We visited several National Park sites on our trip, and I did my best to combine them into one short clip of photos. It was a challenge :-)
Hopewell Furnace was one of the largest producers of iron, and specifically the iron face plates of furnaces in the late 1700s. It is a beautiful, farm-like place. There were also really neat old stone fire places, kind of like stone wall mazes that A and R were running through. It was cool and very quaint.
This photo was taken at the Eisenhower Farm, near Gettysburg. The mat she's sitting on says First Lady. I had no idea how important this farm was during Eisenhower's presidency in terms of being a meeting place for world leaders and also being a place of refuge for Eisenhower during the Cold War. One of the meetings that took place at the farm was credited with the beginning of eased tensions between leaders during the Cold War. It's also the only National Park Historical Site where children who visit can earn a Jr. Secret Service badge. A very cool place.
This picture was taken at Harpers Ferry where we walked across this bridge from West Virginia into Maryland. When Thomas Jefferson visited this spot in 1793 he said, "The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature." I think he was right.
While doing her Jr. Ranger guide book at Harpers Ferry, Alyssa was so excited to discover a secret trap door in the floorboards of one of the buildings we stopped in...
And this is her "doing that which I know I shouldn't" face.
The Jr. Ranger program is probably our girls' favorite part about visiting National Park sites. In most National Parks there is a series of activities that range from worksheets to seeing living history demonstrations, to asking questions of the rangers {etc}, that the children are able to complete in order to earn a badge. Here at Harpers Ferry, there were 3 different levels to complete depending on the child's age and how much time you want to spend on it. Our girls were so excited when they earned all 3 badges, they thought they were only going to get one badge for the highest level completed, but when they were given all 3 (Rebekah only completed the first level and a good part of the second, so she only got 2 badges) they were so pleased. At the end of the slide show you can see how happy they were taking the "Jr. Ranger Oath."
I highly recommend any of the Jr. Ranger programs at any park in the country. We've done several and they have never disappointed. It's such a great way for the kids to experience the significance of the park/site. Many parks are currently redoing their programs and making them more specific, hence the 3 different levels at Harpers Ferry. All very fun and worthwhile family activities ~ I learn a lot myself every time we work on one of the booklets with the girls!
The Crayola Factory at Two Rivers Landing in Easton, Pa was a lot of fun. Lots of cool crafts with the newest crayola products, the girls loved it! Upstairs from Crayola is the The National Canal Museum where the girls each got to float a barge down their mock river system to see how goods would have been delivered between cities long ago.
This picture Dave took of Alyssa came out really neat. I'm not sure why, but at first I couldn't see her in there. She's posing in red, and the image swirls out in various colors.
I loved her concerned expression as her artwork came out of the drying oven. Endless hours of fun with paints, model magic, melted crayons and more. I should have scanned in some of their artwork from the day, but I'm just thinking of that now, so maybe another time :-)
What Stan and Jan Berenstain failed to address in this cute little book was if their mothers were ready to send them :-)
I have been really bad about keeping up with posting the last couple of weeks. It's partly just about being busy, but mostly it's been that with each summer activity we check off our list {so to speak}, it's harder to avoid the fact that summer is very quickly coming to a close. And I just haven't felt like typing that sentence out quite yet.
Rebekah will be going to school, so it will be the first time since I was 20 that I haven't had a baby at home with me during the day. Maybe you need to back up and read that last part again...yes, that's right since I was 20 {since 5 days before turning 20 if we are being exactly exact}. I'm now pushing 31. So it will be different, and I'm sad to send them off to school. Even though I know they are wonderfully educated and taken care of there, not to mention the fact that I spend a lot of time in the classrooms myself, it's still sad. The secretaries have often offered me my own work space in their office, and that was when I still toted at least one little one around with me while I was helping out. So, I'm more excited and even more motivated to be there this year than ever before.
I remember bringing Alyssa to kindergarten, which really doesn't seem long ago at all! I watched the other families dropping off their kindergartners for the first time and many of the families were bringing their youngest child to school for the first time, as we are doing this year with Kamele. I saw two completely different emotions from most of the parents. Some were sad, others seemed relieved to have made it to this milestone with their kids. I remember thinking in that moment that I didn't want to be either family. I realized I was super content to forever stay in the "baby stage" with our family and I definitely didn't look forward to ever being that sad mom, and I couldn't at all relate to being the relieved mom. So now, fast forward five short years, and here we are, sending the baby who wasn't even born at that time to school. Blah!
I know whether I had four or five short years at home with the girls, or fifty years, it never would have been enough time. It wasn't one of those things that I was going to wake up one morning thinking, okay I've done enough of that, let's move on to something else. So the time had to come at some point, and for me that's this Wednesday at 9:10 am. The backpacks are packed, there's not much left to do.
The girls are for the most part very excited to go back. Emma has complained that they have to sit too much, so for that reason she's hoping to extend summer vacation as long as she can. Alyssa wanted her friend Molly to be in class with her, and they got split up, so that has put a damper on things for her, but overall I know they look forward to going. Rebekah is just happy to be able to pack up a lunch box and pretend to be a big kid. So I try to be super excited like they are, knowing how important their schooling is.
Something the girls weren't really excited about was my back to school photo shoot I did about a week or two ago. I wanted to get some really nice back to school pics to commemorate a big year, Alyssa's last year in elementary and Rebekah's first year ever. I discovered really quickly {and when I say really quickly, I mean the moment we stepped out of the car} last year that after 3rd grade, it is no longer a good idea to follow your child around at school, thinking you are going to capture any special first day moments. So I knew I needed to plan ahead. I think the photos came out cute, and I'll post them once the girls are back in school and I've had a better chance to look at them and choose my favorites. But I really had to work for them. I had visions of cute back pack poses and this is what I was getting...
Little girls more interested in their shadow than the camera...
We went to 2 great science museums during our trip. Our membership at our local museum reciprocates with many other museums across the country, so both trips were completely free , and free is very good and lots of fun too!
The first was The Franklin Institute, we went here after dropping Dave's parents off at the airport the day they had to go home :-( . On a happier note, it was also the day Emma figured out she could walk on her cast without any help, so she thought she better get back to her rock climbing and surfing that you can see her doing in the slide show.
The Franklin Institute was a really cool museum highlighting Benjamin Franklin's inventions and areas of study. We were able to explore his work in the medical field, electricity, air travel, and simple machines, and see how his work influenced future discoveries. The girls also made homemade paper which they thought was really cool.
We loved the museum and the unique exhibits. With Dave's help the girls were able to build a structure that they later tested the strength of with a simulated earthquake. There was a booth for the girls to do mock weather reports {these turned out to be so funny, if I can ever dig out the video of them, I will post}, there were "lava tubes" to crawl through and explore the impact volcanoes have on the surrounding terrain, and they had this cool scale that instead of telling you your weight, it told how many cups of blood your body was holding. So Cool!
COSI, in Columbus Ohio was also a super cool science center. I believe it was Parents Magazine that rated them the best science discovery center in the country. They had the best water play area, it looked like a mermaid's grotto. We probably could have played just in that section for a good part of the day. The outdoor play yard was great too. They have a giant lever where using your body weight, you try to lift a car into the air. There was also a neat audio visual section that used lots of green screen technology to do cool stuff, and our girls have been talking about green screen ever since our visit. They will see an advertisement, or something on tv and they will all have to make a guess as to whether it was "green screened" or not.
Alyssa was able to participate in a study that the researchers at the museum were conducting to see if games such as Wii actually encourage children to be more active in their play. I have never checked on the end results of the study, but she ran almost 2 miles in 10 minutes as part of the exercise for their research.
And because the girls have decided where they don't want to go to school:
Rebekah Hannah Kamelelani, YOU are 4 years old TODAY!!!
I could say countless sentimental things like I remember the day you were born as if it were yesterday, how the time has passed by in the blink of an eye and I'm not ready for you to get any bigger, and I could explain that you'll always be our baby no matter how big you get. And it would all sound very cliche, but that wouldn't stop every word of it from being true!! You were sleeping so peacefully in my arms the other night, it was almost like holding a newborn again. When I started tracing your little face with my finger you opened your eyes briefly to scowl at me, then buried your forehead into the crook of my elbow so you could fall back to sleep. So you're not quite the newborn you were in this photo, as if I needed the reminder :-)
You are such a precious girl to us, always sweet, sometimes very quiet and serious. You love to sing, dance and play tea party more than just about anything else.
You are always, always playful and funny. You make your sisters laugh like no one else can. Alyssa will sit quietly back, keeping an eye on you, and she'll tell me, I'm watching the Rebekah show. It's the best thing on!
You also have an unpredictable and little bit mischievous side. It's sweet, and we love you even when you're naughty. You know just what you want ~ you had a few birthday requests: a My Little Pony Cake, M&Ms, a tea party, and Chuck E. Cheese. Check, Check, Check, and Check.
We love you so much, you make everything even more fun. We could not be more proud of the tiny little person you are becoming!
When we planned this vacation, one of the reasons we were really set on making the trip this summer as opposed to putting it off, was that we knew we had some theme parks in mind that Alyssa would soon "grow out of" or in the very least not be very excited to visit them. We knew from our last visit that Sesame Place is such a cute park, and we wanted her to still be able to enjoy it.
A look at our little cuties here back in 2005...
The neat thing is that when we visited 5 years ago, we were there for Sesame Place's 25th Birthday celebration. Now five years later, we were here for their 30th Birthday party as well.
And our sweet girls in 2010... Sesame Street has never been a favorite cartoon in our house. While the girls each went through a phase during their toddler years where they loved Elmo, the cartoon itself hasn't grabbed their attention the way some Disney and Nick Jr. cartoons have. Having said this they LOVED the park and seeing all the characters!! I can't say enough how cute all the rides are, they have a flying fish Elmo ride, the cutest carousel, hot air balloons that the girls spun so crazy I thought I was going to be sick, and tea cups from all around the world decorated with all the characters. We sat in the Germany one! And all of us enjoyed the Elmo Live show :-)
The Dine With Me Sesame was such a cute breakfast. Rebekah was so excited to meet all the characters. She loved when Zoe sat at our table, and she kept grabbing at Big Bird's feathers. She loved all their noses too.
For the slide show, I really wanted to use the Sesame Street theme song, but I didn't really want to pay to download it either. {Just to explain the childlike, but rather random music with animal sounds chirping out from the background}
The kind of girl Emma is: VERY DETERMINED! Sesame Place has the best climbing structure we have ever visited. It's huge! I knew I would lose Alyssa the minute she stepped inside, she took off and was gone for a little while. Emma couldn't even walk yet, but I could tell she was not going to leave the park until she made her way through the expansive nets. At one point we came across a lost little boy who got separated from his family and his foot was stuck in the nets, so now he was losing his shoe as well. He was crying so I helped him untangle his foot, and Emma carried his shoes until we found his mom. So she was down one foot, and now a hand that she was really relying on to pull herself through. Despite the sad kid, it was so much fun.
There's also Cookie Monster Mountain. The slide down is the best part, every time Kamele slid, she rolled and tumbled completely out of control.
Rebekah also rode her first real roller coaster here {we are in the back 3 cars}, it was Emma's first roller coaster when we were here five years ago too. So I guess Sesame Place is a monumental park for our girls.
I don't think Rebekah loved it, she's not as much of a scary ride girl as her sisters are. She just buried herself into my side as much as possible and hung on for dear life.
I didn't mean to take as long of a break as I did from posting vacation pictures, and I am resuming with a huge post about Philadelphia. Something I should have mentioned before is that some of the photos I have shared were taken either by me or Dave, but many, many of them were taken by Dave's dad. He is great about taking time to get family pictures along with more candid shots as well, so I always enjoy looking through his photos after our trips. Thank you so much for all the great pictures! The girls with Grandmommy and Granddaddy in the heart of downtown Philadelphia.
The history in Philadelphia is so amazing, historically speaking it's probably one of the coolest places I've ever been. This is Independence Hall. We walked through each room and there was a new wow around every corner. When we stood in the room where all the details of The Declaration of Independence and later The Constitution were ironed out and these documents were eventually signed, we looked at the actual chair George Washington sat in as he addressed the First and Second Continental Congresses. It was about 95 degrees and I had the chills.
In the building right to the left of what is shown in the above picture, the first peaceful transition of power in human history occurred when George Washington handed the presidency over to John Adams after his second term in office. At this time there were no limits on presidential terms yet, and there was some speculation that George Washington may not want to give it up. He was, after all, the first ever leader of the free world and he was wildly popular with Americans. There had never been a precedent set in any other form of government as to how leadership should agreeably change hands. In monarchies when a king died a family member would assume the role, and in other less peaceful terms a nation that was overpowered by an enemy would be forced to accept a new leader in whatever form that was given to them.
Here George Washington seemed to know that the best interest of this young nation would be best served by him passing the presidency on to John Adams, and he did so in a quiet, history making ceremony. And after all that we read about him and his role in the Revolutionary War, I have to assume he was growing a bit tired too, the poor guy needed a break. One of our girls favorite books is called George Washington's Teeth, and it recounts how he lost many of his teeth during the war {probably due in part to poor hygiene in the war camps, and in part to stress}. He tried to hide it as best he could because he didn't want to be perceived as weak by his soldiers. But it isn't too far of a stretch to think that he saw his goals accomplished with the birth of a new nation and he just wanted to retire.
Here the girls are sitting by a side door to Independence Hall. Later in the day, Alyssa picked out a souvenir key to Independence Hall and she kept trying it in every lock we saw in the hisotoric buildings of the city. Because of course, they just sell keys to the place by the dozen in the gift shops :-)
Below is a slide show of our Philadelphia sight seeing. The city is so diverse in its rich history, but yet has a very urban and modern atmosphere as well. The public market was really unique with a huge variety of traditional and cultural items. It was neat!
I was going to include this next series of photos in the slide show, but it was one of the girls favorite things we did during the whole trip, so I felt like it deserved a little explanation of it's own. This picture was taken at one of the Valley Forge locations, but the city of Philadelphia and many of the historic sites in the surrounding area have the coolest thing called, Once Upon a Nation. There are frequent story benches where very dramatic and engaging story tellers retell the events that occurred there during the Revolutionary War. Many times the story benches are located directly outside a building or in a city square where the events actually took place.
Maybe it's just their appreciation of good, well told story that I love, but seeing these pictures and remembering how exciting the stories were for the girls made me smile. We heard stories about how the eagle was chosen as the national symbol, how one of the worst battles of the war was fought against the body lice that some soldiers painfully experienced in the camps {essentially they ended up lathering a tar like substance on themselves and drinking something that sounded rather poisonous in an effort to get rid of them}, and we heard about little known heroes such as Naval Commander, John Barry. We only got through about 6 or 7 of the 13 stories in Philadelphia, but it was so cool. Our girls want to go back just to finish all the story benches.
The pictures below show just how interesting Once Upon a Nation is, and what a great job the story tellers do...
The inscription on the Liberty Bell: Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof. Leviticus 25:10
There's also a great story our girls love about the Liberty Bell being "spirited away" by eleven year old John Jacob Mickley and his father when they kept it safe during a time that British soldiers were invading the large cities and stealing any metal they find in order to make ammunition. The Bell was kept in hiding under the floor boards of a church until the threat from British soldiers had passed and it later became a symbol of freedom during the Civil War.
Whenever we are watching movies or reading books, it is a very common question that the girls ask, Is this a true story? I love that they ask that, and I love reading books about history to them. As we read books in preparation for this trip, something that was quoted in the back of one of the books about Thomas Jefferson said of all the Founding Fathers, that they knew they were signing their own death warrants when they signed the Declaration of Independence and engaged in war against England. If their efforts to win the war and establish a new nation did not succeed, their actions would be considered treason and they would be hung. I had learned this elsewhere in a history class once upon a time, but explaining this to the girls was new to me. These were just ordinary people, who were convinced that there was a better, more fair way to run a nation. Now that's a really cool true story I'm glad they know.
Look where we went this morning: It's really hard to see here because it's so bright in this photo, but the sundial is actually very accurate. The girls stood in the August box, put up their arms and their shadows told us it was noon. Moments later when we got in the car, the clock read 12:04.
And look what we made: They might not look like much, but they are very cute trees.
And for Grandma!! {click to see the boat up close}... The Show Dome right now is Tom Sawyer themed. And they had this boat with your namesake! I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I'm not sure if in the book the boat is actually named Carol Ann, and when I tried to look it up this afternoon, I couldn't find the answer. But neat, huh?
Emma couldn't believe it either. Here she is saying is that really Grandma's boat?
Have a good night. The girls are settling in to start a movie. You know they're tired when it's only 6:25 and they are asking to put on pjs.
A few pics for Daddy, who is in California tonight... When we got home from church tonight, the girls were all excited to show me the new lunch boxes and backpacks that my mom got for them over the weekend. Thank you very, very much G&G, all their new gear is awesome! Rebekah packed hers up with real food {I should actually go put that away now} asked me to make her some soup for the thermos, and said "I can't wait for school. This is my lunch, I'm all ready now."
The view from here about 10:15 tonight. Although I'll be moving Rebekah to her own bed shortly, you know how upset she is about these sleeping arrangements. And Emma's fake sleeping ~ just so you know.
I hope your L&L BBQ was good, just thinking about it is making me hungry! Sweet Dreams!
Hopewell Furnace was one of the largest producers of iron, and specifically the iron face plates of furnaces in the late 1700s. It is a beautiful, farm-like place. There were also really neat old stone fire places, kind of like stone wall mazes that A and R were running through. It was cool and very quaint. 
This photo was taken at the Eisenhower Farm, near Gettysburg. The mat she's sitting on says First Lady. I had no idea how important this farm was during Eisenhower's presidency in terms of being a meeting place for world leaders and also being a place of refuge for Eisenhower during the Cold War. One of the meetings that took place at the farm was credited with the beginning of eased tensions between leaders during the Cold War. It's also the only National Park Historical Site where children who visit can earn a Jr. Secret Service badge. A very cool place.
This picture was taken at Harpers Ferry where we walked across this bridge from West Virginia into Maryland. When Thomas Jefferson visited this spot in 1793 he said, "The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature." I think he was right.
While doing her Jr. Ranger guide book at Harpers Ferry, Alyssa was so excited to discover a secret trap door in the floorboards of one of the buildings we stopped in...
And this is her "doing that which I know I shouldn't" face.
