Bedtime Threats

Isaak was told that bedtime was approaching, and he objected (loudly). Jaela and Macey, who have been reading a lot of Hardy Boys books lately, thought that maybe they could encourage him to accept the idea...

Jaela: Isaak, if you don't go to bed, it will be curtains for you!

Macey: Yeah, and you'll be a goner!

A Christmas Tree "Poem"

Every December in Clarksville you'll find,

a large striped tent full of trees of all kinds.

This year on the third, a family you know

went Christmas tree shopping with faces aglow.

Macey looked high,

and Jaela looked low,

and somewhere between them, Anya did go.

While the twins each took pictures 'mid those trees from Wisconsin,

the parents selected a Fraser, Doug's cousin.

They bound it and trimmed it, and when they got home,

the chore was to get it to stand all alone.

The dad, he succeeded, then hung all the lights,

while the kids all exclaimed, "Wow, they're so bright!"

A few hours later, with carols a'playin',

the dad and the kids did some tree decoratin'.

And that is the end of this poem, I fear.

(And I am SO glad I don't do this each year!)

Pictionary Junior

Jaela and Macey got Pictionary Junior (recommended for ages 7 and up) for their birthday, and since Mike got home, we've been playing it as a family. The first few times we played, Mike and Anya were a team, Jaela and Macey were a team, Isaak was the designated die roller, and I monitored the cards Anya drew to make sure they were within her scope of drawing capabilities and I assisted occasionally with organizing her thought processes for guessing. (In other words, I gave her broad hints when she was on the right track.) :)

We're considering implementing a new set of rules, however, for future games.

Twins cannot be on the same team.

It just isn't fair to the rest of us.

This is a picture of the quick draw that won the game for Jaela and Macey. Jaela drew for less than 5 seconds, and Macey had the answer in three guesses, the first two being "ball" and "circles".

(And the answer is: Frog)

Educational TV

Have you seen those Verizon commercials where they compare Verizon's coverage vs AT&T? They show them a LOT during football games, so we've seen most of them, muted of course.

This Sunday was no different, and when the first one popped up on the TV screen, Isaak pointed it out to us:

"Hey, Dat's America!"

Who says commercials can't be educational?

Welcome Home Ceremony

We left the house at 10:15 pm Thanksgiving night, and almost exactly an hour later, we were sitting in a hangar on Fort Campbell Army Airfield, waiting for an airplane to land.

We waited and waited, ever so patiently.

After an hour and a half of waiting, the Army band started playing Christmas songs.

And then we went outside and waited some more, watching for the plane and counting down the minutes until it was supposed to land.

We went back inside and waited some more while the returning soldiers got into formation and marched into the hangar.

Finally, we got to see what we had come for...

And after waiting for another hour or so in a different hangar...

we finally got to take him home with us...at 4:00 in the morning!

(photo credits: Jaela and Macey)

(Click here for more photos from the Clarksville newspaper)

Jamestown Through Jaela's Eyes

Powhatan Indian Village:

Ships at anchor:

Riverfront Discovery Area:

James Fort:

(The musket firing demonstration...he fired, she jumped!)

(Self-portrait in the bathroom on the way to the van)

Jamestown Through Macey's Eyes

Powhatan Indian Village:

Ships at anchor:

Riverfront Discovery Area:

James Fort:

(The musket firing demonstration...she jumped as she took the picture!)

Jamestown...Just the Facts

Jamestown was very hands-on, and fun for everyone. There was a museum inside (no pictures allowed), and outside there were four places to visit and experience: Powhatan Indian Village, three replica ships at anchor, a Riverfront Discovery Area, and James Fort.

Powhatan Indian Village was set up with different sized homes, complete with beds, fire pits, and feathers, arrows, and animal pelts of all kinds hanging on the walls. There were places for the kids to grind corn like an Indian would have, and they were free to try out the beds, touch the pelts, handle the (unsharpened) arrows, and explore every nook and cranny.

Inside the village there were deerskins stretched out for the kids to scrape with oyster shells, and along the walkway nearby, they had an example of a hunter's camp set up, along with a garden area.

Due to the flooding from the Nor'easter, we couldn't explore the ships. So we took pictures as we walked past them, and headed to the Riverfront Discovery Area where they had examples of Indian canoes in different stages of completion. After we had examined a water-filled finished example, the kids got to grab oyster shells and assist in scraping out a canoe-in-progress.

The fort was just as hands-on as the Indian village had been. There were armor and helmets to try on, character actors to talk to, cannons to check out, a musket-firing demonstration, a storehouse, church, homes, and gardens to explore, and an armory full of swords, spears, pistols and muskets. We spent most of our time at the armory, where the man in charge was very patient with the kids' questions and requests, and was very knowledgeable about 17th century soldiery. He even had the entire first two paragraphs of the "Instructions of the Marchall for the better enabling of a privat soldier" memorized, in 1611 Old English!

That concludes the summary of our trip to Jamestown; where we went, what we saw, and what we did. In other words, just the facts. Coming soon will be two separate pictorial blog posts entitled:

Jamestown Through Macey's Eyes

Jamestown Through Jaela's Eyes