A Trip To Richmond and Busch Gardens

My brother's job has moved him all the way across the world to Australia WITHOUT his family.  It's a great "promotion"/accomplishment, but it's sad that he is missing out on being with them daily.  His wife, Amanda, is a school teacher, so the plan was as soon as school got out for the summer, her and the boys would travel to see him, spend the summer with him, and return before her new school year began. Unfortunately, Amanda's father's cancer has spread to his bone marrow and brain and he has been given 6-12 weeks to live.  Amanda and her father are VERY close, so she has cancelled her trip to reside in Australia for the summer, with my brother, to spend her father's last days with him. I knew this news would be devastating... all of it.  So I asked Amanda what I could do to help, if anything.  Amanda said, "Having visitors, for Will especially, would help distract us for a day or so."  SO, that's exactly what we did.  We loaded up the car on Wednesday and hung out with the Crisafi family until Friday.  Will and Tyson reunited like they just saw each other the day before. Lilah and Jax kind of tagged along and when Michael would allow Lilah to, she would follow him around "mothering" him. We got a ton accomplished in just the short 2 days we were there.  On Thursday, we went to Busch Gardens.  It was my second time and the kids FIRST time ever.  I think we ALL had a ton of fun. In fact, we had so much fun, we are heading back there THIS wednesday with daddy to spend a few days at Busch Gardens and Water Country Safari.  Enjoy the photos I took while in Richmond/Williamsburg.  I am posting a few of my favorites and then you can double click on the photo album below to view ALL of them, if you so desire.  :)

*George Coleman is Amanda's father's name if you wouldn't mind keeping him in your prayers, mostly for pain management.  Amanda has a twin sister (Melissa) and a mother (Vicki) who has been married to George for 40 years.

 Love this shot of the 3 boys.

Aunt Amanda took it while I was waiting in line at BG to park.

 By request, the first ride the kids rode was the "Pirate Ship".

From the looks of it, Amanda is the ONLY one who was having fun.

 Aunt Amanda and Michael.  Sorry I cut you out Will :(

 Watching a show in Germany, while I grabbed lunch.

 Ropes course.

Lilah really was there, lol!

Michael and Lilah were limited on what they could ride.

They hung out mostly together on the "baby rides".

Shorties......

 Jax was super psyched to learn how tall he really was.

He has grown 5 inches in the last year.

This allowed him to ride the BIG boy swings.

Tea cups.

 "Weeeeee!"

 Face painting fun!

 I rode the Pompeii Rapids with the boys.

I was in desperate need of being refreshed by some cold water.

THAT'S probably the ONLY reason I agreed to riding it.

 It actually was fun, but the straight down part wasn't, lol!

 COUSINS!!!!

Below, Tyson, Jax, and Will do the ropes course.

 Aunt Amanda braved the dizzy tea cup rides with all the kids.  I would have been sick the rest of the day if I rode this.

I braved the Pompeii Water Rapids ride with the three oldest boys.  We rode it twice.  I chanced video recording it with my iPhone, but when we got inside the tunnel, someone asked me to shut my camera off.  LOL!  Leave it to me to get yelled at on a ride for having my video camera on.  Oh well, it's probably better than I didn't have it in my hands while going straight down.  I probably would have lost it.  

ONE of the reasons we are going back this weekend is because we didn't even finish HALF the park & tickets to go BACK were only $15 since we were able to apply last week's ticket prices to the return ticket.  AN AWESOME DEAL!!!!