Nicole doing the Pillowcase Project by The Red Cross. I'm a Wolf Den leader now and so I get to take Nicole on Thursday nights then we split up to our activities. This calling is the latest I stay up all week lol.
Spike has the coolest colors.
Spike man growing up! He is getting longer!
We set off on Monday to Williamsburg VA. The car ride seemed much longer than our normal 3 hour beach run even though it was the same time driving. Diana has such a loud voice. Jim said if we teach her to sing she'll be famous because she can belt it out. She can be louder than anyone in the family (and that is really saying something!)
We ate at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I loved their many soda options and it was my first time eating a double hamburger on a bun. The fries were pretty good too.
The kids each drew on a card and tacked it up on their board.
Driving to Yorktown in between the Chesapeake Bay and James River with their many tributaries.
The first couple of plaques we saw, the kids wanted to get out and write word for word on their little notepads everything they saw and read. It was darling. And fortunately wore off quickly :)
Michael refusing to get in the car so he can inscribe every last word.
Our first day we visited Yorktown. They have the real battlefield where you can see and drive around reading about the siege by the French and Americans that ended with British surrender that ended the Revolutionary War. They had tons of cannons and artifacts.
They had a ship replica for the kids to explore.
Yorktown Victory Monument.
One of the coolest parts of our whole trip was going out to the battlefield and seeing where all of the original trenches and redoubts were. It was amazing to imagine everything, especially after the short video they show in the visitors center telling how it all went down.
The kids watched an animated series on the Revolutionary War before we came and so their imaginations were going wild as everything came to life for them.
There were cannons scattered all over the field near the visitors center and there was nobody outside. So the Del Bianco commanding forces led the way to victory!
Diana was going nuts pretending to drive or shoot this cannon, we were never quite sure. But she was very excited about it!
Katy was happy to crawl around exploring.
Michael used his stick to press in the pretend powder and shot.
We made our way to the Yorktown Victory Center which was much more hands on. They had an encampment where they fired a musket and did some demonstrations on doctoring way back then. Michael volunteered to have some dental work done and it was painful just thinking about how they really used those tools.
Jim had to get a picture of the amputation tools of course.
We were some of the only people there since it was late in the day so the kids got to ask as many questions as they wanted.
They had uniforms for the kid to try on. Sweet Jacob was trying to salute.
The view of the Chesapeake from Yorktown.
That night Michael got to choose dinner and wanted to go to this amazing pancake place we'd heard about in Williamsburg (apparently they have the highest number of pancake houses per capita there and we saw a TON) but we sadly discovered they are all open for breakfast/lunch only. We were debating on where to go, saying we had to choose something local that we wouldn't eat at home, when we saw an IHOP. Long story short, we ate at IHOP despite all of the amazing eateries around us. That's what we got for letting a kid pick the meal and sealing our fate unwittingly by promising a pancake house! We got to the hotel and discovered their pool was closed which was a major bummer since that was supposed to be how the kids got out all of their energy after a day of sightseeing. So instead we rented Big Hero 6 and we survived :) The first night they weren't asleep until after 10pm. They all slept on a sofa sleeper, on the floor and in a pack n play.
The next morning we stuffed ourselves with the awesome embassy suites breakfast. Jim and I were ready to never look a pancake in the face again by the last day lol. We spent the whole day at Colonial Williamsburg. The kids got colonial costumes and Nicole wore a dress. She kept curtseying for every picture it was pretty cute. This is the Governor's mansion.
The boys loved their wood muskets which made the expense of renting a costume worth every penny to hear Michael marching to his own "hut! hut! hut!" and shouting out commands like he saw the soldiers do during reenactments.
The boys got into their own world of make-believe whenever we were on our way to the next stop.
Nicole discussing with an actor the problem of the British taking the gunpowder stores from the town. She was old enough to start to engage with the people. I'd say this place was made for 8 and up. Diana was the one who really suffered since she didn't have the attention span to look at things she couldn't touch, listen to people she couldn't understand, and stay still when there were so many places to run. We couldn't blame her a bit and went through quite a few lollipops to keep her happy. This experience with her taught us a lot about what is realistic for our family to do right now. Overall it was really a fun time, just not easy with Diana.
The boys watching the soldiers and governor.
What I wouldn't give to have a set of these at home. :)
The kids were really dramatic with this it was funny. It was fun to see all of the options for timeout :)
It was really cool to see the workings of the town. The people were really engaged in their trade and the town seemed to really support itself. The tools he was making were to be used for real labor in the city.
Horses in a nearby pasture.
We ate lunch at The Cheese Shop, yum!
Next door was the INCREDIBLE Wythe Candy store. The kids were trying to get into everything so all I could do was drool a bit over the amazing handmade fudge and truffles while the kids picked out enormous lollipops.
Sheep next to the jail. The jail here held Blackbeard's pirates before they were hanged which was kind of spooky cool. You can see a gallows in the background.
There were some cannons on a village green and the kids imaginations were in paradise, especially now that the boys had their wooden muskets :)
For dinner, I got to choose where we went this time. We were pretty beat from the long day, but I was dying for some really good food. So we went to Sals by Victor Italian Restaurant and it did not disappoint!
Yum!
For dessert we went to Aromas and got to make s'mores at our table.
We only caught a few on fire.
Diana was loving the whole playing-with-fire idea but chocolate distracted her enough so we could make ours.
The food made the rest of the crazy Diana-herding worth it!
The next morning we went to Jamestown! Just like Yorktown, there was an actual site run by the national park service, and then a separate nearby place with a reenactment in a recreation of what it would have looked like. We only went to the reenactment site. We watched a short movie which taught us a bunch about what really happened with John Smith and the Virginia Company.
They had an Indian village to tour. I loved how the kids could touch everything, unlike in Colonial Williamsburg where prettymuch everything was off limits to curious fingers.
Jacob fanning the duck stew with turkey feathers. He was so vigorous in his fanning that he smoked out our whole group. We smelled like smoke the entire day.
Turtle shell
On to the fort!! We heard a cannon boom but never got to see it. The kids LOVED hearing the cannon the couple of times it went off.
The settlement really put into perspective how small their area was in such a big new world. It would have been pretty terrifying, especially considering how little food they had and their lack of farming knowledge. The video we watched told how many colonists starved when relations with the Indians were hostile and they had to barricade themselves in their fort, which was in a swampy area.
My little colonist soldiers.
Diana couldn't quite keep the hat on.
Nicole in one of the houses pretending to write with a chicken feather on a desk while Mike and D explore the contents of the dresser behind her.
Diana was thrilled to get to explore and climb everything.
Playing some rope toss.
For probably one of the coolest and most dangerous parts of our trip, they had three ship replicas to tour. We couldn't fathom how they traveled across the ocean on these ships and the quarters below deck were inhumanely small. I could imagine why you'd love being above deck all the time, it was claustrophobic and cramped when we went downstairs.
The boys loved exploring, although there wasn't really anything to protect them from plunging headfirst in to the James River so I was paranoid the whole time and Diana had a total meltdown since I wouldn't let go of her hand.
Looking through a cannon opening. We had fun imagining taking on some pirates from our ship. Although with this little ship I wouldn't have felt very brave!
After touring one ship, Diana was through with the whole vacation. So Jim got to explore on his own while she sat on the pier and the kids and I enjoyed the view.
Meanwhile, my boys and their cannons having the time of their life.
Mike kept kicking off his crocs after multiple warnings to stop. So as a consequence I told him he couldn't wear them for a few minutes. Of course he takes off his socks and three or four of his toes are totally out of one sock. Just how many toes can stick out of a sock before you throw them away?
We stopped at this small local pie shop for lunch. The barbecue was AMAZING and homemade right there. We bought slices from three pies too.
Bumbleberry pie! We kept our pie to eat after dinner when we got home that night. It was a good finish to a fun and exhausting vacation!
Our two cherry bushes arrived! I must say they look more promising than the twig we got last fall, although there are several little leaves starting to show on our little twig so there is hope!
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