Do you know what I love? Recreations. I love people dressed up in period costumes making butter, or barrels or pretty much anything. So I knew we were going to need two full weeks in Williamsburg.
They had over 200 buildings each with someone in it recreating a colonial experience. Eden and I made elaborate plans of what our house would be like if we lived in colonial times. Mostly it involved putting things in baskets and carrying them around to people. Oh yes, also sheep. We would totally have lovely clean white lambs that we would put garlands on. No doubt this is exactly how colonists spent their time.
As part of the Colonial Williamsburg package we could attend monologues of various revolutionay war leaders. The kids have been watching Liberty Kids ever since Florida and Eden was beyond excited to see Lafayette. He practically bounced off the walls of the room he was so energetic and French. Eden and Sam were transfixed. I love history like this.
We spent a full week at Colonial Williamsburg. When I finished work we would run over and get a few hours of Colonial in before they closed. We could do it in pieces because we lived so close.
The second week was all about Yorktown and Jamestown. They also had recreations...but no where near as vast as Williamsburg. Still....I love my recreations. My favorite was Yorktown. Sam brought his Nerf guns and we recreated the capture of Redoubt 1 and 2. Mostly I loved the self-smugness of homeschooling gone right. But I also loved running around with a gun.
James town was a bit of a different story. We watched the National Geographic about it before we went. Jamestown is not exactly rated G. One skull that was of a 14 year old girl had scarpe marks where they cut the "meat" off of her face after she died. Yeah...I didn't show that artifact to the kids. One of the many mistakes the Jamestown settlers made was the assumption that they had to fear the Spanish. They come ready with cannons. But really they needed to fight the Indians. Cannons don't do much when you are fighting just a few soldiers spaced out and spread around. Sure the colonialists had cool guns. But an Indian could fire 6 (ish) times for every shot the Englishman could shoot. Not great odds. Technology really isn't everything.
Our home was in a lovely resort. We had a game room and a pool with water slides and free breakfast in the lobby. And it was one of the cheapest houses we have stayed at. I was renting a time share from someone who was clearly happy to unload it. I can't for the life of me figure out how time shares still exist. They seem like the worst financial choice ever. To rent the two weeks cost less than paying the maintenance dues for one week if you owned one. Naturally I went to the sales pitch. I got my free stuff and said no about 15 times. But I wanted to stand up and yell, "People, don't do this! Don't let them use your love of family to sell you stuff"
We made some great friends in Virginia. Not only did they have kids my kids ages but they were ridiculously smart and kind and really good at cooking.
They had over 200 buildings each with someone in it recreating a colonial experience. Eden and I made elaborate plans of what our house would be like if we lived in colonial times. Mostly it involved putting things in baskets and carrying them around to people. Oh yes, also sheep. We would totally have lovely clean white lambs that we would put garlands on. No doubt this is exactly how colonists spent their time.
As part of the Colonial Williamsburg package we could attend monologues of various revolutionay war leaders. The kids have been watching Liberty Kids ever since Florida and Eden was beyond excited to see Lafayette. He practically bounced off the walls of the room he was so energetic and French. Eden and Sam were transfixed. I love history like this.
We spent a full week at Colonial Williamsburg. When I finished work we would run over and get a few hours of Colonial in before they closed. We could do it in pieces because we lived so close.
The second week was all about Yorktown and Jamestown. They also had recreations...but no where near as vast as Williamsburg. Still....I love my recreations. My favorite was Yorktown. Sam brought his Nerf guns and we recreated the capture of Redoubt 1 and 2. Mostly I loved the self-smugness of homeschooling gone right. But I also loved running around with a gun.
James town was a bit of a different story. We watched the National Geographic about it before we went. Jamestown is not exactly rated G. One skull that was of a 14 year old girl had scarpe marks where they cut the "meat" off of her face after she died. Yeah...I didn't show that artifact to the kids. One of the many mistakes the Jamestown settlers made was the assumption that they had to fear the Spanish. They come ready with cannons. But really they needed to fight the Indians. Cannons don't do much when you are fighting just a few soldiers spaced out and spread around. Sure the colonialists had cool guns. But an Indian could fire 6 (ish) times for every shot the Englishman could shoot. Not great odds. Technology really isn't everything.
Our home was in a lovely resort. We had a game room and a pool with water slides and free breakfast in the lobby. And it was one of the cheapest houses we have stayed at. I was renting a time share from someone who was clearly happy to unload it. I can't for the life of me figure out how time shares still exist. They seem like the worst financial choice ever. To rent the two weeks cost less than paying the maintenance dues for one week if you owned one. Naturally I went to the sales pitch. I got my free stuff and said no about 15 times. But I wanted to stand up and yell, "People, don't do this! Don't let them use your love of family to sell you stuff"
We made some great friends in Virginia. Not only did they have kids my kids ages but they were ridiculously smart and kind and really good at cooking.
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