TWENTY-EIGHT Pt. 2

 

Colonial Williamsburg! I have wanted to visit this historical site since I read the American Girl Felicity books in kindergarten. 27 years later here I am. 

2022 week twenty-eight pt. 2

First we took a tour of the Governors Palace. 

Here's the ballroom that Felicity attended a ball in the Christmas book. Haha. :) 

The happy beginning to a hot, happy day. 

Theo was the first to make it through the garden maze. 

You can see me with my hands raised on the left trying to find my way out. 

Learning about the weapons used in the Spanish and Indian War. 

Lunch in Chowning's Tavern. 

The kids have been reading Johnny Tremain with Matt and we all really enjoyed a trip to the printer's shop. 

You can tell by my face, I was having the time of my life. 

Blacksmith's shop. 

We got acquainted with some of the most glorious trees in Virginia.  

Watching the fife and drums display. 

We finished our evening in Williamsburg with a Ghost Tour for kids. 

The next morning we drove north to George Washington's home: Mount Vernon. 

The tour guide telling us the different moods you can convey with your tricorn hats. Brim down is serious. 

Brim up is cheerful. 

Casual fireplace carving. 

Casual key to the Bastille delivered to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette. 

The room where George Washington died was kept in tact and undisturbed since that day. (Obviously kept up.)

George Washington's office. 

Exploring the kitchen. 

We were so lucky to get a random 75 degree and misty day for touring the two great houses that day. The gardens were so beautiful. 

At the ice house by the Potomac. 

Everyone got little audio tour necklaces that they could scan in each area for a detailed description. 

Vera's favorite part of every site was the animals. 

Visiting Washington's Gristmill. 

We spent the last few hours of our day a couple hours south in Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello. 

Tour of the kitchens. We were most impressed by the three historical site's frankness of the troublesome aspects of the history of these places. They presented the greatness of our early past with as much fairness as the tragedy of slavery and the little we know of the lives of the enslaved persons upon whose backs most of our history was built. We were grateful for the efforts to acknowledge difficult truths. 

Jefferson family (sans children by Hemings) Graveyard 

Monticello was basically the Shire. 

After the long day we were so privileged to stay at the most beautiful Airbnb in Charlottesville, VA.

Dinner on the floor. 

After we ate dinner I went back down to the car to bring up the last few items and saw fireflies. Everyone rushed outside to chase them around for the last hour before bed. 

Theo could not have been happier. 

Beautiful 1930's farmhouse where we stayed. 

Theo woke up as early as he could and dragged Matt outside to walk around the working farm in the predawn light. 

Then we were on our way home. We made a pitstop in Knoxville to stretch our legs and eat some popcorn. 

The kids were troopers on the long car ride: playing cards, playing super smashbros, watching spongebob, and listening to Coraline and The Hobbit. There were not as many naps as there could have been but all the same they were pleasant roadtrip companions. 

Our last stop was in Nashville. I had dreams of a barbecue tour of the south, but they were unrealized. We got barbecue once, on our last day, in a city not really known for barbecue. But it was delicious nonetheless.

Strangely, there is a to-scale replica of the Parthenon in downtown Nashville. 

Even stranger was that we happened upon a HUGE Eid festival there that evening. 

We saw some of the most beautiful scenery on our long drives -until we were West of the Mississippi. The scenery at that point was less than stunning... 

When we came home we quickly unpacked and went to the library for the animal show until bedtime. 

The kids have been playing colonial kids ever since.