Williamsburg - Day 3

Well, were we up to a third day of walking all day long in the heat?? You better believe it! And we were blessed with a little cooler day as TS Fay (she loves us and just can't seem to stay away from us for long!) worked her way in.

Now, I have to pause to say that so far, the worst thing that happened to us happened to me when we first checked into Mrs. Johnson's House on Saturday night. We were bringing our things up to our room and ready to make another trip to the van. I rounded the corner to go down the stairs and my foot slipped and down I went on my bottom and slid down about 8 stairs. Well, I rattled my brain good, got a bad headache and a horrible bruise on my arm. So, that was the worst up until today! I'll leave you hanging with that and make you have to read on for the rest of the story!

So, on with the day... Williamsburg is such a great town if you love American History. And we have noticed that all of the places around here are not afraid to tell all of the truth - even if it goes against all that we have learned in history class. For instance, they really set the story straight every where that we have gone that the slaves really enabled our liberty as much if not more than anyone else. We have really enjoyed learning about all of the little known facts about our history.

Our first highlight was learning about the way they had town meetings back in the 18th century. We had to agree by saying "Here, Here" or "Huzzah!" Here was our trainer:

Next, we got to hear Patrick Henry give his famous speech:

Caleb was so inspired, he decided to join the Colonial army and went into training. It took a lot of work to learn how to load the musket, fire and then reload:

Do you think those boys were loving this or what??

While we were waiting to tour the Capital building, Martha Washington arrived via this carriage:

She spoke so eloquently and passionately about the cause for liberty:

This is the Capital building, the location of the first capital in Virginia:

We ate our picnic lunch under this beautiful, shady trellis:

I've decided that it wouldn't be a vacation post without a cool tree pic:

Holly and MaKenna playing an authentic harpsichord (they played There is No One Like You!):

We were also able to tour some authentic houses from this time period as well as the Governor's Palace. The governor at the time of the decor in there now had 2 girls the same age as Holly and MaKenna and a boy the same age as Caleb and they were all homeschooled!! Too funny!

One of the neatest things about Williamsburg is that they still do everything just as it would have been done in the 18th century. They use all the same tools with no modern equipment whatsoever. They even make the tools as they would have been made at that time! That impressed me so much! Here is Caleb carding wool as the girls watch:

The kids in front of a serene creek:

I just had to include this picture - he just looks so cute!

We are having such a nice time and thank everyone for your prayers! Everytime one of you comes up in conversation by something that makes us think of you, we say that we brought you on vacation with us! So, thanks for coming!

Oh, and the bad thing that happened today! I almost forgot! There were some horses waiting to pull a carriage ride and the kids asked if they could pet them. They were given permission and went to say hello. Well, MaKenna is so sweet that one of them decided to take a nibble of her finger! He took off a little bit of skin off her finger. I think that it really scared her more than anything and it did bleed some, but it is better now! So, that was the 2nd bad thing that happened! Again - thanks for your prayers! I hope that you are having fun coming along virtually with us on our vacation!