Williamsburg - Day 4 & 5

Bet you thought I'd forgotten about the rest of our week in Williamsburg didn't you? I didn't, I've just been busy. We spent a good part of the week turning Little Bit's classroom at church into an ocean. I'm happy with the way it turned out, and happy with what good helpers Sassy and MiniMe were, and how well Little Bit self-entertained while we were there.

So now, back to Williamsburg.  Day 4 . . . my parents didn't come with us that day, so I spent more time with Little Bit, which meant less pictures of what the big girls were doing. We started our day at the Wheelwright's shop. Next Daddy took the big girls to a speech by "Patrick Henry". I wasn't sure how it was going to go, it wasn't marked on the schedule as being kid-friendly BUT the week before Williamsburg we'd been listening to, and thoroughly enjoying Uncle Rick Reads Patrick Henry -- Firebrand of the Revolution, so they liked the idea of hearing Patrick Henry even after I warned them that it wasn't "for kids". So, Rodney took the big girls to that and Little Bit and I found a nice shady tree to sit under and read stories together and play with Littlest Petshop toys and play on my phone. When Rodney and the girls met back up with us, he said it would've been over their heads if we hadn't just listened to the book, but since we had, they enjoyed it, and explained things to Daddy on the walk back LOL.

Next we peaked into the Presbyterian Meeting House. There wasn't anyone there (someone told me later that there's supposed to be a recording in there, but it doesn't always work. So instead the girls had great fun  having their own meeting.  MiniMe was the preacher and Sassy was the congregation LOL.

After that we headed over to the Joiners. I honestly didn't have the foggiest idea what a "joiner" is. When we went in, and they were making a cupboard, the girls, logically, asked what made a "joiner" different from the cabinet maker. For those who wonder, it's the quality of the wood. Cabinetmakers made fancy furniture using fancy woods like Mahogany. Joiners made functional furniture using easy to obtain woods like pine. Joiners also do the trimwork and such on buildings.

The girls proceeded to ask a million and one questions while yet another AWESOME employee patiently answered them all and even seemed to enjoy it!

Since the weather report was saying rain the next day, my goal for Day 4 was to hit as many "small" shops and tours as possible and save a couple longer tours for the rainy day. So we did things like visiting Greenow's Store and then headed over to tour the Getty House. As we were leaving the Getty House the tour guide mentioned that one of her co-workers was on the palace green with hoops and sticks, so of COURSE we headed over there. Sassy has her own hoop and stick that she got when we were in Williamsburg a couple years ago, so she had to show off her skills. And MiniMe worked on her own skills. Little Bit was napping when we first started playing with the hoops, but she woke up soon after. She decided a much better way to play with the hoop was to have me roll it and she'd run after it. All 3 of them were well occupied for quite some time that way.

Day 5, I ended up not taking any pictures. As I mentioned above, rain was in the forecast. Rodney suggested that he and Little Bit stay at the condo that day. It worked well. He got an exciting day playing with wood animals, and Littlest Petshop toys, and watching Dora and Leapfrog, we were able to navigate the rain much more easily without a stroller to worry about. Knowing the rain was coming, I'd also planned for a few longer tours that day, which also worked well. We started our day by going to the art museum for a hands-on class about theorem art. We took some time to look around the museum as well while we were there. And the "hospital" (insane asylum) that was attached to the museum.

After that we headed to Bassett Hall. In all our other trips to Williamsburg we hadn't made it to Bassett Hall. Partially because there's not really anything on the map telling me what it IS. It's off away from the main "town"  and is just marked as "Bassett Hall" with no indication of what it's significance is. So, this year I asked someone. It's the house that the Rockefellers bought, renovated, and lived in while overseeing the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. It includes a small museum and film about how the restoration came about, and what was involved. And then the house is decorated the way Mrs. Rockefeller decorated it when they lived there. It was a change from colonial decor, but very interesting.

When we left Bassett Hall, we stopped back by the Joiners (we were walking by it, and Papa hadn't seen it the day before). When we came out, it had started raining. The coffee house was just down the street, and had a covered porch so we decided, in the hopes that it would be a short rainstorm, to go there, we could sit on the covered porch while we waited for our tour, then take the tour again (did I mention it was one of our favorites LOL). It was still raining when we came out of the coffee house, so we just dealt with getting wet (Papa had an umbrella, Mama had a windbreaker-type jacket and I had anoraks for the girls. I had a jacket, and it wasn't super cold or raining real hard. It reminded me of the rain we got alot in TN where I went to college, and I quickly decided, while a student there, that for a light rain like that, it was easier to just get wet than have to mess with an umbrella, so I didn't really notice this rain either).  We were glad, however, to time it just right to be able to go straight into the Randolph House for that tour (no covered porch to sit under for that one). It's a big house, and a long tour, made longer, this time, because they had been cooking in the kitchen and the woman there was happy to answer the girls' questions. So we ended up staying there quite awhile.  When we came out it was still raining, harder, and we decided to call it a day (if the weather had been nice we probably would have re-visited one or two of the girls' favorite shops, but not worth it when it's rainy and icky and we'd seen everything on our list).

We got back to the condo to find out from Little Bit that "I got ice cream!!!!!!!" Rodney said he told her that if she took a nap, they could go get ice cream, so she laid right down on the bed beside him and they both took a nap. He said when she woke up she literally sat up and said "ice cream!" LOL. So they went and got ice cream.

We had one more day in Williamsburg . . . our day to visit Jamestown . . .