Day 5: Williamsburg!

I think we all agree that Colonial Williamsburg may have been our favorite part of the trip.

Well, maybe.

Because it was all AWESOME!

But, going to Colonial Williamsburg was the impetus for our entire trip, so I was especially excited.

They have different games in their kid area. Our kids wanted to stay here all day long.

Old school bowling, and Camille loving playing hoop. Camille was so cute- the woman would start the hoop rolling, and Camille would sprint after it to hit it and keep it up. So incredibly cute:

 Claire fell in LOVE with this chicken name Henny:

This is a harpsichord that the workers actually made on site a few years back, and they let the girls play which was really neat:

Outside the cabinet-maker:

They showed us how they used to make bricks. While it was fun for a few minutes, this was originally slave labor and it would be so incredibly AWFUL to do this day in and day out. And dirty. Very, very, muddy.

The shoemaker- so neat to see how they used to make shoes! I was surprised to learn that no elves are involved.

 The Governor's Mansion:

The cellar underground may have been the best part of the tour. It felt like a dungeon, but only housed ale:

I just loved this bathroom sign and had to take a picture:

 Virginia is so green! There were trees everywhere. It reminded me so much of Seattle, and I loved that. But, Ben felt claustrophobic driving around and not being able to see beyond the trees.

The forger made a spoon right in front of us- it was fascinating! Especially when he immediately melted it again. Apparently spoons of the past could not be used in hot items because the spoons would melt in their soup! So funny!

Claire got obsessed with these leaves:

The courthouse. It was amazing to hear how the courts used to work. It was illegal to "speed" on horseback in Colonial Williamsburg. But, there weren't any cops. So neighbors would rat on each other. They needed to have evidence, but if their neighbor won, guess who got to keep the money? The neighbor! Pretty good incentive to turn somebody in.

A maze:

We stayed at a wonderful hotel, and the girls were delighted that the maid took the time to put their stuffed animals in a cute row in bed:

Sal's Pizza was great according to the kids:

Day 4: COUSINS!

If you ask my girls, they will probably say that their favorite part of the trip was seeing their cousins.

We got to enjoy "Screen Porch Club", and go to Freya' soccer game, and, well, just play.

A relaxing day was just what we needed! I am a slow learner, but I have learned that we need to include rest days while on vacation. While I can go, go, go, my kids cannot. So after three days with a ton of walking and seeing a million things, playing with cousins was perfect!

Day 3: Mount Vernon

The home of George Washington! Wow, what a beautiful estate. Yes, it is tainted as the plantation was run by slaves who weren't treated super well, but that's another story. We just wanted to see the home of our first President.

George Washington cared VERY much about the yard! He took great pains to have beautiful gardens and personally oversaw its perfection. His was one of only a few plantations, apparently, that had such a large well manicured lawn, as lawns were very expensive to maintain (even with slave labor).

One of the perks of taking vacation when school is in session is that the lines are very short. Even though it looks like there were a lot of people, there really weren't lines at all.

Isn't this house beautiful???

The Potomac River is so beautiful!

Audra is pointing at the wood- yes, wood!- and the chipping sand that is coming off. They used to cover wood with sand to get the European look for a fraction of the price.

Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the house, so you will need to do a Google search for pictures to see how beautiful the house is.

 A replica carriage of what he would have ridden in:

Martha and George are buried here. The government wanted to bury Washington at the US Capitol, but he was superstitious and refused to be buried under ground, so was buried at Mount Vernon instead.

 Here is a tribute to all the slaves that worked and died there. There is a slave cemetery here, but nobody knows how many slaves were buried there. Unlike Jefferson, GW did free all of his slaves upon his death, so at least there is that...

The blacksmith shop:

Sitting on the back porch overlooking the Potomac.

The views are so beautiful- it is easy to see how GW loved relaxing here. Across the Potomac an energy company wanted to do some drilling, so the city turned the land across the river into a state park so they couldn't. Good move! If there was industrialization it would really take away from understanding how GW felt while sitting on the back porch.

There was an amazing fifer who taught the girls marching and drumming:

Can you see Camille (far left) trying to keep up to the upbeat tempo? It was so cute!

 And learning the jig:

Day 2: The Capitol, National Archives and More!

Day 2 was another fabulous day- with lots of walking and memories.

We drove downtown instead of taking the bus, and made our way to the US Capitol.

There was a cute little brick alcove outside.

I booked the tour through out US Congressman Mike Coffman. We met at his office. He is not in DC right now, so they let us go into his office. Ben thought this was the best part, and it was pretty cool. There was another group that was supposed to go with us, but they didn't show up, so we got a private tour with our own tour guide and everything.

I loved what the Seattle rep added to her door sign:

The Capitol was amazing. Each state gets two statues- here's one of ours.

This is the original Supreme Court room- inside the capitol.

The artwork in the rotunda was awesome!

This is the original senate chamber which is no longer in use because it's much to small. Abraham Lincoln would have sat in this room.

It was a proud homeschool moment when my girls got super excited about the statue of Robert Fulton (inventor of the steam ship). I'm sure our tour guide thought we were weird, but I was proud.

Brigham Young!

James Madison:

Audra was working on her living wax museum of Sacagawea, so of course we needed a picture with her:

We stopped at the National Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful!

And then off to the Air and Space Museum. We only had about 30 minutes, so it was the fastest tour imaginable, but Ben really wanted to go in. I wish we had more time, but he loved seeing the WWII airplanes.

Our next stop was the National Archives! This was so exciting!!! We saw the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and The Constitution! It was so awesome!!! We couldn't take any pictures, but it was a true highlight.

Claire kept going back to the Declaration- she absolutely loved it. It was so cool to see all the original signatures! Though it is actually fading quite a bit, so some of it we couldn't see.

Next stop: Natural History Museum.

On our way back to the car, we saw this woman walking her ducklings across the street. It was hilarious, and we needed a picture: