Amish Country

Philly in Pictures

The Plimoth Plantation

Mary Anne:

 After Boston, we headed down to Plymouth, and saw a replica of the Mayflower, called Mayflower 2. There were a few people dressed up from the 17^th century scattered about the ship, acting as if they had just landed the real Mayflower. We could ask them questions about the journey to America and about the ship, and they would answer as if they had just landed.

 Afterwards we headed up to Plimoth Plantation, which is a little village of pilgrims, all dressed and in character, and all living in little houses and tending gardens and taking care of animals. They all acted as if they actually lived there, making their own food and eating it, sweeping and cleaning their houses, tending their gardens, cutting wood, etc. 

Jackie helped grind corn to make flour.

Caleb helped saw logs.

Caleb is doing 9 pin bowling.

Caleb says he is shooting Steven from the cannon.

Steven watches me fall on stilts and is like; “I can’t believe you fell. It’s really easy! Let me show you.”

Steven showing me how not to walk on stilts.

Katie Marie just plopped herself on the ground and looked at rocks.

We got dressed up in typical Pilgrim clothes and pretended to be pilgrims.

 We had a really fun time! It was really cool to see how pilgrims lived and to meet them all.

A short walk from the pilgrim village was a Wampanoag tribe.

Katie Marie playing a native game.

A typical winter home.

The pelts that kept them warm.

Outside kitchen.

 It was kind of funny that our family does a lot of the same things the people in the early days did (grow food in their own gardens, grind their own flour, make our own bread, collect eggs, chop wood, get water from a spring, etc).  But we're not quite ready to live exclusively in a movable tent like the one Ruthie's standing in front of, all crowded together for weeks on end.  Oh wait, that's exactly what we're doing on this sabbatical!  Maybe we would have made a good native or pilgrim! J

Boston Bucket List

Hollie:

Roy and I had lots of plans for all of the wonderful things we wanted to see in Boston.  Then reality hit.  It was really hard for us to have to cross things off that we were just not going to get to.  The kids didn't have the stamina to run all over town, and sometimes they didn't share our perspective of what would be cool to experience.  Then I got sick.  Real sick.  102 fever sick.  That was not pretty.  We had to leave Boston with the thought in our head that we can always come back.  I think in the long run, this was good for us to set the pace for the rest of our journey.  We have learned not to over plan, and be thankful for what we did see, and look forward to coming back and seeing more at a later date.  In the end, we saw all of the "essentials".

The rest of Boston:
The Tea Party Museum.  Here we got to go on a replica of the actual tea party ships and throw tea over board!  This museum was really cool. They had live actors that interacted with the kids, and paintings that "came to life" (as movies) and told parts of their stories.  I wish they would have let us take pictures of those.

 Throw the tea overboard!

Trinity Church: one of the top 10 most beautiful churches.  Although we got to visit, we had wanted to attend a Sunday service (which didn't happen).  The cool thing was that when we got there there was a man giving a tour and demo of the 7000 pipe organ.  As he was talking and people were gathering around he pointed to Mary Anne and asked her to come play one of the notes for him.  She was super excited.  I wish he would have let her play more!

 Reflection in the John Hancock Building.

Boston Old State House: Where they first publicly read the Declaration of Independence (from the balcony), and where the Boston Massacre happened. It has a cool spiral staircase inside!

We went to Paul Revere's house and visited Old Iron Sides

And of course Boston Public Library where Mary Anne complained because we couldn't spend a week there.  Roy was able to visit with another of his fraternity brothers, Neel.  This was the day I was super sick.  Roy took all the kids and let me sleep!

We have already created our bucket list for the next time we visit.  We might have to spend a month to do it all!