Weekly Wrap-Up - January 22

Our main fun this week was on Thursday, when we went to Independence Hall, and surrounding area. Sassy and MiniMe earned their Junior Ranger and we visited the Liberty bell, Independence Hall, The Congress Building, Second Bank Art Gallery, including the really cool (I thought) solid brick vaults in the basement (didn't get pictures of those though, now that I think about it), and the building that houses the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and a 3rd document that escapes me at the moment.  We discovered that this is pretty much the PERFECT time to visit that area as long as your schedule is flexible enough to be able to choose a day that isn't too terribly cold (or snowy or windy or otherwise weather you don't want to be out in). Thursday was cold, but little or no wind, so in the sun it was pretty nice and even in the shade it was fine as long as we didn't sit in one place for too long.

The crowds were non-existent! We only saw one tour group (adults), and they tended to move quickly through areas so even if they came into an area while we were there, they usually kept on moving. No school groups. The rangers seemed thrilled to answer the girls' questions and have someone to interact with. It was lovely!

I was thankful that my parents were able to come with us, Little Bit did well, but understandably was restless with how long we spent at each place, talking to the rangers. Mom spent a good part of her day following Little Bit around. She made several trips up and down the steps in the congress building. Took several laps through all the galleries of the Second Bank Art Gallery, and found a stick that the wind had blown in and marched around the "Documents building" over-and-over holding her "sword" (much to the amusement of the ranger in that building LOL).

Little Bit did do a good job of being quietly not too active during the main floor part of the tour of Independence Hall (and would probably have had a blast on the second floor, dancing to the harpsichord music, but their security regulations didn't allow us to leave the stroller parked outside the building, and I didn't feel like carrying it up the million and one stairs, so mom took the stroller and Little Bit back outside while I took the big girls upstairs.

The National Park at Independence Hall also has a "trading card" program, where children can earn "trading cards" about various Revolutionary War people, places, and things, by talking to the rangers, answering and asking questions. So the girls each got a set of those while we were there.

We were disappointed that the Benjamin Franklin underground museum is currently closed for renovations, so we'll plan to go back down once it's open again. There's also another site, Thaddeus Kosciuszko Monument in that area that we didn't have time to go to either, so we'll probably try to combine it with the Benjamin Franklin stuff.

Other fun we had this week includes a play date with our friends, E and J, and their mommy.  Everyone had fun playing together. Little Bit was very excited that "my friends" were coming over to play with her.

The other days we had our normal school. We are wrapping up our Revolutionary War stuff for history, we watched a LOT of "Liberty's Kids" and finally finished listening to the Johnny Tremain audiobook in the car.

Our week ended with a very snowy Sabbath! The snow started during the night Friday night, so we woke up Sabbath morning to a world of  white. And the snow was still coming down. Needless to say, we declared it a snow day and didn't even attempt to go to church. We enjoyed time together and watching some Veggie Tales videos (as if I didn't have a sufficient collection of my own, we discovered that netflix online has most of them available, so now we have lots of variety, woo-hoo!) All 3 girls went out to play in the snow for awhile. Little Bit wasn't so sure about the whole sledding thing, but she seemed to enjoy just throwing snow in the air and such while her sisters sledded. Once she was sufficiently frozen, I brought her inside and the big girls stayed out awhile longer. Then they went out AGAIN during Little Bit's nap and stayed out until dark.

And one final picture from this week. We needed new toner cartridges for the printer (that's what most of the boxes cluttering the background are), Little Bit claimed the box they came in as her own personal toy. She LOVES to sit in the box and close 2 of the flaps, then put a book on them to hold them down. So silly!

So, we had a good week all around!