point lookout lighthouse

yesterday was the last day point lookout lighthouse was to be open for the season. since shelly and sarah had never been there, we planned a trip out. I told my girls about it Friday night and they were soooooooo excited! I told them it was the most haunted lighthouse in the world and that made them even more excited. it's matt's navy weekend so he couldn't come, and even though I asked chris to pretty please come with us, he didn't want to wake up early, and I totally get that.

 

we love this little church on our drive out, and the girls said "take a picture!"

not a bad shot for a drive by. :)

when we got to point lookout state park, the ranger told us there was 7-8 inches of coastal flooding in the roads, but we would be fine to stay in the middle and go slow.

it was kind of freaky! you are not supposed to drive in water! I said "i'm a little nervous to drive through this." I wasn't scared, I knew we would be fine, otherwise the ranger wouldn't have let us drive through, it just was so weird!

addie is such a big girl and so impressed me! she said "it's ok mom, just look at the car in front of you, they got through just fine. just stay in the middle and go slow. it's ok, we're just fine. the car's not gonna sink, the water's not gonna come in the doors. it's ok, we're ok. just keep going, just go slow. you're doing good, we're gonna make it."

she was so soothing and smart! I loved the part about the car in front of us! I wasn't truly scared, but she was so soothing that if I had been she would have so helped!

apparently the phase of the moon caused a very high, high tide, plus the rain we got last night and that caused coastal flooding all over the point.

true to addie's word, we made it through just fine. :) we met up with shelly and dave and crew, and the kids loved climbing all over the rocks.

love this girl and her faces! the weather was so strange. the sky was dark and looked stormy, the wind was raging, but it was warm and comfortable out.

we made our way into the lighthouse and met Eunice Knott again. she was born at cove point lighthouse and grew up at point lookout. we've met her before, so it was fun to talk to her again. :) we asked her if she had ever seen a ghost. there were 5 kids in her family and 5 kids in the other keepers family, so she said all the kids probably scared them away, and she'd never seen anything. Frankie loved that story and told everyone else we saw last night.

 

we also ran into tony, the chesapeak chapter president. the little lighthouse community is so fun. :)

we finally, after wrangling the children together several times, made our way up to the cupola. shelly wore loralei, so dave went up first and then I helped the kids at the bottom. laney was freaked and cried until I made it up. she was not loving it.

this is the little opening to go up and down from the cupola.

the dark clouds had started to dissipate and it was clear enough to see point no point light, 3 miles up the bay.

since the kids were so crazy and laney hated being up there, we weren't able to take many pictures, but I snapped a few as I was lifting kids down.

I tried to get lanes to take a picture with me, I really did.

we don't spend nearly enough time enjoying the lights around us. we are so blessed to live in a state with 29 lighthouses! and 6 within an hour of us. that's amazing!!!

we wanted to get home in time for conference, (we didn't make it, we were 30 minutes late) so we only gave the kids a few minutes to run around after climbing the light. Delaney wanted to clean her hands in the puddle, but then quickly discovered that she liked the squishy mud on her feet, and splashed, and eventually fell in the water. am I a terrible mother that I totally let her do this? we didn't have anywhere else to go and she was having fun, so I let her.

the rest of the kids ran back and forth on the rocks.

my girls have not stopped talking about it since we got home! we had missionaries for dinner (at mccombs) and Frankie especially told them all about the lighthouse, the ghosts, the kids scaring the ghosts away, the rocks, everything! and she's asked at least 20 times to go back to the light. it was a good morning and I only wish we had more time to spend out there. that is the reason I am not ready for winter. there is still so much to do outside! good thing fall is so wonderful to make up for the cold, dreary months ahead!