Day 5: Colonial Williamsburg (part 1)

Wednesday, October 18

The other highlight of our trip was the day we spent in Colonial Williamsburg. There is so much to see that one day hardly does it justice, but with the ages of the kids, that's all we could hope for on this trip.

We started off our morning parking at the Visitor's Center. We rented costumes for Samantha and Michael to wear during out day in the Colonial Period. It's fun to see the kids dressed up and the people in Colonial Williamsburg respond a little bit more to people who are dressed up. And they certainly were by no means the only ones dressed in colonial garb. The woman in the rental office even showed Samantha how to curtsy and Michael how to bow. She showed Michael how to put one leg forward, turned slightly outward, so the ladies could see his "wonderful leg" - otherwise known as "putting your best foot forward".

We walked over from the Visitor's Center to the colonial area. My husband misled me by "understating" the distance from the Visitor's Center to the colonial area - it was about a half mile. When we reached the colonial area, we jumped onto an orientation tour that explained a bit about how things worked and what we could expect during our day. All of the sites that were "open for visitors" would have a "Union Jack" flag posted out front - it made it easy to see what was open and what wasn't. This is also important because some of the houses on the street are actually occupied by Colonial Williamsburg employees who rent them out.

We visited too many "craftsmen" and other "tradesmen" to enumerate each of them, but I will highlight some of our more favorites.

When we reached Duke of Gloucester Street, we headed to the ticket office and purchased tickets for a carriage ride later that morning. We got lucky because at 9:45am in the morning, most slots were already filled and the only one left fit our schedule well.



While waiting for our time to ride the carriage, we headed over to the Governor's Mansion. We intended to tour the mansion, but planned to do that later in the day. For now, we spent time on the grounds. We saw the Wheelwright and the carriage house, and then headed around the back to the immense gardens. The Governor had a very large estate, especially for that time period. We wandered through the gardens and finally found the boxwood maze. It is clear by the way the hedges have grown, and the fact that it is the end of the growing season that many kids had dug "through" the hedges instead of walking through the maze - it made it harder to find the actually maze. After getting through the maze we went up on top of the old ice house where you could get a good view of the maze.

Day 5: Colonial Williamsburg (part 2)

The carriage ride through town was nice - the driver told us to imagine that she was "an older black slave" since that's who would be driving around people rich enough to own the carriage we were riding in. She pointed out many sites throughout the town and interesting facts. There is so much institutional knowledge in the employees that dress up every day and come to work in Colonial Williamsburg.

After our carriage ride through town, we headed immediately over to the Powder Magazine where Michael had a chance to "drill with the militia". He learned how to line up and load and shoot a musket. The drill sergeant was great - he has been working there over 15 years. He demonstrated each step of loading and firing a musket and then showed how quickly he could load his weapon - shooting 4 shots in 1 minute (yes, that's one shot every 15 seconds with a reload in between). He was a typical drill sergeant too - he "barked" at them like a drill sergeant and didn't tolerate the "sloppy" drilling that the new militia performed. Michael even thought he was serious when he dismissed the troops until 6:30am the next morning when they were to return and drill again!

After lunch, we took tours of the Capitol building and the Governor's Mansion, as well as many of the trademen. I feel certain I had toured the Capitol before, but if I had toured the Governor's Mansion, I didn't remember.

The Capitol was designed to house the "two" houses of Burgesses. One represented England and one represented the colonists. The adornments in their chambers clearly represented how they felt about each group - the "Governor's" side (which represented England) was elegantly adorned with velvet chairs and many decorations. The colonists side was sparsly furnished, with a wooden table and chairs. The Capitol was designed with a "meeting room" in the middle where the two houses were supposed to "come together" to resolve issues.


The Governor's Mansion was adorned to depict decorations of Governor Dunmore, the Governor at the beginning of the American Revolution. The first room we visited had a large portrait of Governor Spotswood, the first Governor to occupy the building. Michael was excited to hear that because we had read a chapter in our Virginia History book about Governor Spotswood.

One of the neatest thing about walking the streets of Colonial Williamsburg is the number of people dressed in period clothes. There is a parade in the late afternoon and leading up to that parade, there were many times that almost everywhere I looked, I saw "colonial" people. We even saw a colonial baby!!


After a few more visits to local tradesmen, and a quick shopping trip for some "authentic colonial items", we headed back to the Visitor's Center. We went to our second hotel this night - the Great Wolf Lodge. I will write more about the hotel tomorrow.

Day 4: Wash Out

"Wash Out" is how the weathermen were describing Tuesday in the Williamsburg area. This was the day we had planned to go to Colonial Williamsburg. The rain was due to start late morning and continue the rest of the day and night. We decided we didn't want to deal with that - even for a little while.



After breakfast at the hotel, Emma spent some time in the room with me and Mike took Samantha and Michael for a drive down the Colonial Parkway to Yorktown. Emma took a much-needed morning nap and the kids came back and went swimming. Everyone took an afternoon nap.

We took another drive down to Yorktown and got out to look at a couple of features of the battlefield. The entire area was being set up for the 225th celebration of the surrender at Yorktown, which was occuring on Thursday. Needless to say, we would NOT be going to Yorktown on Thursday. We did get to see some of the defenses and Michael continued to marvel at all the cannons.

We returned to Williamsburg and ate at a restaurant near the Visitor's Center called Huzzah!. Huzzah! was the battle call during the Revolutionary War. This restaurant served a menu that was "a little more colonial"

Day 3: Jamestown

Monday, October 16th

This is probably the highlight of the week for me. Michael definitely said that it was his favorite part of the trip.

We have been studying the founding of Jamestown in our American History lessons, so the kids had a lot to relate to when we went to Jamestown.



Now, it was confusing to figure out WHERE we actually wanted to go. There are 2 places to visit: Historic Jamestowne is the actual site where Jamestown was located; and Jamestown Settlement is a museum and fort recreation of Jamestown.

Historic Jamestown
We started with Historic Jamestowne because I figured if we went to the reproductions first we might not get them interested in the real thing. It was exciting to be there because in 1994, archeologists began finding artifacts of the real fort and have located all 3 sides of the fort. They are currently building a palisade over the original location of the Jamestown palisade (pictured above). There is also a church from the 1600s still on the site. They have built a wonderful museum full of original artifacts found on the site - there are thousands of them. And this museum is built on top of the remains of the original statehouse - and you can still see the original foundations in the floor of the museum. I purchased a great book written by the original archeologist who found proof of the original Jamestown Fort - I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I look forward to it.





The kids also got a chance to run and play along the river like I imagine kids did in the early days of Jamestown. I got Michael to slow down long enough to smile for this photo - at this point he was intrigued by every brick and stone he found that he thought might have been part of original Jamestown.




When we left the Historic Jamestown area, we went over to the Glasshouse. The kids were excited to see the glassblowing going on and it had been a long time since I had seen it myself. It was really interesting to see how they made items with such ease. I purchased a nice green vase for our house made there on the site!!








Jamestown Settlement
We then went over to the Jamestown Settlement. They had a nice cafe where we ate lunch. We then walked through a wonderful exhibit of Jamestown, the history of the peoples that lived there (Africans, Indians, English), their roots, and many other things that influenced the culture of Jamestown from the late 1500s until the early 1700s. What was wonderful about this exhibit, among everything else, is that this was the FIRST DAY it was open. It was a BRAND NEW exhibit. And to think we could have missed it if we had gone the day before.




We then walked through the reproduction of the Indian Village and the kids got to see the houses they lived in and how they lived. The path then led us down to the ship reproductions. There were only 2 ships there at the time because one had been sailed to Yorktown to be on hand for the celebration of the Victory at Yorktown later in the week. But, the kids were intrigued by the ships and how small they really were.

Finally, we spent some time in the reproduction of the Jamestown Fort. The kids got to walk through houses and see how they lived - and how the rich people had TWO rooms or a loft instead of just one room. We watched a demonstration of loading and firing a musket (Michael was intrigued but didn't like the sound) and got to model armor like the settlers wore at that time.




It was quite a full day and we ended it by riding the Jamestown Ferry over to Surry County and back, just for fun!

We tried to enjoy "local haunts" for meals during our trip - so dinner was at a local italian restaurant right down the road that was very nice!

Day 2, and Surprise Number 1

Sunday, October 15th

On our first full day in Williamsburg, we surprised the kids with a trip to Busch Gardens. We love Busch Gardens. We hadn't told the kids in advance because, obviously, we didn't want to be bugged every day and every hour about when we were going to Busch Gardens. We also wish that we could have put this on the END of the trip, but they are only open weekends, so this is when we went. It worked out for the best, actually, the way our other days fell together.




The kids really enjoyed the rides and rode a few more that they hadn't on our previous trip, such as the Battering Ram and the Big Bad Wolf rollercoaster. Emma also finally warmed up to the rides and enjoyed herself on several of the kids rides, like the kiddie swings and the gliders. We like the fact that Italy and "Dragon Land" have a bunch of kids rides together so that we can just spend some time there and have them ride all the rides they want.




We also got a good afternoon nap out of Emma. I think after NOT really napping in the car on the way down, and going to bed late, and NOT having a morning nap - it didn't take much to get her to sleep in the stroller in the afternoon. We didn't have our most comfortable stroller because we knew we would need the jogging stroller for Jamestown and Williamsburg, but she still slept well.

We left the park around dinner time because they had some "Halloween Themed" shows and activities and we thought many of those would be too much for the kids. We had also ridden most of the rides we wanted to ride, so we went ahead and headed back to the car and back to the hotel for dinner and bedtime!

Day 1: Departure

(I will eventually "re-date" these posts with the dates the events actually happened but for now, I will leave them at the top).

Saturday, October 14th

We spent Friday night and Saturday morning getting packed. We had 2 soccer games to go to in the morning BEFORE leaving for our trip. After soccer, we had a quick lunch, put the last few items in the van and actually left within a half hour of my targeted departure time (1pm)

We took a leisurely drive to Williamsburg. The kind that I used to HATE when my parents took me on them. We found a nice little ice cream place outside of Richmond for a snack and a pit stop. We then drove down a SMALL back road in the country (Rt. 156) in search of Rt. 5. Well, my memory had let me down and what I really wanted was Rt. 106. Rt. 156 eventually got us there but we used the directional indicator a LOT to decide if it was time to turn around because the road was taking us in the complete opposite direction. We eventually found Rt. 5 - the road we would take to Williasmburg.

The first thing we did when we reached Rt. 5 was drive South down Rt. 156/Rt. 106 to the bridge across the James River. I wanted the kids to see the river before we drove beside it, and I could also point out where my grandmother had lived nearby. Both kids remarked that the river was much larger than they had expected.

We then drove down Rt. 5 to Williamsburg. We pointed out many of the large plantations on the way down - we had discussed plantations a couple of times before our trip so I was able to relate it to our lessons for the kids about WHY the plantations were close to the river.

We arrived in Williamsburg and had a little trouble finding the hotel. A few of the roads have changed since I spent any time in town, and a section of the Colonial Parkway was detoured through town. We finally made our way to our hotel, which turned out to be VERY close to the Colonial Williamsburg visitor center and the Colonial Parkway. We stayed at the Homewood Suites, which was a perfect hotel for us. It had 2 Queen size beds in the bedroom, and a pull out couch in the living area, as well as a large chair. The closet was large enough that we could put Emma's pack-n-play in there and "almost" close the doors. We were staying at this hotel until Wednesday, when we move to another place.

We settled in for the night.

We're home!!

We're back from our trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown. I hope to post the full details tomorrow, but the short version entails:
- 6 day vacation
- 5 tired people
- 4 loads of laundry
- 3 fussy kids
- 2 different hotels
- 1 broken camera

We loved the days we spent at Jamestown and Williamsburg, and of course Busch Gardens. We were disappointed that the day we intended to go to Yorktown was a washout - and we were NOT going to go on the day of the 225th anniversary of Yorktown (people everywhere). The kids LOVED our two nights at Great Wolf Lodge. Imagine 10 hours of playing in a water park with few interruptions.

More tomorrow!

Getting ready for our trip!

Well, I'm pretty excited about our trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg next week. I think the kids are too - they've been talking about it for a while.

To prepare them, I have been filling them "chock full" with information about colonial times and how they lived so that they can appreciate what they see. They have each read at least 2 books about the time period and each read a magazine with articles about the colonial times. We have made a collage of foods that they ate during each season, made a "mocked up" house for them to see how they lived, and made "paper dolls" with colonial clothes. Tomorrow we will be making a "memory game" using cards matching up tools with the apprentice jobs that people held during colonial times.

And, we are watching the "American Girl" Felicity movie on the way down.

I think they will really enjoy the trip - we'll just hope the weather holds out for us - and stays in one season so we aren't packing shorts and winter coats.

What the kids don't know is that on Sunday after we get there on Saturday night, we will be going to Busch Gardens. We would have liked to save that for the end of our trip, but they are only open on weekends now. And, after we have been to Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg (probably 2 days), and Yorktown, we are moving to a different hotel - the Great Wolf Lodge. They have an indoor water park and different themed rooms. Our room will be like "camp" and the kids have bunk beds in a camp cabin in the room.

I'm hoping to provide updates here throughout the week. That will be based on our internet access on the trip, and how tired we are at the end of the day - these kids are exhausting!

The Cat that ate the Canary

This statement adequately describes how Emma looks when I go into her room and she is NOT napping.

This morning, I put her in her bed, laying her head on her pillow, putting one pacifier in her mouth and the other in her hand, and placing two blankets over her, placing one next to each cheek. This is a routine we go through every time we put her down in her bed.

She often talks before going to sleep. She often talks and doesn't go to sleep at all. I'm not ready for her to give up crib time, whether she be sleeping or resting, because I use that time for schoolwork for Samantha and Michael.

As with many days, I went back into Emma's room because she was talking about 30 minutes after I put her down. I open her door and the look on her face is definitely one of "The Cat that ate the canary." She tries to look all sweet and innocent. But, of course, she is sitting in an empty crib. The pillow, both blankets and both pacifiers are strewn on her floor. And sometimes, even the corner of the sheet is pulled off of the mattress.

But of course, she is innocent of any wrong doing.

So, I put everything back in its place and tell her to lay down. After a minute of silent defiance - testing to see if I will MAKE her lay down - she finally lays down on her pillow with a sweet little smile as if to say "I've done nothing wrong"

Our porch is done - well almost

Outside of a few "punch list" type items, our screened porch is basically done. It looks a little funny right now because the wood on our deck has a color to it, and the porch is still natural wood, but once we get the porch sealed with the colored sealant, it should match perfectly.












The additional space that this porch has over the deck is really nice. It makes an amazing difference and will give us some room to have some nice furniture and still walk around comfortably.

So now to shopping for porch furniture!

Completed some great lesson planning this weekend

I had a productive weekend doing some lesson planning for History and Science. I wanted to make sure that we covered what I wanted to cover BEFORE our trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg later this month. I also then wanted to lay out what we were going to cover by Christmas, and then roughed out what we will cover for the rest of the year.

By Christmas, we will have completed our review of the colonial period. We will have a nice project of information about how life was during colonial time to share with the grandparents over the holidays. I also planned to spend the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas reviewing Christmas traditions around the world (focusing on the countries of our background - England and Germany - and countries nearby - Canada and Mexico). I look forward to spending this Christmas much more relaxed that previous years and not RUSH through activities.

In History, by the end of the year it appears that we will cover American History though and including the American Revolution, including reading the biographies of many American personalities of the time (my list keeps growing so I hope I have planned enough time). We will also complete a 4-6 week unit on our own state, reviewing its geography and political organization and other aspects of our state.

I also mapped out the rest of our 10 week science unit and designed a "lapbook" project for the kids to complete throughout the remaining 6 weeks of the unit and then for 2 weeks following the unit. We should also have a nice lapbook to share with the grandparents over the Christmas holidays.

I had also been lax at organizing and printing out the kids' weekly assignment sheet. Its just so easy to just "do the next lesson" in the book. But, by planning it out I can easily see what needs to be done, I can give the kids a chance to be more accountable for being sure that we have covered everything, and I can more easily adjust things to speed them up or slow them down as necessary.

So, I'm pleased with the progress I made this weekend and I feel like we are "sailing along" right now.

Our porch is NOT "The Money Pit"

The contractors are making GREAT progress on our screened porch. I was told it would take 2 weeks to completer once they started. Instead, it is going to take about 4 days! I was told today that they expect to finish on Monday - except for some electrical wiring for a ceiling fan that won't happen until later in the week.


After ripping up the floor on Wednesday, they put in the entire new floor under the porch on Thursday and frame in the railings.

Today they put on the roof. They framed the roof, put on the plywood and framed it around the existing kitchen roof, removing the skylight.


We are looking forward to the porch being completed. It's so much larger than our deck was and we expect to enjoy it for many years. At least its cool now and we can enjoy it without the heat and humidity!! I'll share some final photos when its complete!

A quick update

Sorry that the updates haven't been coming recently. Its not that I haven't had anything to say - we've just been busy and in a good groove and I just haven't had a good chance to sit down.

School has been going great with the kids. We are in a good rhythm now and making great progress. We have been reading about Jamestown for about a week. We are studying American History and I've been lingering on Jamestown just a bit longer since in addition to that being American History, it is also Virginia's history. We are getting ready to move on to the Pilgrims and Plymouth colony, but we'll be back to Jamestown and Williamsburg when we are discussing colonial traditions.

The kids are both playing soccer this season. As a result, I spend 4 afternoons a week at the soccer field. Emma enjoys throwing her balls around, but she gets bored before the hour is over, so sometimes its a challenge. Both of them are doing great though and really learning a lot. Samantha is with the same coach from last season and its really great to see the benefits of having consistency across seasons.

I spent the weekend scrapbooking with some online friends at a scrapbooking retreat locally this weekend. It was a nice relaxing weekend and I even tried some new things with my scrapbooks.


Today, the contractors starting building on our Screened porch. We have wanted a Screened porch for a while but we have put it off. We decided that when the wind broke our "inexpensive" gazebo that we had on the deck this summer that it was about time.




So, this morning, we had a deck. Right now, we have a big hole in the air where the deck used to be. The contractor will replace the deck boards tomorrow - which was necesssary because we are expanding the area where the porch will be out past the edge of the kitchen and towards the family room.

They say that it will be done in two weeks - every time I hear that I think of "The Money Pit". Lets hope its not the same!

The words are coming quickly now!

Emma has many, many words now. Its just a matter of listening closely to what she is saying and the context within which she is saying the words, and you can tell exactly what she is saying.

She calls Michael and Samantha a lot.

Michael sounds like "Mu-kail"

But I think the cutest is Samantha - she calls her "Sissy". When she calls Samantha, she yells "Sissy" and Samantha will come running.

Nap struggles - and a sign of things to come

Unlike Samantha and Michael, Emma is NOT a good napper. I can put her in the bed when she is CLEARLY tired, but she will lay there for a long time, singing, laughing, playing, and NOT sleeping. That's fine if she doesn't want to sleep all the time, because sometimes resting in her bed is all that I need to get some schoolwork done.

But she is clearly going to be a handful.

I have been into her room TWICE this afternoon since putting her down. Each time I open the door, she DIVES onto the bed from her standing up position. She is trying to make me think she has been laying there sweetly the entire time when I KNOW that just seconds ago, she was standing up playing in her bed.

18 months and she is already trying to be elusive. How will she be at 18 years?

We don't need no stinkin' sign language!

I posted last week about Emma showing us the sign for "All Done" so clearly.

But clearly today she was doing her own version!
She was playing in her yard peacefully (for the first time all week, I might add) and she picked up a blanket, tucked it under her chin in a snuggle and put both of her hands in the air.

Do you think she was asking to go take her nap? Well, she was and that's where she is now!

First Day of School!

We had our first day of school today!

So after the kids went to bed last night, I loaded the kitchen table with all of our books so they came down to big piles of books on the table.

Daddy made Cinnamon Buns for breakfast before he headed off to work.

I presented the kids with the school supplies in a schultuete - this is a German tradition (very big over there) where you can buy them and fill them with supplies or make your own. They had been bugging me for a week to "put their school supplies in their school boxes" so it was tough to hold them off to give them their gift.

So we went over each subject and what we were going to cover. They wanted to jump right in (Michael found a page 10 weeks into his math book and says "this page is cool can I color it right now").

We did our daily devotion (we are talking about Kindness because I couldn't find a kids daily devotion on Obedience, but trust me when I do find one, we'll move right to that!) and we did our Bible Story and then we did our History lesson for the day. They each did their History reading and I asked questions about their reading. They each practiced their piano.

Samantha went off bowling with friends in the afternoon and Michael napped. Emma did NOT nap and didn't all morning so it was quite disruptive to have her screeching all AM!!

Tomorrow we add in Handwriting and Math - the kids are chomping at the bit right now so I'm definitely going to capitalize on that. Next week we'll add in the rest of the subjects!

But all in all a good day!!

Getting Ready for School!

We're getting ready to start school. But its different this year because we are homeschooling. We are starting our day tomorrow.

The kids are going to bed a little early because they have been getting up later and later and I want to get back into a good morning routine.

I'm giving each of the kids a little gift in the morning - a schultuete. This is a German tradition that I heard about this week and I think its neat. It is a cone, made out of poster board and decorated (ours are wrapped with wrapping paper). In this cone are their school supplies. So, its a fun little way to present them with their school supplies for this year. I'll be sure to share photos tomorrow!

We won't be "learning much" tomorrow - well not any more than a regular day. I'll spend most of the time introducing them to the topics that we are going to be doing. We'll look at all of our books and how the pages are structured. I'll show them how their assignments will be presented this year and what things I'll leave for them to do as "early work" if they want to in the morning when they get up or after breakfast before I'm ready to start. We might start reading a little History after that or doing a Math worksheet (they have both already asked if I'm going to leave them one out to do in the morning). I'll add a new subject each day until we are doing every subject. I wanted to ease into the routine a little bit until we figure out what works for us. And the rest of the kids in the neighborhood are still home so its that much harder. But we're ready to go.

All Done!

When Emma was about 6 months old, I started looking into Sign Language for Babies. I had always wanted to do that with my other kids and just never got around to it. I looked up signs for many of the most common "baby" activities and I would start doing them around her (eat, food, more, sleep, all done, etc)

Nothing seemed to stick. They did say that it would take months and I kept trying and trying, but nothing. So, eventually I stopped doing most of the signs - just fell out of the habit. Except for the sign for "All Done" - because it is so easy and logical. We tend to do it at the end of each meal when we are asking Emma if she is "All Done". This is the sign for "All Done"

Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed Emma making a sign that perhaps was "All Done". I finally noticed earlier this week when Samantha was feeding Emma applesauce that she would take a couple of bits and then CLEARLY tell us she was "All Done" by doing the sign that she is doing above!!

So, she is finally learning to talk - if only with her hands!

Family Traditions (or Cereal at night, you choose)

I have talked several times about "family traditions" that have been continued into my adulthood.

One thing my mother likes to do (Hi Mom!) is to have a bowl of cereal as a snack after dinner and before bed. My sister does it from time to time to, as does my sister-in-law.

I like to have an after dinner snack - just feels like it finishes my day after I've gotten the kids down and done everything else that I couldn't get done during the day when they were awake.

Well, I finally hit the grocery store today (after needing to go for quite a few days) and had restocked the cereal. So, when I stared into the pantry tonight with the typical "What do I feel like tonight" look on my face, my eyes fell upon the new cereal boxes on the shelf and the decision was made - Frosted Mini Wheats!!

I think I inherited the gene from my mother!

First Golf Outing!

Michael got his first set of "Real" golf clubs for his birthday (thanks Granny and Granddaddy!). We haven't had a chance to take him out with them, between school and trips and other things going on. Well, yesterday the schedule and the weather cooperated and Mike finally got a chance to take Michael to the driving range to "break in" his new clubs.

When they returned, I asked Mike how it was. He said, "Well, I *#&$". And, Michael needs to learn the difference between a golf club and a baseball bat, because he swings them both the same way!!

But, still, not bad for a 6 year old!

A sign she is growing up

You see and hear signs that your children are growing every day. Obviously at Emma's age, the changes are more often and more dramatic. While we were on vacation, she started using "two syllable" words - or more appropriately, "two SOUND" words.

I am no longer Mama - I am Mom-MEEEEEE. DaDa is now Da-DEEEE. Emily's dog is "Bel-wa". Today Emma said "wa-er" for water while driving by the lake at the front of the neighborhood.

Another sign that Emma is growing up is her ability to follow directions. She picked up my shoes and I asked her to bring them and put them in a basket. She did just that. She can (when she chooses) put something down when I ask, or stand up when I ask. She will take her paci out and put it in the bed when I ask her. It is, of course, all when she "chooses" to do so

Countdown to starting school!

Now that we have completed our vacation, I am on the countdown to the official start of our first year of homeschooling!

Home - and tired!

Well, after a long day yesterday we finally arrived home. I spent the morning packing up all of our clothes and toys and things in Emily's house. I also had to put the carseat back together because I had to wash it the night before. After we got all packed up, we all piled in the car for the 45 minute ride to the airport.

Emma spent most of the car ride "screeching" - she really has a set of lungs on her and her screams are piercing. I should have known this was a sign of things to come.

We ate a quick fast-food lunch at the airport and proceeded to our gate. Unfortunately, when we got there, I saw the flight was delayed about 30 minutes - due to air traffic. I should have known - we could have eaten a more relaxed lunch. So, we hung around the gate area in case they made changes and finally got a chance to board. Emma was clearly tired and, unfortunately, she fell asleep pretty quickly. I say unfortunately because we were then delayed on the ground another 25 minutes - again due to air traffic. The pilot actually pulled over and turned off the plane while we waited.

So, we finally got into the air and Emma was peacefully sleeping. I got the kids set up watching a video on my laptop and looked forward to a few relaxing minutes. That's all I got. Emma woke up. And, she spent the rest of the flight screeching. I mean screeching. I think maybe the pilot didn't hear her, but I can't guarantee it. It wasn't really fussing - sometimes she was playing and laughing at me as I tried to quiet her down. She would be quiet for a couple of minutes and then start screeching again - turning it on and off like a switch. Finally, I brought up a picture of Mike on my phone and she smiled and looked at that. But didn't like it when the screen dimmed, so she would touch a button to get the lights back on - but I would have to bring the picture back up (and of course, she would yell at me to do that). That entertained her for about 20 minutes, but then she wanted the phone. Not really a problem but she didn't want to play with it while it was off, and she kept "on and off" connecting to things while it was on.

I'm sure the people around us were wondering what they signed up for when they got tickets on this flight - thankfully the plane is actually kind of loud so hopefully it drowned some of the noise out. I finally just had to ignore it because I couldn't do anything to stop it!

But, we finally landed 45 minutes late and took a quick walk over to baggage claim where we found Daddy collecting our luggage! Emma was quite happy to see him and never once demonstrated the screeching that had characterized our previous 3 hours!

Galveston - Moody Gardens

On our last full day in Houston, we drove down to Galveston. Emily found this neat "resort/conference center" called Moody Gardens. They have 3 "pyramids" that are different themed displays. We decided to see the Rainforest Pyramid. It was a really neat display of plants and animals found in the rainforest. We saw lots of different types of Macaws, which (I think) are my favorite birds because they are so colorful and have interesting personalities. There were also some beautiful flowers and plants throughout the display and I took this opportunity to experiment with some photo taking techniques - and some of the photos turned out quite beautifully.




We had lunch at a nice restaurant in the visitors center - and then we went to see a SpongeBob Squarepants movie in 4D. The technology has advanced so much in the development of 3D movies, and the addition of spraying water, puffing air, seat movement and other techniques really make you feel like you are in the movie.

After leaving Moody Gardens, we drove around Galveston Island to see some of the older buildings and the nice beaches. We then headed home - and again, Emma was asleep before we left the parking lot.

And, oh, by the way, the kids went hunting for frogs after dark tonight - and found 12 of them!! All Emily and I can say is "Ick!"

Houston Zoo

On what we hoped was the coolest day of the week, we ventured out to the Houston Zoo. I'm still trying to figure out why anyone lives in this hot state, and the trip to the zoo didn't convince me to move here!! It was cool, for about 45 minutes after an absolute downpour during lunch, but other than that, it was hot, sticky, sweaty, and humid. I was literally melting!!







The Houston Zoo is nice. It is a lot bigger than the National Zoo. We actually needed to plot our course on the map at the beginning to make sure we saw everything. They have a really neat kids area where you can see some animals more "up close and personal", such as the "pop up" tubes in the middle of the Prairie Dog hill. They also had an petting zoo, where you could visit with goats - although they ran under cover quickly when it started to sprinkle.






I think my favorite part of the park was the Primate display. They have lots of different monkeys, gorillas, chimps, etc. Watch this video of the gorillas howling - literally - at each other. It is pretty funny and could be heard throughout the primate display (it's a little long but worth it)



The Orangutans were sweet. There was a mother with her baby. For starters, the "man" in the cage was lounging against the window of the pen while Mama chased the baby around. The mother demonstrated many of the same behaviors you see in people - the baby tried to run away and she grabbed her ankle so she couldn't go far, she played rough and tumble with her baby - all for us to see - and then sighed and moved off when the baby ran off and she had to chase him. It was cute.






It was a very nice zoo - probably even better when its not 100 degrees outside!

We enjoyed every opportunity to view the INSIDE displays - even though the kids favorite one was the Reptile House. And I think the heat was too much for Emma - I'm not sure we were out of the parking lot before she was asleep in her car seat!!

And, I'll leave you with a calming video of the sea turtle swimming in his tank in the Aquarium.