As Alli put it in her blog, here in the East, if George Washington ever walked in a place, they make it into a park or national monument.  We’ve tried to take the girls to as many of these as we can and we’ve done pretty good so far.  The only big one we haven’t done is Mt. Vernon which I will definitely do before we leave the East. 

Washington was a great man and I love seeing so many of the places he walked and worked and sacrificed for his country.  It is remarkable to me that he never wanted to be in the lime light.  Never wanted to be President.  He simply wanted to go home and be the farmer he was.  He served his country out of civic virtue, not out of political ambition.  There is a quote I love by Benjamin Franklin that I don’t have with me right now (because I’m still sitting on that Turquoise beach, remember? tee hee), but it says something about how the best men to be in politics are the ones who don’t really want to be there.  The doctors and farmers and regular men who have no aspirations to be that powerful.  They are the best men for the job because they serve faithfully and then leave when they are done without corrupting the system.  Oh that we had always had men like George Washington running our country.   Well, here is Part I of our George Washington tour…

Washington Rock was the first place we went.  It is just 15 minutes from us here in New Jersey up in the Watchung hills, I mean Mountains. (They don’t really know what mountains are here in the East so we try not to make them feel bad when they call hills mountians.) It is where Washington watched the British troop movements down below in the valley  from a place of height and security.  It gave him enough strategic advantage that it allowed him to win some important battles.  Today it still provides a beautiful view down into the valley, though you look down on cities instead of farmland as GW did.
 
Allison plays George.

Our next stop on the GW tour was in New York City where we  saw the church where Washington prayed on his inauguration day (though I didn’t’ get to take the girls in because it was having some work done.) 
We also saw the place where Washington was inaugurated here on these steps.  This is actually right across the street from the NY Stock Exchange.

Next, in Philadelphia we saw where he sat and presided as the constitution was written.

On the way home from Philly we drove through Valley Forge.  This has to be one of my favorite places of all time.  It was beautiful, quiet and peaceful.  It had a sacred feel about it.  One walks through this place with reverence.




This arch was erected in honor of those who suffered here at Valley Forge.  The inscriptions are beautiful and give a powerful reminder of what took place here. 

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.”

In my opinion, we were on holy ground that day.  I’ll never forget it.

Our next big day trip was on July 2nd to Philadelphia.  Rock was wonderful and once again watched all the kids at home so we could explore.  Hmm I think he deserves a vacation to the Caribbean! 

It was a lot of fun to be there on the 2nd because that is the actual day that the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Congress.  It was tweaked for 2 more days before they finally agreed upon it and then signed several days after that.  Here’s what Independence Hall looked like while we were there:

Alli was quite miffed.  Wonder how much that special scaffolding cost! 

George Washington’s chair in the background.  We also got to see the copy of the Declaration that they read from the steps of Independence Hall on July 4th 1776.

Liberty Bell. 
Ya know, they won’t even let you touch it! 

Now for all the firsts we saw in Philadelphia.  These first 3 were created by Benjamin Franklin and are only a few of the many things he did in his life.  What an amazing man he was!

 
Sight of the first fire station.  You can’t see it well, but that’s Ben with a fire hat on the brick wall to the right.

First Post Office-the guy in costume was our tour guide!

First Library

Here’s the list of all Ben’s accomplishments.  His tombstone and grave are just behind me here.

Other firsts:

First official US Court room

First US Congress.  The Senate was upstairs, the House of Reps was downstairs, thus the term upper and lower houses.

Home of the First Continental Congress

First National Bank

First Stock Market

Betsy Ross home, sight where the first US flag was sewn.

Beautiful old colonial homes.

Signing the Constitution

When this summer trip was in the planning stages we were hoping to get to Washington DC while the girls were here, especially because Sarin is taking US History next year.  But when DC became too expensive we decided on Philly.  And it was perfect.  Philadelphia is oozing with history.  Every nook and cranny has some great event attached to it.  All three of us decided that between the beautiful buildings, both modern skyscrapers and  historical landmarks, and the wonderful history in Philadelphia, we like it much better than New York City.   I can’t wait to go back!  Who wants to visit next?

Ok, more catch up on our summer fun while I sit on the beach and fry to a crisp! 

On our second day into the city we saw a ton!

First stop was the World Trade Center

What you see in the background is the spot where the twin towers used to stand and where the new Freedom Tower and 9/11 Memorial are being built.

Next was Phantom of the Opera.  FIRST row seats!  We were so close we could touch the stage and see the spit coming out of their mouths!!!!  It was Awesome!  I’ve seen it 3 times now and that was the best ever!

Some fun shots from Times Square


Huge billboard the church has put up in Times Square to balance the Book of Mormon musical publicity.

We love nerds!!! 

Our room! 

I plan on sitting on that beach and doing nothing but reading and sleeping for 5 days!!!!  Thank you Alli and Sarin!!!!!!!

We have had a whirlwind trip so far with Alli and Sarin.  It’s been two weeks and I can’t believe how much we’ve done!  I’m so behind I’ll never catch up, but here’s my attempt in the posts that follow.

Little Sisters Rock!
Sarin and Libby bonded right away.

The day after the Aunts got here we all went to New York City.

First Subway ride for Alli and Sarin

Libby liked the subway too…

Hold on tight!

First stop, the Empire State Building!  (Unfortunately, the line was 2 hours long and so we didn’t get to go up! )

Next stop, Central Park!

Taken on this bridge


Taken under another beautiful bridge.

Belvedere Castle

Next stop, Museum of Natural History

Last Stop, Times Square!

And that was only Day One in the city!

I know these are late, but the shirt says it all…

“My Heart Belongs to Daddy”

Just when I was starting to worry because I haven’t had any good blog posts lately documenting the obnoxious things my boys do, they came through for me.

Sunday at church the two older boys walked into the chapel ahead of us.  When we got into the chapel, they were gone.  So we put our stuff in a pew towards the back of the chapel and I went out to see if I could find them.  I didn’t look super hard because I figured they might have gone to the bathroom.  When I came back to find them still not there, Rock took a turn around the building.  The meeting started and I assumed that Rock was with them somewhere out in the hall giving them a good talking to.  Just as they were singing the sacrament hymn, I turned and saw Rock in the back of the chapel–with no boys.  That’s when I started to worry a little.  I gave Levi to a friend and left the chapel again to go look.  We searched the entire parking lot, every room, closet and cranny in the building and could not find them.  I was definitely torn between anger and worry. 
Just as Rock was about to get in the car and start driving around the neighborhood he saw the head of our adorable oldest child poke up from the very  front pew of the chapel.  The little stinkers had decided to lie down in the front pew to play a joke on us.  Only, their joke went further than they expected when Mom and Dad didn’t come find them before the meeting started.  Upon seeing that Mom and Dad were not in the chapel, that adorable little head grabbed his little brother and walked out to look for us.  My favorite line was, “What did we do wrong?”  Rather than meet out their punishment there at the church, we made them suffer and stew about it during church.  (insert evil laugh here).  When they finally understood what a bad idea that was and how worried we had been they were sufficiently penitent and their consequence was not overly huge.  And we set up some new rules to make sure this little episode is not repeated!
Then the very next day, worried I’m sure about the state of their mother’s bloglessness, those same two adorable children decided that it would be cool to pick the lock on the office door-just for fun.  I have to tell you that we have already been burned in this area because all the doors upstairs had key locks and we assumed naively that our landlord had provided us with the right keys.  They did not.  And we got to pay a locksmith $100.00 last year to have one opened.  We hadn’t gotten around to replacing the doorknob on the office and thus the little partners in crime had just what they needed for a fun time of lock picking.  Rock discovered what they were doing too late, once the door had been closed and locked. 
Do you know how maddening it is to pay a man $100.00 for 5 minutes of “work” in your home?  What’s more maddening is that I jiggled a little metal thing in the lock too-how come it didn’t work for me?!!!!! 
Yet another lesson learned for our dear children who will be doing  extra chores this week to help work off the expense. 

But on a happier note, I must brag for a minute about the chance I had the same day to read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to none other than…. Darth Vader. 

Such a thrill.  Not many people get that chance.  Only lucky moms like me!

And just because our family (especially Levi) thinks this is the best commercial of ALL time, I had to include this too.

You’ll remember this photo from a few weeks ago:

Well, there’s MORE!

Here’s what we were up to in May!

Mother’s Day
My favorite mother’s day card.  A song written by Cade and sung to me by all the boys.  It’s sung to the tune of Happy Birthday Day.

Family Hike

We saw turtles and inch worms and fireflies, oh my!

And speaking of creepy crawly things…
Here are 6! Count them, SIX little boys inspecting a bug they found.  They inspected for at least 15 minutes.

~Ok, enough snakes, snails and puppy dog tails, its time for some sugar and spice!~

Something Nice

Liberty is moving up in the world…

She is venturing out of her family room playpen and into the rest of the house.  No, she’s not climbing stairs yet, though she can get herself up on one.

She also has some adorable curls that I tried to catch on film.  These don’t really do them justice.

And she still LOVES to play with Daddy.

There are many reasons why I want to homeschool.  For my friends and family who are curious and incredulous, I wanted to get those reasons down on paper…at least the internet kind. 

~Disclaimer: I am not judging anyone by sharing these ideas.  Where there are judgments it is a personal judgment about the public school system itself and what is right or wrong for our family.   Not everyone should homeschool.  Raising children is an incredibly hard job and there is so much variety among children, parents, and unique family situations that no one can make the decision about what is right for another’s family. However, because people can get defensive on both sides when this topic is discussed, I just wanted to add my little disclaimer before I begin.~  

Reason 1.
I can tailor my children’s education to them individually.  They can go as fast or as slow as they need.  As deep or as broad as they want.  We (parents AND children) get more choice and more control over what they learn.  We can feed their curiosity (nod to the Weiss family!).  A classroom teacher cannot do that as well.  

Reason 2.
I don’t want them to be gone for the best part of their day. If I send them to school, I get the leftovers after homework, friends and after school extras. I do not want the school system dictating how I spend my time with my child.

Reason 3. 
I can incorporate the gospel into their learning.

Reason 4. 
I am a teacher and I’m good at it.  I want to be the one to teach my children and not give some other person the joy of doing it.  I want to be the one to read them all the wonderful books out there!

Reason 5.  
I want to be the one teaching our values and beliefs rather than the “state” or society.

Reason 6. 
I can give them a Classical Education.  This kind of education is heavily based on the classics of history, literature, math, science, etc.  Their education is basically built around history and they study the corresponding subjects at the same time.  So when learning ancient history they study the science, literature, art, music and math that came from that time period.  It creates a more complete and whole picture of the world. 

Reason 7.  
I think socialization happens better outside of the  classroom, for the most part.  Children do need to have lots of opportunity to work and play with other kids and adults.  But there are plenty of ways to do that while homeschooling, especially now days when co-ops abound and the number of homeschooling families is at an all time high. 

Reason 8.   
Along those same lines, I want my children’s focus to be on God, family and education- not friends.  I want their family relationships to be the most important.  That doesn’t mean that friends aren’t important.  It just means that friends should not be their main focus.

Reason 9.
I want my kids to be leaders, not followers.

Reason 10. 
I want my children to love their country and to revere the men who established it.  I want them to understand the founding principles and be able to defend them and uphold them.  That is not something they teach well enough in the public school system today.

Reason 11.   
I have three little boys and they need to wiggle and move more than a desk and classroom can allow.

Reason 12. 
I want to take them out into the world to explore and experience life in a way they cannot do while sitting in a classroom.

Reason 13. 
I think children today are too scheduled and I want my kids to have the freedom of time to explore and play and just be a kid without adults running every part of their life.  A homeschool day can be much shorter than a regular public school day and will give them more time to play, explore and learn on their own.  I can accomplish in 3-4 hours a day what it takes a public school teacher 7-8 to do.

Reason 14. 
I want to learn with my children and get a better education myself.

The most common question I get when I tell people I want to homeschool is, “But what about those things they can only learn in school?”  To that my answer is, yes, there are some good things they can learn there, but for me, the advantages to homeschooling far out way the advantages to public school.  And the disadvantages of public school far out way the disadvantages of homeschooling. 

So there you go!  We are excited to start this journey together and look forward to sharing it with you on our blog!