Well it's raining

Literally it has been raining for several days here, also it seems that the expression "when it rains it pours" fits what has been happening lately. My brother came in town thursday night, friday night he and my parents were over for dinner. My dad was feeling a little puny so I called Sandi (sil) who is a cardiac nurse to come see him on her way home from work that night. To make a long story short he is in the hospital for heart trouble. We won't know more till monday after they do a stress test. The good news is that once they gave him blood thinner his blood pressure went back up (it had been 79/40) and he is feeling fine. There is a possibility that he could come home for Christmas on some medication and then follow up with a cardiologist to see why he went into A fib (sp?) and see if there is a blockage. This is serious but thank God they can nip it in the bud, he could have had a heart attack or stroke if he had walked around like he was for to long. I was planning on Christmas shopping this weekend because we hadn't done that yet since we have been so busy, but that is not going to happen now so it will be a different kind of christmas at our house this year. The kids will still have theirs because we were able to get them everything they would need from Walmart. I will get stuff for the stockings today or tomorrow but that is it. The boys and I did make a gingerbread train, christmas cookies and handed out christmas cards to our neighbors, so there was some holiday cheer.

Our day in Jamestown

I still have to post the Yorktown pictures but that will be for another day. This was a great day and very interesting. These types of living museums are really educational and can keep the young ones attention.

This bunk that Nate is sitting on was on the mid level of the largest ship that came over, it would be sufficient if you are under 6 ft and you didn't have to share it with another man. It was horrible to imagine them below deck for over 5 months. They couldn't come up to the outside deck unless the captain deemed it ok, not even to empty their chamber pots. ugh! 59 men shared this space with their belongings and chamber pots, most of them were terribly sea sick for a good while and the rest were bored to death.

Getting ready to tour the 3 ships that carried the settlers

Dad gets a lesson on axes and canoe making
The boys take the boat out
Luke finds a clam shell

The goofy helmets the settlers wore

Notice Evan coming in for the swift kick, I felt like doing it myself a few times. lol

Inside the fort at Jamestown settlement

Nate and Evan watch grandpa and Luke scrape a dear hide

The outside of the Powhatan indian villagen, and Nate and Evan inside one of the huts. They are not called huts or teepees or dwellings but the name escapes me.

Activities at Powhatan Resort

Around the Manor house on the grounds of the resort.

Pictures Part 2

This is taking way to long to load all these pictures so I'm going to post part 1 at a later date. Normally I would never post so many pics but we took 311 and saved 304 so you can understand my dilema. It was hard to choose which ones to post. I haven't even posted Jamestown or Yorktown yet so that will be on the next batch.

Aboard the USS Wisconsin

All these photos and the ones to follow were taken at a great Naval museum in Norfolk Va, about an hour from Williamsburg. This was an awesome interactive museum for adults and fantastic for the kiddos, they had so much hands on stuff and some great films as well. There was almost nobody there, due to the time of year and day of the week, plus it was only $7 a person and we pretty much spent the day there.

Don't Ask

This pretty much sums up Luke all week.

on deck of the USS Wisconsin

Goofy costumes for all

Sailors heading off to sea.

Nate makes a hideous mermaid
But a much better captain


This was a underwater crane that the kids could manuever and pick up stuff with.