George Washington Birthplace National Monument

The kids enjoyed their first day of "summer break" today where they just did a little bit of reading and math, their chore for the day, and got dressed and pretty much played outside the rest of the morning.

I sat outside with Brynna and Kristy and learned how to make a friendship bracelet. I watched all the "neighborhood kids" play together, running around back and forth.

As a short-lived rain shower moved by, I came inside and made lunch.

After lunch, the kids and I piled into the Yukon and drove a couple miles up the road to the George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Admission is free and it was neat to see. We just did a self-guided tour, but there are ranger-led tours available. We learned that George Washington's great grandfather John was the first Washington to come over from England in 1656 and that he received a 700 acre parcel from his father in law as a dowry when he married Anna Pope.

Along Pope Creek, the trail to the Memorial House. The Memorial House was built in 1932 because the original birthplace house burned in 1779 in a Christmas Day fire. They have since discovered the location of the original foundation and have marked it with a white oyster shell fragments outline.

The Memorial House - George Washington only lived in the original birthplace house until he was three years old, but he spent more time here throughout his growing up years.

A child's bedroom inside the Memorial House. The house was styled after other similar buildings of the time.  At least one furnishing in the house, a tea table downstairs, is thought to be original and belonged to the Washingtons, but most of the furnishings are from the time period and over 200 years old.

 A visitor gets to see what a colonial farm would've looked like. They had a working colonial kitchen that we got to see. Boy, was it hot in there with a big fire going. They would set out some coals on the brick floor in several different spots in the room and have several things cooking at once in different kinds of pots and kettles. There were also a LOT of flies buzzing around in there.

We enjoyed getting to see many animals on our tour.

This horse came over from way across the pasture to get a little love.

There were literally, squirrels EVERYWHERE on the property. It was actually a little creepy to see SO many.

This memorial obelisk was first installed in the 1850's (I think) and moved to this site at the entrance to the monument when the Memorial House was built in 1932. (A 1/10 scale replica of the Washington Monument)

I delighted to tour the heritage garden...

As you can see, Brynna joined me in the garden, but the boys didn't delight to. ;o) They decided to sit out on a bench and wait until I was done.

I loved seeing the outbuildings and the wool drying on the fence in the background.

We walked back down the trail to spend a few more minutes in the visitor center before we left. Brynna is always a good sport and poses for me when I ask her to.

In the visitor center, we ran into ol' GW himself.

We just about closed down the visitor center, leaving between 4:30 and 5, and climbed into the Yukon to drive down the road to the Burial Grounds. I saw something that I think was a dark little fox running across the road on the short drive. The burial area also does not look much, if anything, the way it did when George Washington walked here since it was redone by a historical society in 1930 and they built a stone wall around the grounds and rebuilt the vault and consolidated the remains there. It was still pretty awe-inspiring to be in the vicinity of where several generations of Washington's were buried, including the father, grandfather and great grandfather of George Washington.

Cool old barn along the road...didn't even notice the huge buzzard on the roof until I saw the picture tonight.

Look at all the different awesome dragonflies we saw in various spots today...

Once back to the rv park, the little boys didn't even let me park the car before they were ready to hop out and play at the playground with their friends.

Three out of four kids wanted to hit the pool again today, but I didn't feel like getting in and I needed to make dinner soon, so I agreed to give them a half hour. I got to visiting and forgot to give them a 5-minute warning, so when the timer went off, I told them 5 more minutes and then set the timer again. They all got out cheerfully when time was up. Woohoo!

This evening after dinner, the kids and I went down to share the campfire of the Schrier Family. It was nice to visit with Frank and Stacey (funny to find another Stacey who spells her name the same as me!) and compare fulltiming and homeschooling notes with them while the kids played and ran and ate s'mores and ran some more. Brock needed some alone time so he went for a long walk with Heidi.

Once the fireflies came out, I knew it was time to be getting the little boys home and to bed. There was only a little groaning before they headed home to get ready for bed with a promise of more fun for tomorrow.