Jamestown: Here we come! (Part 1)

Statue of Pocahontas

(We had been reading several books about her that week)

John Rolfe (Pocahontas' husband)

He was great! He interacted with the kids and really made history come alive.

Archeological digging still in process......really cool to see!

Statue of Captain John Smith overlooking the James River

Model of first Jamestown fort

Glass building in background is where the first statehouse was built

Now the location of artifacts found from archeological dig

Plaque below the wooden cross.....To the Glory of God!


Kids standing where the first permanent English settlement began

Outside the church in the Jamestown settlement

(5th church built on site.....fires destroyed most of the others)

Inside the church

Last weekend, David woke me up on Saturday morning around 9:00 and said, "Let's do it.....let's go to Jamestown today." We had been studying it in school that week, but I did not think we could actually go there and visit....wasn't it a long way? Little did I know that it was only a 2 1/2 hour drive from our house! David had been doing some research that morning on the computer and found a great deal on priceline for a hotel room nearby in Williamsburg for the night. So we literally threw some clothes together and by the afternoon we were walking on the same ground that the early settlers discovered 400 years earlier. How many times do you get to study something and actually go and see it the next day? We all had a lot of fun exploring the area and learning a lot. I wonder where we will be headed this weekend? Maybe we need to study the Caribbean Islands next week?

Jamestown: Here we come! (Part 2)

My Englishmen:)

The kids in front of the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery ships

Inside the ship....sleeping nook

On deck of the Susan Constant (largest one) overlooking the 2 others

Touring the Powhatan village

Touching the deerskin

Outside a Powhatan home

(homes were built by the women in the village)

Luke grinding corn

Standing on a huge map outside the museum with their bows and arrows from our trip

One exhausted kiddo on the way home!

After eating pancakes at the local pancake house in Williamsburg, we headed to the living history museum: Jamestown Settlement. It is a 30,000 square foot living-history museum located a few miles from historical Jamestown. It was built in 2007 in celebration of Jamestown's 400 year birthday. It has a theater, hands-on museum, Powhatan Indian village, 3 replicas of the 3 ships that carried the settlers across the ocean, and James Fort as it would have looked 4oo years ago. It was a lot of fun and we ended up staying there a lot longer than we had anticipated. Definitely a must-see if you ever visit the Williamsburg area.We definitely had some tired kiddos (and big kids!) at the end of the weekend, but it was so worth it!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Luke posing in front of the yummy chocolate fudge cake (Kids picked it out at a local bakery in town)

Reading homemade cards the kids made

Happy Birthday, Daddy! He woke up to a delicious breakfast in bed prepared by the kids: banana pancakes, turkey bacon, eggs and orange juice. The kids wrote a song for him that they performed along with drums and tamporines. If he wasn't already fully awake, he was now! We also took him out to dinner that night and had a yummy fudge cake for dessert. We love you Daddy and hope your day was extra special!