Putting up Christmas lights…

 

…70 feet up in the air!

Parade & Properties

  This evening we braved the blistery weather and gathered along Main Street for a Christmas parade!

We went with our long time friends, the La Motte family.

After the parade we headed to their house to have some snacks and play games, specifically “Mayberry-opoly!”

We had a great game with an immense amount of wheelin’ and dealin’ and negotiatin’. (For the Monopoly gurus: Benjamin was able to get the Park Place and Boardwalk equivalent properties and built hotels on each.  I think they were landed on more than a dozen times and it made all 5 opponents either go bankrupt or withdraw. )

We also played the game that taught us all we know about Spanish, “Uno!”

We had a great time, but the evening soon turned into early morning and it was time to go home!

Lydia

Roller Blading

   This Saturday afternoon we did some roller skating at a rink nearby.  When we were younger we used to go quite often, but it had been 4-5 years since we had roller skated because we’d mostly ICE skated during that time.  It was great to hit the rink again and we nearly had the whole place to ourselves.  This skating rink had been around for a very long time, in fact, I had my 7th Birthday party here and Kate did too!

Noah skating on a turn

Benjamin on a outside turn

 Me skating...backwards

All three of us…but Mom and Kate roller SKATEd too!

Thanksgiving Puzzle

Puzzle is of a photo taken at the Plimoth Plantation historical reenactment settlement.

Plymouth Faith & Freedom Tour Day 1

  As I ponder this Thanksgiving Day on the things in my life that I am grateful for, I am reminded of how grateful I am to have actually been in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  With all of the talks about the Pilgrims we’ve been listening to this week and the books we’ve been reading, it’s amazing to be able to actually picture where these things took place and how they would’ve lived.

  I realized that I’d never posted photos from the Plymouth Faith & Freedom tour back in 2009, so I sought to cure that right now.  I also have some video that I’ll edit someday and post here as well.

  This post picks up where this post ended: “Sight Seeing in Plymouth June 28

  On the first morning we gathered in the hotel lobby and then stepped out side where Mr. Phillips led us in some psalms that had been sung many times in Plymouth-by using the Pilgrim method of “leading worship.”  He’d sing a line and we’d all repeat it.

 

 

Trekking through the damp New England morning to Plymouth Harbor.

It “happened” that Marshall Foster was also in Plymouth, so even though it wasn’t planned, he taught during the Faith and Freedom tour as well.

The Mayflower was just to the left of us…more on that later.

This is the canopy where the rock is housed

Gathered around Plymouth rock

Anyone else heard the story about the “Pen of Destiny?”

You can see where the rock was cemented in 1880.

 

Pilgrim Mothers Monument

Massasoit Statue – with a peace pipe in his hand

The colony had a 50 year peace with Massasoit and the Wampanoag tribe

This is a sarcophagus for those who died during the first year of the colony.  Some of their bones had been discovered and this was erected during the tricentennial celebration in 1920.

Statue of William Bradford

As we walked to the next destination on the tour we got to walk past all of these wonderful New England houses.

Anyone have some veggies?

Our next stop was the Jenney Grist Mill where we got to take a tour through a mill the early colonists would’ve used to grind up wheat.

 

 

 

 

“And this is the origin of the term, ‘Keep your nose to the grindstone.’

The demonstration and teaching inside the mill was fantastic and was certainly a highlight of the tour.

We ate lunch at the Jenney Grist Mill

After lunch we headed up to Old Burial Hill where most of the early settlers are buried.

Many of the the gravestones had angels of death and skulls and crossbones on them-they did this to remind those who’d see the stones that the day of death comes to every man and that it quickly approaches.

William Bradford’s grave

The next stop was one of the best parts of the entire trip…anyone seen Monumental?

The Forefathers Monument

 

This post is a work in progress!