Nov 28

Doing this blog is the only thing helping me keep the date straight.
We have settled into RV life. Boys are sleeping in the same bed and as long as Tucker goes to sleep first they do ok until the morning. We are up about 7am in the mornings though it takes us forever to get ourselves together and out the door. Oh well we are on vacation with no where in particular to be. So nice.
TODAY- JAMESTOWN, VA.
It's a great place for kids as it's a completely hands on experience. In the Jamestown settlement section you can walk through an Indian village and experience life as it would have been. You can lay on the fur beds in the huts, practice scraping the fur off of a drying deer hyde with oyster shells, and crush corn to make corn meal. They have people dressed in authentic costume telling you about life in that era and demonstrating cooking and basket making. Cooper and I helped scrap ash out of a canoe in the process of being made.

 Indian beds. The fur left on your clothing after laying on the beds was a souvenir.

 Indian bed was just right for Rob.

Watching a deer skin be hung to dry.

 Scraping the ash from the canoe with oyster shells.

In the James Fort we got to see life as they think it would have been. Again they had people dressed in costume telling you about each aspect of life. A musket (gun) demonstration was the boys favorite. Cooper learnt about how the people and soldiers within the Fort had to go to church twice each day and three times on Sundays. He thought that sounded like a lot but as the guide explained it was really so they could read the rules and count how many had died the night before or during the day from diseases.

We have been reading a book on life in Jamestown so we could relate the story to what we were seeing.

 Armor that could be tried on in the Fort. 

 Musket shooting demonstation. (Rob likes this effect on the camera settings.)

Inside Fort James.

Then we visited the replica ships that had brought the first Jamestown settlers. Santa Carolina (?), Discovery and Godspeed. As with the other things we could walk all over the ship, touch anything, climb in all the beds and play peek-a-boo, make mummy a pretend meal in the cooks quarters and pump water out of the boat. Tucker had the most fun climbing in and out of the captions bed.

We grabbed a late lunch which we were all ready for and headed to the gift shop on our quest for a magnet. Cooper was captivated by a large magnet filled with water and a floating ship in it, I conceded and we bought it (and another practical magnet in case that one gets broken). Magnets this time about $10, gulp. But worth it since Cooper has barely put it down and has been pretending and making up stories with it. He even said it was better than a video game.

 Tucker 'sleeping' in the officers beds on one of the boat.

 Discovery and Godspeed ships.

It was 4pm by this time and we still hadn't been to the historic Jamestown so we raced over there. The historic area is the exact place the original fort and town were on. They have excavated a lot of the area to find where the fort walls would have been and inner buildings. Some of where the fort would have been in now in the James river due to 400 years of erosion.

 The building on the left is exactly where the armory would have been in 1607. The fence is in the exact place it was built in 1607. 

 Inside the historic Fort James.

We headed back into Williamsburg for the Fife and drums parade at 5:30pm. We could hear them playing at the far end of the street so we ran to about the middle and waited for them to come down the street. Think of a group of kids in 1600's costume playing fifes (like a flute) and drums, marching down the road by the light of fire torches. (It's dark about 5:15pm here). So cool. See below, hard to describe. But it was so fun. As they passed everyone watching fell in behind them and continued walking down the road then at the end of the road the band stopped and everyone gathered around them for the final song. It was really fun. Rob says he felt very patriotic.

Cooper is really taking it all in and talking about all the things we have been seeing. He asks questions and you can see the wheels turning.

 Fife and Drums parade.

Snuggling with one of my cuties.

Back at the RV we heated up some dinner and the boys started a fire to toast some marshmallows. As boys do they started burning anything they could find. Put Tucker to bed and now it's Coopers turn. Cooper is sitting next to me playing with his magnet. He just said good night to boat. This truly could be better than a video game.

On a funny note, you know it was a good when you took 85 pictures in one day. Love digital cameras :) 

Good Night!