Solomon's Island

Our friends, the Thompsons invited us to Solomon's Island for most of last week. I had never been to Solomon's Island and was delighted to accept the invitation. I knew we were up for a little summer fun. We drove there on Wednesday to stay through the weekend. I love exploring places I have never been to before and I knew that my friend was a wonderful go-getter who would have our time planned to maximize the potential of this small island.

When we drove around Solomon's that first day, I was completely surprised at how small it was. For a place that has such a name, it was rather small and quaint. I feel like we got the best of Solomon's during our sojourn there. The first morning, we did a kayak trip down the river (it leads to the bay). We had a fantastic time and I was paired up with Noah. Noah and I were completely in sync within minutes of being paired up. I knew what he was going to do before he did it becuase I quickly realized our thoughts formed the same way. When he was going to keep his paddle on one side or the other for an extra pull, I was ready. In short, we were absolutely great partners! But, Noah desperately wanted to ride in a single kayak. Tobin and his friend Drew each had their own and Noah just knew he could do it too!! As luck would have it, Drew's sister was ready to go tandem with someone about half way through and Noah traded her his tandem spot (with me) for her single. He did great. We ended up kayaking to a dead end and we saw a nest of herons. A darling little baby blue heron was perched on a tree branch while a white heron stood at the shore. Noah wanted to go to the white heron, but it was in too shallow of water, so we watched it pretty close.

Tobin and Drew disappeared behind this grassy marshland pathway for a little while. Noah tried to get me to venture there, but I really didn't want to go in there and get stuck. I have no idea what mischief Drew and Tobin got into back there, and I'm not sure I really want to know, but they came back laughing.

That afternoon, we headed out to an art museum and art gardens. The kids were not impressed, but I loved two things about AnnMarie Gardens. One, was that all of the art was done by local artists which is incredibly amazing when you see all of their talents in one room. The other was that some one had the brillant idea to make it interactive. During the gallery walk there were two notebooks that asked the guests questions that related to the art and you were supposed to write your answers right into the book. Some of the questions were really great. Some were: Who is your anchor and why? This was right next to artwork done with an anchor. Another was, Which landscape do you like and why? It was a 1/4 mile walk of art. They had borrowed some art from the Hirschorn and some from some other Smithsonian museums. We, Bettina and I, loved the walk, the kids definitely not so much. I thought they would like it once we got outside and walking around, but no, we were managing their behavior much of the time.



We walked up to one piece and Noah says, "look, it's Stonehenge." While I was impressed with his connection, the other kids jumped on him with comments of how silly was he, Stonehenge was in England, blah blah blah!!! But we added some of our own art to the stones. I hope you like it.





The girl in this picture with my Brenna also happens to be named Brenna!! At one point, Brenna had run up ahead without telling me and so I was calling her name telling her to come back! As we walked by this family, they asked me if my daughter's name was Brenna. When I replied yes they smiled and said that their daughter's name was Brenna!! Small world and of course, I had to get a picture.



At the end of the walk, the kids were beyond done when we saw this quiet grove. We told the kids (thinking they would get rid of some energy) to go into the grove and make their own art. This is what they came up with.