Colonial Williamsburg

Brock got up and did his early morning check on work things and then he got ready and took Heidi to the vet while the kids and I got ourselves ready for today's adventures.

He and Heidi got back with the news we'd expected. Looks like what started as a bug bite or something she then itched until it turned into an infection. Thankfully it's not in her eye, just the skin around it. She got all kinds of prescriptions - antibiotics and steroids to start, but we decided not to start her this morning since we're going to be gone all day and won't be able to observe her reactions. We did discover that she has put on about 20 pounds this year and she needs to cut back on the amount of food she gets. I don't think she's going to like that much!

We got her all set up with full water, closed blinds, bed on the couch, air conditioning and then we locked her in and headed to Colonial Williamsburg.

We went to the Visitor Center first because I still wasn't sure what to do about the tickets. I'd heard there was a homeschooler discount so I was hesitant to buy online. We waited for a good 15 minutes in line and when we got up to ticket desk, we found out that homeschoolers' tickets needed to be purchased in a different building, Group Sales. We headed over there and BOY, are we glad we did. Turns out the discounted tickets are about half price! Way worth asking!

They have a program going on for the summer where you get to play in a part in an alternate reality spy game. They have costumed characters playing real people from history to lead the activities and we got some practice in decoding secret messages. We received black handkerchiefs to be a signal that we were part of the Black Chambers group. We would use my cell phone to text our answers to the different questions and different clues would then be given to us to proceed. (The kids loved it.) So, we started our day at a meeting place, where we asked the "Sentinel" a secret question and he then let us in to the meeting place to receive our mission instructions.

Next we visited the Governor's Palace. We went there because there, in the stables, was where we'd find our first piece of the puzzle for our mission. We found our instructions, but then we also took the palace tour and walked the grounds before we moved on. The tour guide was a very animated young lady who shared a lot of information in a way that held everyone's attention.

After that, we walked down the street and looked around until we came to another "friend" of our cause who would give us a tool to help us cipher a word that we then reported in.

Then, we saw the courthouse, the gunsmith's shop, and the magazine which had a spiral staircase going up three floors.

We continued throughout the day trying to find clues and deciphering messages until we came to a clue telling us to meet our contact at a certain gate.

Where we find out that we've been unwittingly working spying for the British! Oh no!

Walking around and enjoying the beauty of the grounds...while learning a thing or two. ;O)

There was a re-enactment outside the capitol building called "Taking the town" and the main character was General Benedict Arnold.

We learned about how the high court worked and then we went over and saw the gaol and how it worked.

We solved the mystery about the identity of the Screenmaster (who had been texting us) and then we were given a meeting place to go to receive our reward. The kids were able to receive a special token coin that will make a great souvenir. They were pretty excited about them as they are pretty heavy and not made of plastic.

There was a last part of the spy game where you take your token and show it to someone at the art museum and "continue your quest", but that part turned out to be rather frustrating and not as well done as the rest. We did eventually solve that part too, but it didn't feel like it was worth it in the end. However, on our way walking to find the art museum we came upon the scene of General Washington leaving a large crowd of spectators, on horseback, and in the center of the field some drum and fife soldiers playing and a call for volunteers.

One kooky picture from inside the art museum...

We took the shuttle back to the visitor center, thankfully, as all of our "dogs were barking" after a lot of walking today.

Hooray! The end of the day and we are still mostly smiling.

We decided to grab dinner on the way home and we tried La Tolteca. It was actually really good Mexican food. We ended up getting our own little private room with one booth and one 2-person bar height table and everyone ate really well. Skylar made us all laugh because he was all excited about getting Mexican and then ordered a cheeseburger. LOL

When we got home, we checked in with pooor Heidi. She must've been scratching at her eye all day and it looks even worse than it did this morning. We started her on her meds tonight and hopefully, we can get her to leave it alone so it will heal.

Poor, Poor Doggy