Hot in Jamestown

This morning was more relaxed than yesterday. The boys and I didn't start walking down to the breakfast at our hotel until 8:00am. I wish I could say they slept in this morning, but I can't. It didn't help that an alarm clock went off in our room at 6:00am. We explored part of the museum before we met our tour guide. Our tour wasn't private today, but they split our group into two groups. We were with the larger group which included only one other family in addition to ours. That family had a mom plus six children. Paul's parents joined us for the two hour tour, and the site had a scooter Grandma was able to use at no charge. The tour was entirely outside - at a recreation of a Powhatan village, recreation of the three ships that were used in 1607, and a recreation of Fort James. Because I purchased homeschool tickets, we got in for a very reduced rate PLUS had these free tours. There were hands-on activities along the way such as moving the rudder on the Susan Constant, scraping hair off a hide with a shell, scraping the inside of a canoe with a shell, etc. The only downside of the tour was some

things were skipped. For example, we only boarded the Susan Constant whereas we also could have walked around the Godspeed. In the James Fort our guide let us pick two of the buildings to go inside. There were several others we didn't visit. I think if it hadn't been SO hot out (about 100 degrees plus humid) we'd have wandered around more after the tour was done. We did explore a little more of the fort and then went back to watch the movie and explore more of the exhibits in the museum. Paul's parents had lunch at the café while we were exploring as well as while we were eating our light lunch in the van. The hotel offered a nice (free) hot breakfast so we had a light lunch - granola bars, fruit, crackers, etc.

After lunch Paul's parents went back to the hotel. We drove another 1-2 miles to Historic Jamestowne, which is the actual site of where the fort was built in 1607. This was the first national park that we have visited that required us to buy the Junior Ranger booklets. They were only $1 each.

Thankfully they weren't as challenging as the ones at Yorktown yesterday, plus we had more time to complete them. The kids answered the questions on several pages of the workbook and the other two requirements were to watch the movie (we saw it at 3pm) and go on a guided tour. We were thinking of doing the 3:30 tour on archaeology, but the booklets had to be turned in by 4:30 so we chose to go on a 2:00 tour about the first Africans brought to Virginia. We had worked up an appetite, so we stopped at Denny's which is almost across from our hotel. I am looking forward to when we are in our resort in South Carolina in a few days because we'll have a kitchen and won't have to eat dinner out every night because eating at a sit down restaurant (even as informal as Denny's) isn't cheap when you are buying for five people. My diet means my dinner is very cheap as I've just been getting a bowl of soup when we've been eating out lately. Prior to leaving on vacation I had lost 25 pounds total. We shall see if I lose any more on vacation.  When we got

back the kids immediately wanted to go jump in the pool. Since I took the kids to the pool last night, Paul took them tonight. I am exhausted and planning to go to bed very early tonight.

My first trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown was on a fourth grade field trip. It was my very first overnight field trip when I was a student. I remember not being very impressed with Jamestowne at that point, but I loved Colonial Williamsburg. I would say if we weren't collecting Junior Ranger badges, we might have skipped the Historic Jamestowne today. The Jamestown Settlement didn't exist when I was a child, but it's definitely the more kid friendly place to take kids to learn about Jamestown. When the kids and I vacationed down here with my parents in 2015, we only went to Williamsburg because of how young they were. It would be wonderful if it could be at least a little bit cooler tomorrow as we'll be exploring Colonial Williamsburg for about 8 hours.

Yorktown

Our family vacation began this morning! Oliver asks me almost every night, will you be with us tomorrow? My heart breaks a little when he asks me that. I have been telling him for the past almost 3 weeks, I'm staying home every day. I haven't heard Bo Peep from BU. I have no idea if they are going to offer me a job for the fall or not. Part of me wants to tell Oliver, I'll be staying home all year round with you. For now, I know I'll at least be home for three more months. As we were packing our suitcases yesterday, Oliver asked me if Daddy was going with us on the vacation. That question also pained my heart since we take some without him (such as we'll be heading to Long Island the first week of July without him), but I was glad I was able to say YES. Paul didn't come home until 5:00am. In other words he got zero sleep last night. I knew he wanted a load of laundry done before he finished packing. I offered to throw it in Monday night, but he said he'd do it when he got home. Well let's just say the clothes were still very wet when we left a little after 6:30. He underestimated how long it takes to do a load of laundry. I woke up around 4:30 and realized he wasn't home yet. I always become concerned for his safety when he pulls an all-nighter, but ever since I got the call from the police about Maurice, it's been much harder for me emotionally. I brace myself thinking I'm going to get another awful call from the police because he was in an accident while driving after being awake for more than 24 hours straight. I never fell back asleep even when I heard him come home. The boys have been getting up too early these days, but I figured "Murphy's law" would come into play this morning. I was right. When I *want* them to wake up earlier than 7:00, it never happens. So I had to wake them up. Waking kids up is one of my least favorite things to do, but I was bound and determined to be in that van by 6:30am. The kids and I were in the van a little early. Paul didn't miss the mark by too much. We returned a few items to the library's drop box on our way, and Oliver asked for two bathroom breaks. The second one was a LONG one. Those stops added 30 minutes to our trip, and traffic around DC added another 10 minutes.

Last September I had planned to visit the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown when we came down here. That trip didn't take place due to a hurricane. So we went to a similar museum in Philadelphia in November with my brother. As I had been planning this vacation, I had only planned on visiting the Yorktown Battlefield, but a few days ago when I realized they were doing the same homeschool programs at Jamestown and the museum, I changed our plans for this week. For months the plan had been to visit Jamestown today, Williamsburg tomorrow, and Yorktown on Thursday. Due to when the homeschool programming was offered, I switched the plans to Yorktown today, Jamestown tomorrow, and Williamsburg on Thursday. Today was really rushed. Tomorrow should be a LOT more relaxed because we won't drive farther than 15 minutes away, and we will have plenty of time to explore both the Jamestown Settlement and the Jamestowne National Park. I had hoped to arrive at Yorktown at 12:30. We actually arrived at 1:15. Both the museum and park close at 5:00. Our tour of the museum was from 2-4pm. So we went to the battlefield first to watch the movie and pick up three Junior Ranger worksheets. Then we went to the museum and ended up having a private tour. This museum is owned by the same company that built the one in Philadelphia. Thankfully they are very different. This one includes outdoor things such as a farm and military encampment. The movie in this museum was a million times better than the one at the national park. Our tour guide was excellent. The junior ranger booklet at Valley Forge had been rather easy to complete. This one was unfortunately much more difficult. I say unfortunately because we were pressed for time with trying to complete everything by 5pm. We didn't quite finish. Thankfully the park ranger was generous and gave the kids their badges and certificates as long as we promised to finish them later. Let me say that 3 hours and 45 minutes is definitely  not enough time to do the museum and the national park!! We could have spent that long just at the battlefield. I'm not sorry we went to the museum though. I think it's more kid friendly. Hopefully at some point (before our kids graduate from HS), we can return here and spend more time exploring the battlefield.

As we left the park we headed toward our hotel. When we were close to the hotel I saw a pizzeria, and the seven of us had dinner there. Paul's parents were in the Visitor Center of the national park while we had been in the museum. They drove separately. After dinner we checked into our hotel. We have two rooms that each have two queen beds. Nadia is staying with her grandparents. The boys are sharing a bed in the same room as Paul and I. I took the kids swimming in the outdoor pool before bed. We are planning to earn three more Junior Ranger badges during this trip - one tomorrow and two in North Carolina. Hopefully the rest will not be so harried as the one we worked on today! I'm thankful we arrived here safe and sound. I'm also thankful that we aren't driving much the next two days. During our drive we listened to the radio some, the kids watch 3 different VeggieTales dvds, Ian played Maurice's Nintendo Switch some after he read from his chapter books, and we listened to one hour of The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox as well as part of The Troublemaker (the kids have been on an Andrew Clements kick lately).

Ready or not!

Over the past four days we stayed home most of the time. The only time we left our small town was when we went to church on Sunday and gym/art classes for the kids on Friday. I had toyed with going to Reptiland today, but since Oliver was having fun playing with the neighbors and I was busy packing, I decided we could go to Reptiland later this summer. Today's main focus was preparing for the vacation as we are hoping to be out the door by 6:30 tomorrow morning. My to do list today included cleaning the guinea pig cage, mowing and weed whacking, vacuuming, sweeping the porch and garage, packing, making our lunches to eat in the van tomorrow, filling the gas tank in the minivan, going to the bank, giving the neighbor our garage door opener so they can feed the guinea pigs while we're gone, etc. Paul was wanting a haircut, but he got home from work at 6pm and left again at 8pm. While he was home he packed his clothes for the trip and ate dinner. His commute is one hour (each way) so he'll have spent four hours driving to and from work today. We shall see if he gets any sleep tonight. I'm not waiting up for him that's for sure!

Last year we flew to San Diego for our vacation. Packing is definitely different when you are driving. I put boxes of oatmeal and cereal in the van as well as bottled water (got 32 bottles for $1.99 at the grocery store on Friday). I am hoping to get a family photo at the beach so I purposefully tried to find outfits that would look nice together for that photo. We're going with light blue, navy blue, and light pink as our colors for the photo. Nadia's dress has all of those colors. I brought a kite to fly at the beach, and a variety of games to play at the hotels and/or resort. I tried to pack carefully, but we can always run to the store if I forgot something we really need. I know we'll be going to the grocery store in North Myrtle Beach as I certainly didn't bring all the food we'll need. We have three travel days where we'll be driving at least six hours per day - the first day of the trip and the last two days of the trip. Here's to hoping those long travel days go as smoothly as possible. Ready or not, here we go!

My middle schooler!

Miss Angie, who has been Nadia's Sunday School teacher the past two years, organized a special time for the girls this morning since today was the fifth graders last morning in Kidzway. Nadia enjoyed drinking a fruit smoothie and eating a cookie. Since she enjoys helping in the two-year-old and also three-year-old classrooms, I'm sure it wasn't her last morning in Kidzway, but it was her last time there as a student. From nine months through fifth grade the kids have to wear name tags as a security measure. She's grateful that starting in June she doesn't need to wear a name tag! I bought her a ticket for Creation, which means she'll be sleeping in a tent for three nights at the music festival in late June. She's attending that event with the youth group at our church. Thankfully I didn't have any trouble moving her 11 year old physical up to an earlier time slot after I found out the youth will be leaving at noon on the 26th. Today was the last time my choir will sing until the fall. I'll be helping in Kidzway this summer on the Sundays we aren't elsewhere. Paul and the

kids went to the second service while I was in an adult Sunday School class. Paul tells me that Oliver needs to work on his behavior in a worship service. Most weeks the kids will be with us in the first service and go to Sunday School during the second service, but Nadia wanted to attend the first service class for the last time today.

Paul is exhausted. From April 22 through May 25 he was at the plant 31 out of 34 days. The only three days he had off during that time span were April 30, May 2, and May 7. Each of those three days he was home with the kids while I was at work. In hindsight, he could have gone to work on May 7 and the kids could have been at their grandparents. I thought someone needed to be at home because the contractor started working on our deck on May 7, but I was wrong. From May 8-25 he worked 18 days straight at the plant. Today was the first day since April 21 that he stayed home even though I was also home. He's working tomorrow and then taking a much needed 13 day vacation.

I have been working on our vacation plans the past couple of days. A few months ago I bought the Lion King tickets and booked our lodging. I had a basic plan sketched out, but once I started working out the details I made changes. I eliminated four science or children's museums from the schedule. We won't be using our ASTC membership as much as usual on this trip. At the moment I only have us using it once on the trip - at Nauticus and Battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk. I have included earning four Junior Ranger badges in our itinerary - Jamestown, Yorktown, Wright Brother's Memorial, and Fort Raleigh (Lost Colony). I'm sure we'll come home with many more magnets. We started collecting magnets last August and already have a growing collection on our refrigerator! I think the two that are the most special to me are the two we got with my brother in November. Speaking of him, they had a presentation this morning not just for those who died serving in the military but family members in church who died in the past year in general. They asked us to stand when our family member's name was on the screen. In the first service I stood for Maurice Harton V and the kids and Paul did the same in the second service. I teared up both during that time as well as when we sang "It is Well" this morning. I love that hymn, but the last few years I have a hard time not crying when I sing it.

The two recent changes to the plan that I am most excited about are the addition of a visit to Roanoke Island and homeschool activities in Jamestown and Yorktown. We had planned to do homeschool activities at those places plus Williamsburg in September but didn't go due to a hurricane. Colonial Williamsburg and the National Park part of Jamestown don't have any homeschool events right now (only in September and February), but I have signed us up for homeschool tours in Yorktown and the Jamestown Settlement. In addition to the national park on Roanoke Island, we also have tickets to see a play about the Lost Colony. There are five days that don't have any plans aside from seeing Aladdin at the movie theater one afternoon. Those five days will be very relaxed - time at the beach, swimming in pools, etc. I want to go miniature golfing at least once.

Four more days!

Today through Monday the kids and I aren't traveling farther than 20 minutes from our house. On Tuesday morning we plan to drive to Jamestown, Virginia and begin our vacation! I have been mowing the lawn each Friday lately. The grass is tall enough to mow today, but I'm going to wait until Monday to mow because it won't be mowed again until June 10th. Here's to hoping it won't be ridiculously tall when we return. Similarly, I'm going to wait until Monday to clean out the guinea pig cage. I'd like to start packing on Sunday because that gives me time on Monday to remember things I might  have forgotten to pack. I bought some food and drinks at the grocery store today that I'm planning to take on our trip.

The homeschool gym class ends next Friday, but today was the last class for my kiddos for this school year. Today was also Nadia's last art class. Last night I placed an order through Walmart for some food plus a few other random items we had run out of like band-aids and AA batteries. This morning I dropped the kids off at gym

class, went to Walmart and someone brought what I had ordered out to my vehicle. Very nice! Then I went to the library before going back to the gym class. Since they were doing flag football today and it was a gorgeous day, I thought they'd be outside. I brought my camera, but for some reason they were doing it inside. Nadia helped her team score more than one touchdown! While Nadia was in gym class the boys and I went to the grocery store in our town because they were having an amazing one day sale. Oi vey was the store crowded! It was an accomplishment to get a parking space and a shopping cart!

Aside from church on Sunday (and youth group for Nadia Sunday night), the only other places we *might* go during the next three days are Reptiland and to see the new Aladdin movie. I'm leaning toward just staying home and going to Reptiland later this summer (it's only 10 minutes from our house). We shall see. I need to put some time into ironing out some more details for our upcoming vacation! Nadia wanted to go with the middle schoolers at our church to HersheyPark this summer, but the date they are going didn't work for us this year. She was very happy though that I bought her a ticket to the Creation music festival. She'll be going with our church's youth group (grades 6-12). I've never been. I won free tickets in 2008 through our local Christian radio station and planned to go with my friend, Cheri, but Nadia came early and I gave my tickets to Uncle Al instead. I hope she has a great time!

Thankful Thursday

1. Last Thursday the kids and I had a delightful day long field trip. It was a beautiful day in terms of the weather. We saw a production about Aesop's Fables, earned Junior Range badges at Steamtown, played at Bee's Backyard, and jumped on the trampolines at Sky Zone. We packed a lunch and used a gift card for dinner. Our only expenditure for this outing was the money spent on gasoline to drive there and back plus the quarters I put in the meter for our time watching Aesop's Fables.

2. I enjoyed walking with Cheri for about an hour last Friday while the kids were in a dress rehearsal. She also met up with us at Lake Tobias on Tuesday! The past  almost 11 years typically months pass in between the times we see each other in person. This was a treat!

3. The kids did well on Sunday night in their musical. I was thankful that Paul's parents came as well as Tab and her husband.

4. The kids loved swimming at the pool party on Saturday! They would have liked to have

stayed more than five hours, ha ha!

5. I enjoyed teaching the 3rd-5th grade girl's class on Sunday morning.

6. The kids and I enjoyed seeing Mulan, Jr at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre on Tuesday in Lancaster and seeing animals at Lake Tobias that afternoon. It was another gorgeous day!

7. Yesterday the kids and I learned a lot at the homeschool day at Valley Forge. The kids also earned another Junior Ranger Badge.

8. I really like the canvases that I put up this week on each of their bedroom walls to display their growing collections of Junior Ranger badges!

9. It was a treat to spend the night at Carol's house last night. We had dinner with Carol and her husband last night and breakfast with Carol this morning. She and I became friends in Annapolis in 1994.

10. The kids and I were able to visit the Crayola Experience in

Easton this morning. The kids had been there in 2014. None of them remembered their previous visit. Ian said it was one of the best field trips this year. After we were done there, we had a free one hour guided tour of the Martin Guitar factory. I learned a lot! Our next to last stop was the Da Vinci Science Center, and our last stop was dinner at Red Robin. Gettysburg, the science museum, and the guitar factory tour didn't cost us a penny aside from the gas to get out there and back. I got the tickets for Crayola for 50% off because I bought them on Black Friday. We were gone from the house for five meals but thanks to eating two meals at Carol's house, packing two lunches, and a gift card covering almost our whole dinner, it was a very economical trip.

A princess and a safari

Today I made my third visit to the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater in Lancaster. My first time was when I was traveling with my HS band (from MD). We played at an amusement park and saw Fiddler on the Roof at Dutch Apple. My second time was with Paul. I can't recall if it was when we were dating or after we were married, but I remember going with him to see Annie Get Your Gun at Dutch Apple Dinner Theater. Today I took the kids for a luncheon performance of Mulan, Jr. Lunch started at 10:30. The buffet was very kid friendly. It included ziti, pizza, hotdogs, tacos, chicken, fries, applesauce, yogurt, salad, jello, cookies, and cupcakes. The show started at 11:30. I knew that Disney Jr. productions are usually 60 minutes long so I had planned to take the kids on the 1pm tour of Wheatland since it was only a 9 minute drive from Dutch Apple. But after 45 minutes of the show they took a 15 minute intermission before the last 15 minutes of the show. Then they had a Q and A time. So we didn't leave until 1pm. Wheatland was the home of President Buchanan who happens to be the only President (thus far) from the state of Pennsylvania. This year we read about the first fifteen Presidents (Washington through Buchanan). We are planning to read about Lincoln through Trump during the next school year. I'm thinking when we see Esther at Sight and Sound next spring we can tour Wheatland on that same day.

Since we didn't visit Wheatland, we went straight to Lake Tobias which is about half way in between our house and Lancaster. The highlight of that is the one hour long safari ride. My friend, Cheri, met us there which was a treat! The weather was gorgeous. A good time was had by all!

If you give a ....

I haven't read the books lately. I should make it a point to read them to Oliver this summer, but years ago I read the book If you give a mouse a cookie and others by the same author many times to Ian and Nadia. Although the cycle may not typically bring us back right where we started as it does in those circular books, it does seem in life that many times one change leads to many other changes. I was thinking about that in reference to our deck. Installing a new deck meant that first of all we needed to remove the previous deck. While working on that project Paul had two accidents. First, he cut the line to the air conditioner outside. Secondly he got his Dad's pick-up truck stuck in our yard. A neighbor who had a vehicle with four wheel drive had to pull the pick-up out of our yard while the kids and I were at church. This past weekend Paul repaired the line to the air conditioner. Thankfully we hadn't needed to use it while it was out of commission for the last two weeks. The long, deep trenches in our yard have made mowing the lawn more difficult for me the past two weeks as it was hard to get the lawn mower over the trenches. On Sunday on our way home from church I bought some topsoil. Yesterday and today I spread 320 pounds of top soil. 280 of those went into the trenches. I haven't filled all of them yet, but it should be much easier to mow the lawn later this week than it was the past two weeks. I used the other 40 pounds to fill in where we had removed a square stone that had been at the bottom of the steps of the old deck. Because our new deck is a few feet shorter than the old one, it meant I needed to spread grass seed and fertilizer and such in the hopes that grass will start growing in what is now bare dirt. Also, there had been a large forsythia bush at corner of one of the ends of the old deck. With a shorter deck that bush looked like it was sitting in the middle of nowhere. I hacked it down and started the process of digging out the roots. Paul finished digging out the roots on Saturday night.

Since I knew that Paul would need to borrow his Dad's truck again to haul away the last few pieces of lumber from the old deck plus the forsythia bush, I decided to clean out the shed and also trim one branch off of a tree in the front yard that was in my way when I was mowing the lawn. Some things that the previous owner had left in the shed (ex. stain for the deck and  privacy lattice for the deck) are now loaded in Paul's dad's truck for Paul to dispose of along with the wood and bush. Since our grill was flipped over when a tornado was in our area earlier this spring, Paul felt we should also dispose of the grill. We also loaded that into his dad's truck. I was hoping to add the red truck to the load, but there wasn't room. It hasn't worked for more than two years. I'd like to say that the projects that are happening because we got a new deck are complete, but that's probably not the case. I am trying to decide what to do about the areas on the right and left side of the deck. I'm considering buying some stone to put down. Partially it will depend on what we decide to do with the shed. I'd like to get rid of it. The estimate to replace the shingles on the shed was $700. Nope. Not happening. It hit me today I should have asked him for an estimate on repairing the one window that has been broken for a year as he does windows. If we got rid of the shed, I'd  move the trampoline to where the shed is now and then I wouldn't put any stone down as I'd just have that be grass. If we are keeping our dilapidated shed, then I think I'll get stone as I don't want to try to mow in between the deck and trampoline.

Some of the projects I worked on today had nothing to do with the fact we recently got a new deck. I finished weed whacking (the battery had died on Saturday before I was finished), power washed the fence, cleaned the outside of the mailbox, made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, stained some windowsills, cooked dinner, etc. Two years ago I cleared a patch of grass by the swing set so that I could plant blueberry bushes and strawberry plants. A neighbor also gave me some tomato plants. Some animal ate all our blueberries the past two years. The strawberry plants didn't come back in 2018 so we never ate any blueberries or strawberries from our yard. The tomato plants did come back last year. The guinea pigs and I were the only ones eating the tomatoes as Paul and the kids don't like tomatoes. So today I dug up a bank of dirt I had created when I made that garden bed in 2017 so I could put dirt on top of the mulch. I'm hoping grass will grow there again. As I was digging I accidently started to dig up a burrow for some small animals. I am not sure if they were baby moles, voles, rabbits, or ??? I didn't injure them and tried not to destroy their home. I had the kids come out and see what animals I had uncovered. I was wanting to take a picture and text it to Maurice to ask him what they were, but of course I couldn't actually do that. So sad.

I also put up the Junior Range badge displays in each of the kids' bedrooms today. I saw that the National Park website sold a canvas for this purpose, but I bought one on Amazon that was half the price but was just a plain canvas (same size but no logo on it). I glued the large Junior Ranger patch in the middle that they were given at Steamtown, and now the canvas looks even more similar to the one the National Park sells! I dug out the badges the kids have earned and put them on each canvas. There is a LOT of empty space on each one for additional badges! I added a few other pins to each one that were not from national parks such as the pin they got at Disneyland for doing Jedi Training, a pin from the 2017 Little League World Series, a tag from Fort George in Canada, etc. I got out a hammer and nails and hung them from the walls. There was a space for a dowel rod, but I just nailed them up to keep the cost down. I look forward to seeing those canvases fill up with badges from a wide variety of National Parks over the coming years! They should be earning another one this Wednesday at Valley Forge.