The following photos were taken on a spur of the moment quick trip to Gettysburg on a Sunday night. Since I rarely go anywhere without my camera, I was able to document this little jaunt and count it as a field trip, as the boys did hear a bit of history as we were there and told them what we knew and read some of the signs posted there. And, since it was a spur of the moment trip on a Sunday evening, you know it's not too far from home. It was not a planned field trip and we did not see much of Gettysburg, but the boys got a taste of it. The big boys have been there three times before: once when the Sunday School Class that my husband and I were a part of got a personal tour from one of our Sunday School classmates who was a Civil War re-enactor, the second time, the same Sunday School classmate took the class back one evening for a Ghost Tour, and we went and toured the Welcome Center/Museum on a homeschool field trip. This Sunday evening trip, however was the first our youngest has been there, and it was a very cold, windy evening.
My four men bundled up on top of the tower (as far as they could go) and the head just peeking past Nick, is our friend, Ben.
Colonel Patrick "Paddy" O'Rorke was killed in battle on Little Round Top in Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 and they put this up to honor his memory. (Notice how shiny his nose is? Look below to find out why.)
Yes, people rub his nose in the superstition that his Irish luck will rub off on them.
Devil's Den
Then there are vacations, where we go farther from home, but they count as field trips none-the-less, because we always include something educational. The following photos are from a trip we were blessed to be able to take last month with some good friends from church. We went to my favorite place (a place I dream of living one day), Williamsburg, Virginia. It has such rich history.
Nick and Anthony were not thrilled that Mom wanted them to get into the stocks for a photo. This was outside the courthouse (which was in the process of having a new roof put on).
Chowning's Tavern
The Print Shop
The Shoe Shop
My favorite tavern, King's Arms Tavern
The butcher on his way to . . .
the butcher shop
This lady took some time to speak with us and give us some history about Williamsburg. She also shared the fact that Colonial Williamsburg is one mile long from William and Mary College to the Governor's Palace.
A beautiful old church. They still have service on Sunday mornings. I hope to attend sometime, but we were not there on a Sunday this trip.
I was surprised to see so many green things growing in the garden in February.
We stopped to examine this tree because we found the trunk fascinating. It didn't seem to have bark like other trees, and it felt much smoother than other trees. (Who but a Christian homeschool family would stop to study the trunk of a tree when on vacation?)
The boys with a very good friend among some very tall bamboo.
I'm not sure what these gentlemen were making, but they were stripping all of the bark from these tree trunks.
The Governor's Palace and below a carriage arrives at the Governor's Palace.
We also visited the Living Museum in Newport News, Virginia. They had a tortoise shell that was preserved and you were allowed to crawl into it and take photos. We were pleased that ALL of the kiddos were good-natured enough to do so for photos.
They had a large earth suspended from the ceiling, and I just had to get Nick (my basketball player) to pose for this shot -- spinning the earth on his finger, like he can a basketball.
Our youngest loved the touch tank area, where a lady would pull different small animals out of a tank and allow him to touch them and see them up close. This is a spider crab.
This was so fun! We got Chelsea and her friend Kim to climb into this hollow log, Chelsea with her head out one end and Kim with her feet out the other end, to make it look like Chelsea is really long!
I was in awe of this majestic bird. I had never seen a bald eagle so close before, and he is just beautiful and proud.
Great Blue Heron
It was a great trip, even though we had quite a bit of rain. We definitely want to go back again and spend more time and see more Colonial Williamsburg demonstrations. We also want to visit Jamestown and Yorktown, none of us have been to these two places.
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