Farewell Birthday...

We had to have a sad little service for Birthday, Rudy's beta fish. Rudy was heartbroken at Birthday's demise, so the boys both made cards for the fish...

Rudy's prayer at Birthday's funeral service: I love you, Birthday. I’m sorry you had to die. Thank you for being a good fish. Amen.

Frontier Culture Museum

The first day of spring break was a success! After a well-deserved morning sleeping in, the boys finally made their way downstairs around 8:30. We decided on a mini-road trip to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA.

The first "displays" you visit are the old world homes, representing what the lifestyles were like of America's first immigrants in their home countries.

First was West Africa. This is a new addition to the museum and not completed yet. The docent explained that you'd think of the exterior walls of the compound as the walls of your house and the areas inside the walls were the rooms. The three they have are the sleeping house for the husband, his "office," and sleeping houses for the two wives (thankfully the boys didn't pick up on this cultural difference!). They also have a kitchen and will be starting the garden soon.

We were all impressed with the intricately carved doors:

The next site was an English farm. This house was actually disassembled in England and rebuilt here. We got to see how a spinning wheel works and tried our hands at cleaning the wool.

The baby sheep were only 2 weeks old. So cute and woolly!

We've been trying to talk James into letting us get a few chickens. It's not working, but the boys were even more convinced after seeing all the chickens at the different homesteads here!

These kids will take any opportunity to "hike". There was a slightly unkempt trail that led off of the main walkway, so we had to take that loop. Of course, I didn't argue and it led us around this pond with some pretty views.

Not sure why he needed his rally cap at the Frontier Culture Museum. Rooting for the immigrants?!

Trying to catch the chicken?

The next stop was the Irish forge and Irish farm. No pictures here, for some reason. The highlight in "Ireland" were the piglets.

Actually, now that I think about it, the highlight at every site was the cat. Each home had a cat sleeping somewhere inside and the boys were way more interested in the cat than in anything the interpreter had to tell them!

The last old world site was Germany. This was our favorite, largely because the guy working here was great. He was born in Austria himself, so had a lot to share about Germanic culture and history. The boys liked it because he took them into the hen house and let them collect the eggs!

Fascinated by the well...

(We liked these chickens the best!)

After the old world, we took a mini-bus to the new world. The first stop was this 1750s farm and cabin. The guide explained that, upon arriving, our family could have received 100 acres of deeded land. I asked a real stumper: how would we have found it? The guide actually didn't know the answer!

We hopped back on the bus to ride over to the 1820s farmhouse, which was a pretty big improvement from the cabin! The boys got to try their hand at making noodles:

The final stops were the 1850s home and school house. The kids didn't believe me at first that the one room school house would have been for kids from their ages all the way up through high school.

I'm not sure that Rudy and Brady really grasped the overall old world/new world concept of the day, but they loved checking out all of the houses and seeing the animals on the farms. It was a fun little day trip, and we still had time for a family jog and family bike ride in the evening!

Pittsburgh Weekend

We decided on our fall road trip that we didn't have enough time in Pittsburgh. This spring, we had 2 free hotel nights that we had to use, so we headed back to our old hometown for a weekend.

Friday night, we drove by the old house and ate dinner near our neighborhood. We took advantage of the convenience (ahh...we miss that) and actually ran a few errands before heading to the hotel.

Saturday morning, the first order of business after breakfast was the pool! The boys played there for about an hour before we went to the children's museum.

At the kids' museum: Musical stairs, that make noises when you step on them...

An awesome water play area. We loved the pipes coming out of the floor that you could use to create your own fountain.

Tilted room. Makes my head spin even to remember it!

Magic floating paperclips:

Construction area:

Rocket creation:

Next, we walked over to the Carnegie Science Center.

So far, I think this is one of our favorite museums. The main building has an amazing train garden, interactive robot stations, and lots of other really fun stuff. Brady got to be an assistant in the soda (or pop, in Pittsburgh!) making demo:

There is a whole other building dedicated to sports. Rock wall:

Pitching practice:

and trampolining:

Brady and James also rode a virtual roller coaster. There were also races, hockey games, and basketball shooting. I think the trampoline was the biggest hit.

That night we went to the Pirates baseball game. Highlights here? The pierogie race and the post-game fireworks!

Rudy fell asleep during the 8th inning...

Sunday morning, we headed back to the sports museum for a few more activities and then visited the Monongahela Incline.

On the way home Sunday afternoon, I asked the boys what their favorite thing was about the trip...

R: I don't know...hard decision.
K: OK. What were your top three?
R: trolley ride up the hill (the incline), the trip, the lollipops [the free lollipops in the hotel lobby]
B: trolley ride up the hill, the science center, swatting the fleas [flying ants at the top of the incline that were attracted to James' yellow shirt but nobody else's]

So glad we drove all the way to PA for lollipops and bug swatting...