George Washington's Letter at RMSC

This past Monday, on the Facebook page of the Rochester Museum & Science Center, they asked:

 "Did you know that the museum has a letter written by George Washington"

Heck no, I didn't know that! And in our household these days, he's called General Washington BTW....
At any rate I didn't know it. And given our recent foray into the Revolutionary War, I thought how neat it would be to take my girl there to see it soI asked if it was on display. It is not.

But.....

They told me that I could come by their library and ask to see it and they would be happy to show it to me.

Really????

So I did! I called and made an appointment and today my girl and I went to see what we could see about the George Washington letter.

The librarian, Lea, was a wonderfully kind woman who not only had the letter out and waiting for us, she spent a great deal of time talking to us about it. The letter is dated August 1776 and it's contents are regarding the Stockbridge Indians desire to join the patriots. The libriarian had also taken out a book so she could show us a passage about the same thing! Seriously!!!!

You can read the text of the letter here if you are interested.

The libriarian wore gloves so she didn't get anything on it, but she let us TOUCH THE LETTER (twice actually) ....The paper is made of rags so it felt a little different. However, that was not the big deal. The big deal was that WE WERE TOUCHING SOMETHING GEORGE WASHINGTON ONCE HELD IN HIS HANDS!!!

As you know from my Laura Ingalls Wilder letter, this kind of thing is pretty thrilling to me.... REALLY THRILLING actually.

My girl was feeling very shy and nervous about touching it. I told her she better do this because she's probably not going to get the chance to do this again...Probably ever....

The envelope. Where he wrote his name, General Washington..... OMG!

She was feeling a little overwhelmed. She didn't really want her pic taken but I told her she's probably love it for the rest of her life. Apparently that convinced her.

Later we ran into my friend Sara who works in collections and her boss, Dr McIntosh who is the Director Of Collections. They gave us a little behind the scenes tour where we saw a ton of neat things, including:  

A Mastadon head!!!!

Hummingbird Nests

General Grant's Cigar!!!

A piece of an outfit worn by Red Jacket WHEN he met with George Washington after the Revolutionary War ended....

Afterwards we enjoyed thier beautiful garden.

It was a pretty wonderful afteroon and I can't help but be thankful that we live in a world where every day people have access to things like this. All I did was ask nicely and pay my admission. That my 6 year old girl could see and touch a tiny little piece of our country's history was an experience one can't have everywhere in the world.

We're not special. We're not rich. We're not famous or notable in anyway. And yet, there we sat next to Washington's letter. Museums in general are important for this very reason, and we are lucky indeed!

Hey Let's go Bowling

We went bowling today... I even wore an outfit like that. (Ok, not really.)

We're not regular bowlers or anything like that. But we do have the same kind of list that we did last summer.

For those of you who don't want to read that old entry from last summer we went around in a circle (as small circle, there are only 3 of us) and made a list of anything we wanted to do around town and then we just started doing them. Sounds simple enough. Maybe even so simple that you don't think you need to do something like this.   We did things all summer long and had a great time. Sure you don't have to make a list but it's great to have to look at if you can't think of anything fun to do.

This year bowling and minature golf, among other things are on the list (We played Miniture golf last Friday.)   We were going to go cherry picking today but it was way too hot and there was a air quality warning as well. We decided to take it easy and visit some place with air conditioning.

I have not been bowling in years but we had a great time. I had assumed that bowling would be a really cheap activity, but it really was not.

$12 for 3 shoe rentals
$ 9 to play one game for 3 people
$6 for a bag of popcorn and a water to share.
$1 in the machine where you try and grab those terrible cheap stuffed animals (We won though) 
$28 total for about an hour and 15 minutes worth of entertainment.

I don't think this is a really good deal.  You can sign up at kidsbowlfree.com and your child can bowl 2 free games of bowling each day. I'll probably sign up but I don't know if we'll go again and my girl probably would not want to bowl 2 games. (Which would mean we would have saved $3 today) One was enough for her although she did say THANK YOU FOR TAKING ME TO THIS PLACE with a big hug. Frankly I was surprised that she got such a kick out of bowling.  She hopped around each time she rolled the ball and gave us both high fives and hugs when we had turns.

If it's not too hot on Wednesday we'll get to those cherries. We completely missed strawberry picking this year which was a  bummer because last year I made enough jam to last until this May and we didn't get any to freeze this year. We're eating my peach jam now but when that's gone it's back to the store for jam.

Durand Eastman Park

Today was beautiful, 48 degrees and sunny so we headed 5 minutes from our house to the park along the lake. 

 

We watched firemen doing rescue drills on the pond. 

 

  

Decided to climb to the top of White Lady's Castle.  You can click on the link to read the ghost story but it's also thought to be the crumbling foundation to an old hotel, although no one can seem to find any pictures of it.

Whoooooooooo!!!!

There are steps in the summer but they were all icy so we just climbed the hill. 

 

It was kind of steep. Almost there. 

It was at this point that we noticed a much easier trail up on the other side!!

View from the top.

 

Also at the top.  We were the only people there and it was pretty beautiful up there. The sky and the lake were a gorgeous blue. We saw animal prints and people prints and snowshoe prints!  I would love to try snowshoeing!

If you have not yet read my posts a little further down the page you'll probably think I'm a terrible parent when you get there. My girl has 2 ear infections (she IS wearing a hat with ear flaps!) But she has no fever and is on antibiotics. I'm not really the kind of person who gets all crazy about sick children outside (don't tell my mom)  and we felt like the sunshine would do her good. She was also ready for a rare nap this afternoon which was a treat for everone and we napped too!

How Time Flies!

My oh my it's September already.

I've been gone from the blog for the entire summer really and I'm sure I have scarcely a reader left-Come back you 10 readers I had before!!! I'm here!

At any rate, since my husband is back to school (he's a teacher) and my girl starts her pre-school class on Monday I'm getting back into a routine of sorts and hope to be posting regularly again!

We had the most wonderful summer. I don't think I've ever had so much fun. Even as a child with a long stretch of summer vacation in front of me, my parents never had me THIS busy doing stuff I liked!

In addition to the stuff posted in my prior post we also:

-Went to Niagara Falls and the Niagara Aquarium-Frankly being THAT close to the edge of the falls with my daughter made me a nervous wreck-And it's not like she's prone to jump off railings or anything like. It's just so OPEN. This got me curious and of course I had to google death at Niagara falls when I got home (BTW, between 20-25 people jump over the falls in a given year! Yikes!)
-Went to Springdale farms-a local farm/petting zoo run but people with developmental disabilities.
-Had a garage sale
-Had a bunch of campfires with Smores in our backyard
-Hosted dear friends at our home for a week (and ate with them at all of their favorite old hangouts here!)
-I went to my 20th High School Reunion
-Got a lovely Coach bag at a Garage Sale-This was a SERIOUS score!
-Saw Oceans Alive at the Planetarium
-Spent time splashing in our kiddie pool
-Visited more farmers's markets
-Attended Laura Ingall's Day at the Genesee Country Museum with other dear friends
-Harvested so many wonderful veggies from our garden
-Had many picnics all around town
-Went on a local home tour
-I caught up with a friend I had not seen in 18 years and spent a whole afternoon talking!
-Gave the welcome speech to my daughter's whole nursery school
-Visited many playgrounds and libraries!
-Ate in our Gazebo.

I'm not happy it's over but I do have stuff to do around here-Like laundry for starters!!

See you soon!

Family Outings #1 & #2

This week we started our Family Outings (Or Staycation as my husband keeps calling it.) Sorry I have no pics this time around!

#1) I actually did not participate in the first one! It was raining and my daughter and husband went to a local indoor play place called Bounce It Out while I stayed home and got to clean the house with no one in my way (or calling my name-Just me and a book on tape-my own little vacation!)

Anyway-Bounce it out has these enormous indoor bouncy things (Like the kind you can rent for a party but 2 stories tall with different rooms or really big slides or obstacle courses. It was $8 to get in (children only, adults are free) and I think my husband got my daughter a $2 slice of cheese pizza and some dried fruit. I think the whole outing was $11. It probably would not seem cheap if you had more than one child but we don't.

This is one of my daughter's very favorite places to go and she'll ask for it any time you give her a choice. It is a very active place and she gets TIRED. (always a good thing.)

#2) Since our own farmers market is closed this week because the town hall is getting ready for the 4th. We picked up my mom today and went to the one in her town. (Keep in mind I count any activity that doesn't involve TV or a trip to Target or Wegmans as a family outing) Ok perhaps that is an exaggeration but really, any time you break out of your normal mold or invite someone along I think it makes it special. No cost at all except for the food but we buy that anyway. And it was different and I think, a little cheaper.

Tonight my girl is sleeping at my parents because my Dad is having hip surgery Monday and she won't be able to stay there for a while. Never underestimate the power of grandma sleep away camp ;-) I employ that one regularly though so I won't use it as part of my list!