Day Five: a bushel and a peck.

Mark and I celebrated our 10-month anniversary on Wednesday. (cue collective 'aaaaawwww' for the adorable newlyweds here) we were tired after beach day, so we slept in a little before filling another day with Williamsburg, lunch at the Olive Garden, and an afternoon of fun at Busch Gardens.

the palace green was full of people playing ball and attempting to master rolling a hoop with a stick. apparently its not as easy at they make it look in movies. i was half tempted to try, but my less-fun more-grown-up scared-to-look-like-a-goofus-in-front-of-a-bunch-of-strangers side of me won out and we just walked past.

since we remembered this time to get a map at the visitors center, we were able to pick out the places that we wanted to see but had missed the last time in our wanderings. one of the first places we stopped was in the church yard to look at some of the graves that were there.

the inside of the church was really neat. there is so much history in the building and it was fun to think about all the differences between churches then and now. it actually has an active congregation, which is pretty impressive seeing as it sits right on the main street of the Colonial part of Williamsburg and not out in the modern part. i think it would be way cool to get to worship there every week.

the colonial gardens were probably Mark's favorite part. i think he would have wandered around in there for a few hours, and might have even liked to sit for a while under the grape arbor with a good book. we would have liked to come home with a few plants, but since our garden and other outside space is less than planned (and more like overgrown and out of control) at this point, we just bought a few packs of seeds for when we do have more of a plan.

the shoemaker was one of the most in-character people we talked to, which mostly made us feel as though he wished we would stop asking him questions and just let him work. so we didn't visit with him for very long.

i convinced Mark to get a little bit into character by trying on this 3-cornered hat. i was not quite convincing enough for him to pose for a picture with me in the stocks.

but i did take this nice picture of a barrel.

we hung around just long enough to hear that the redcoats were coming with that traitor Benedict Arnold, and might burn the town like they had just done to Richmond. but we were too hot and sweaty to stick around for the fire. (Mom and Dad stayed and they said that the town escaped un-charred)

the afternoon was a leisurely day of coaster-riding at Busch Gardens. since there was a threat of rain, the park was not very full and the lines were very short, so we were able to ride all the big rides in about three hours. we didn't take many pictures since most of our time was spent on roller coasters, but i did stop to take advantage of the carousel photo-op. (and i just feel the need to clarify that it was a tiny little horse which is why i look like a freaking giant!)

at the end of the day i realized that there was only one full day of vacation left with the whole fam. and then i promptly stopped thinking about it because it was just too sad.