guess not. We had that fabulous trip to Fort Fisher\/Kure Beach, NC back in July 2007. That was a really fun time, the most relaxed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":718,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/03\/spring-break-road-trip-2012-part-3-visiting-old-friends-meeting-new-friends.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":4},"title":"Spring Break Road Trip 2012, Part 3: Visiting Old Friends, Meeting New Friends!!!","date":"22 March 12","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the things I'm guilty of is trying to balance visiting friends with every trip we take back to the Northeast. \u00a0You know who you are! \u00a0There are many of you I haven't been able to see in YEARS because we're trying to see other friends.Now that I'm a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"friends\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-RjsXwIiAGS4\/T2qjiluOxII\/AAAAAAABgyE\/DvO6IJeX4ZA\/s400\/IMG_1787.JPG?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":442,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/07\/4000-miles-part-1.html","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":5},"title":"4000 Mile Road Trip: Part 1","date":"20 July 10","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sitting here watching Julie & Julia. Again. Adorable movie. About a girl and her blog. And lots of decadent cooking. It inspired me to get onto my own blog and bring you guys a bit up to date on things. Our summer break is plodding along here. A slower\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"road trip\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}