More hands on stuff at Williamsburg

I can tell I’m going to run out of creative ways to title these posts.  Though, I’ve been told creative titles are not all that useful for when people are searching for your blog.  Oh well…..

Today was cold, wet, and rainy.  ALL day long.  That did mean that the city was mostly empty.  It also meant we didn’t stay until crazy late today, we were only there until 4 something.

We started off our day at the Powell House, a new addition that is a kid friendly exhibit area with all reproductions so kids can touch and muss about as much as they want.  They had period appropriate games, toys, and chores for the kids to do.  My kids favorite part, feeding the chickens lettuce.

I hadn’t known that chickens could eat lettuce, but the interpreter explained to us that they would eat whatever kitchen scraps they were given.  So, I learned a few new things today.

From there we went to the Capitol building where Jeff and I enjoyed discussing with the docent about the writing of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.  It’s an interesting document that inspired our Declaration of Independence.  The kids did a remarkably good job of being relatively calm through the discussion, and the docent was quite impressed with how well they did.  He had actually tried to warn us off of the tour beforehand.

From there we went to the jail and had quite a bit of fun listening to tales of Blackbeard’s men who had been tried there, and relating this all back to the Felicity story we listened to on the way to Williamsburg.  One of the minor characters is in jail there for failing to pay his debts.

From there we went to the Charlton Coffee House, where we weren’t allowed to use flash photography, so some of my pictures didn’t turn out.  The interpreters there did an excellent job of treating us like we were in 1766, and thoroughly entertained us as they warned us about the “dangers of allowing our young children to taste chocolate, or coffee and allow them to be too stimulated.”  My kids took one sip of the “chocolate” (what we would now call hot chocolate) and were quick unhappy with it.  It’s not as sweet as our chocolate, more close to a baker’s chocolate.  It somewhat reminded me of the hot chocolate drink that is sold on the Mexican food aisle at the grocery stores in Texas.

From there Princess and I went on to the weaver’s and got to see yarn being spun from wool and cotton and I happily got to discuss with him for almost an hour as Princess happily collected samples of yarn, thread, and other things.

She quite amused everyone we encountered there and she asked quite a lot of questions, some of which were very insightful for a 5 year old.

Amusingly enough, we ran into one of the couples that Princess was amusing back at our hotel, and when they met her tonight they said, “We met a ‘Princess’ at the spinner’s this afternoon.”  Then he suddenly realized she was the same girl and was quite amused by it.  I was very amused because he recognized Princess first, and didn’t recognize me for a while, partially because I was now in a swimsuit in the pool, and not huddled up in a hoodie with glasses on.

Before we left, we allowed the kids to get their souveneirs for the trip.  Batman stuck with his original plan of getting a musket, Princess and Superman both were able to get several small things.

And yes that is a fire on in the hotel room. We I was that cold when we got back.  It was turned off a few minutes later when my toes were finally dry.