Colonial Williamsburg

Our days at Colonial Williamsburg were amazing!  We got there Sunday afternoon, so they just charged us for a one day ticket for admission both Sunday and Monday, and we both got half-off with our educator discounts, so with two free kids we paid less than $40 for our entire time!! Pretty amazing.  

Also, Sunday was the last day of Winter programming, which meant Monday was the first day of The Spring season.  The advantage to visiting during this time (not that we planned it necessarily) is that there are tons of family friendly programs.  I wonder if there is extra energy and excitement amongst the actors and actresses as well?  Anyhow, it was great.

Sunday afternoon we had just enough time to take a tour of the Governor's Palace and meander through the garden and mazes out back.  The weather was amazing, and the day couldn't have been more beautiful.  In the story of Felicity, she receives a very special invitation to a dancing lesson at the  Governor's Palace.  It was fun for Songbird to see the ballroom and connect it to that episode in the story.  We had just enough time to walk through the rest of the town and make a plan of execution for the next day.  Then it was off to dinner and back to the hotel for a quick pre-bed swim.  Did I mentione that Raindrop has been talking about swimming in the hotel for weeks now?  Yes, forget Colonial Williamsburg.  There is a pool, folks!

Monday morning we headed back to Colonial Williamsburg first thing.  Fiirst up was Storming of the Palace, which was a real-life reinactment of another event described in the Felicity books where the gun-power was stolen from the Magazine.  The townspeople did an excellent job bringing this scene to life - so excellent that the kids were a little nervous about what was happening around them.  We could tell the older two were getting into the drama, though the littlest kept hiding her face in the stroller. :)  When all was said and done, they decided not to storm the Palace this time but instead work for a peaceable solution.

Our next stop was the art museum where we joined a tour about Colonial fashion, something Songbird is especially interested in.  I have to say I was uber impressed with the kids attention to detail - something they have been practicing during our picture studies.  At the first painting we stopped at (High Life Below Stairs by John Collet, 1763) the kids were practically narrating the entire story, and at one point I stopped to ask the guide what kind of bird was coming out of the cage pecking on the servant's head, and Songbird answered, "I think it's a Magpie."  She was right, and later that night in the car we asked her how she knew it was a Magpie, or when she remembered learning about that kind of bird (since we don't have any near where we live. Her answer was so remarkable I have to record it here.  This is the story she told:

"Remember that time you read to us stories from the Veterinarian who lived in the English countryside?" (You mean James Herriot?)

"Yes, him.  Well remember the first story in the book about the black kitten?" (Yes, I remember that story.) (The story is Moses the Cat)

"Well in one of the first illustrations from that story, if you look closely in the background there is a fence gate with a magpie perched on top.  I remember thinking I hadn't seen that bird before.  But then when we checked out this particular version of the Hansel and Gretel story from the library there were Magpie's in the trees, and I remembered that was the bird from the story about the cat..."

So there you have it - the detailed way of how Songbird learned about Magpies...  

Another interesting thing we learned was that men's pockets were called fobs, and the little quarter pockets in men's and boy's jeans are also called fobs.  We also saw some women's stays that were made from Baleen whales - something we read about in Seabird.

After the fashion program at the art museum we made our way to the Raleigh Tavern where we joined in on a dance lesson.  This was so much fun I thought we should definitely try and find a square dance to attend somewhere near our home.  They taught us two different country line dances, though I can't remember what they were called or the names of any of the steps we were doing.

After dancing we walked acorss the street to the King's Tavern where we had lunch in a similar fashion as they would have in Colonial Times (though we had more choices and a cleaner environment).  The kids loved that we were eating in the "real" place they would have eaten.  And though we were underwhelmed with the food itself, the experience was definitely worth it.

After lunch we hurried over to the Capitol building where there was a reading of the Declaration of Independence (with actors and actresses gathered amongst all of us visitors).  I am glad to have heard it read all at once in that setting, and for the kids to have heard it as well.  It opened the door for some good conversations about the process of gaining our independence from England.

Afterwards we had a little bit of time to meander around and explore the various town shops.  We stopped in at the Milliner and Tailor, the Printing Office and Bindery, the Colonial Garden, and the Market Square, where Songbird used her money (plus an advance on future birthday money) to buy her lovely Colonial outfit.  She was so happy after she changed into her outift - her entire countenance changed.  She felt totally at home wearing her Colonial clothes and did not seem to mind one bit that she looked different from most people around her. :) Bro bought a toy rifle and a whistle, and Raindrop bought a Mop Cap and a little bedshirt.

In the afternoon we headed back to the art museum for a guided tour of needlework and samplers.  At the end of the tour the kids were given a square piece of fabric and some thread and encouraged to make their own samplers.  They spent the next hour diligently working on their samplers (with an icecream break in the middle), and would have spent longer if we didn't have another even to get to :)

Our final planned event of the day was to hear the drum and fife band and the canons being fired.  Bro was pretty excited about this and wanted to be in the front line, but Raindrop was absolutely terrified and begged me to take her away- even farther away.  Songbird came back with us, not liking the loud, explosive noises.  When the canons had all been fired twice, it was over, and we had just enough time left to explore the gunsmith and foundry.

By then, it was 5:00 and the houses were closed for the day.  We finished off our time with an amazing dinner at the Blue Talon Bistro right outside the Colonial city.  Hubry and I split a delicious salmon dinner, and Raindrop had the most amazing mac-n-cheese I have ever tasted in my entire life!

Then we were totally spent, and yet we had 2.5 hours to travel to make it to our next hotel in College Park, MD.  We ended the night full, happy, and tired.