Day 1 Monday

I thought we would sleep in late this first day considering how long the day before had been but we were all up bright and early ready to start our vacation fun. The kids had checked out the hotel pool the night before and were pretty mad that we weren't going swimming first thing that morning. I'll admit that the pool was very tempting. It was indoor with a waterfall flowing down into it. And the hot tub wasn't such a bad thing either! Our morning wasn't starting off the best. We were all tired and hungry and the kids were pretty upset that they weren't getting their own way!!

Andy decided that we all needed a big breakfast to get us going. We found a Cracker Barrel down the road and made our game plan.

First stop was Jamestown. The very first permanent settlement in the States. In 1607 the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery brought settlers over from England. The settlers were funded by the "Virginia Company" a group of London investors and Royalty that were looking to make money off of the new land.

Here are replicas of the three boats. If you ask Asher he will tell you that this right here was his favorite part of the trip. In the top photo we were aboard the Susan Constant looking at the Discovery(middle) and the Godspeed. The kids posing with an anchor.One of the "settler's" aboard the Discovery showing us some ammunition used on the boats. The Settlers were very worried that Spain or France would invade them. Interesting tidbit....musket balls were made out of pure lead!! Settler's often sucked on them or stored them in their mouths while they were loading their muskets!! My kids were amazed by this because they of course know the dangers of lead, after all the toy recalls of the past year. It could be why the average life span back then was 40 years old!!

Andy skipped ahead past the Powhatan homes and the kids were pretty upset about it. I promised them that we would see them later but they didn't believe me. Maia was especially whiny at this point. She was hot and tired and all she wanted to do was hit the hotel pool. I must admit I was getting very irritated right about now. I was trying my best to make everyone happy and was getting NOWHERE.

We then moved ahead and had a very nice conversation with a Powhatan girl. Isaac spotted a barrel and couldn't seem to help himself from removing the lid. What he found were a bunch of stinky dried fish!! Seriously these fish had been in this barrel since 2 Thanksgivings ago. Apparently dried fish has a very long shelf life. I swear to you Isaac would've eaten it if we would've let him. The kid will puke if he even so much as smells fruity gum or applesauce or sees a crumb of food on someone else's face...but he'll be more than happy to scarf down some 2 year old fish!!

Our next stop was to talk to one of the Jamestown Lady's. She was a wealth of information!! I could have sat and talked to her all. day. long. The Jamestown Settler's tried many many different ways of making money before they were successful. They failed many many times but they ALWAYS got back up and tried again. The pressure from their sponsors was growing and they needed to come up with a money maker for the colony. The Powhatan's were growing tobacco for their own personal use. The climate was ideal for growing tobacco but the tobacco that the Powhatan's were growing was too bitter for the Londoner's taste. John Rolfe, a prominent planter, was the one who came up with the tobacco crop that ended up keeping Jamestown afloat. Eventually the tobacco became such a cash crop that the settlers were neglecting the food crops they needed for survival and tending mainly the tobacco. Tobacco crops are hard work. There are green worms that need picked off of the underside of the leaves. The settlers needed workers to tend their growing fields and this was the start of indentured servants. The servants would sign 7 years of their life away for passage to Jamestown. There were black men and there were white men. They ALL signed a contract for 7 years. Some men tried to run away from their duties and shirk the contract. If a man was caught trying to run away he stood trial. White men ended up with several more years tacked onto their original contract. Black men, on the other hand, ended up serving a lifetime sentence of servitude. Thus slavery was born into the colony.

Tobacco drying in one of the Fort James structures.

Another one of the settlers jobs was to try and convert the Powhatans to Christianity. The King felt that if the Indians were to become Christians they would be more likely to give up their lands and come under the King's control. The settlers weren't very successful in this endeavour. Not many of the Indians converted at all. And on top of that the relationship between the neighbors wasn't very friendly at all. But Pocohontas, the daughter of a Powhatan Chief, did convert to Christianity. And actually married John Rolfe the prominent planter who came up with the tobacco crops!!!! Oh My Goodness stop me now!!! I could talk about this stuff all day!! I love history!!

Maia was extremely grouchy so we went inside the museum to try and appease her. Inside was fantastic!! it was laid out in a wonderful timeline fashion with gorgeous artifacts and displays. I wish I could give you a glimpse but we weren't allowed to photograph inside the building. After getting partway through the museum the kids were dying of starvation!! Since I would never let my kids perish on the floor in front of happy vacationers we decided to leave and feed our offspring. We could have stayed and eaten in their cafe but no way in heck was I gonna spend 7 bucks on a hot dog!! I was NOT happy to be leaving but off we went. We will be back Jamestown!!

Andy had visions of eating seafood on a boardwalk so I dug out the AAA guide that my Aunt had gotten for us. Unbeknownst to the kids I had packed up their swimsuits...just in case. We didn't tell them but we were headed to the beach for a late afternoon swim.

We had the very best seafood I have ever had in my life!!!! The kids whined and complained the whole time. Andy got irritated. I was starting to get mad. They gave the kids styrofoam cups. Which normally wouldn't be a problem. But on this night Asher was sitting beside me instead of across from me. Meaning I wasn't staring directly at him. So I didn't see him force his fork all the way into the styrofoam and clear through to the other side. Talk about a mess!!! But we couldn't help but laugh and it broke all the tension of earlier.

Off to the beach!! There was no place for any of us to change clothes. I had all the kids duck down and change in the car but that wasn't exactly gonna work for Andy and me!! The kids were on their own in the water. The beach didn't turn out how I expected it to at all!! Isaac LOVED it. I thought he would hate it. Maia really liked it a lot. I thought she would LOVE it. And Asher? Well Asher HATED it. He thought those waves were out to get him and he wouldn't go near them to save his life.

On the first visit he did have fun playing in the sand.

Maia and Isaac were having a blastI love this picture of MaiaIsaac was in utter and complete heavenThis is as close to the water as Asher would get! Don'tcha love his goggles?

After several hours we told the kids it was time to pack it up and head back. Andy wanted to find some treats. The kids, well 2 of them anyway, didn't want to leave. So we had some more tears. After we found the ice cream place and the homemade caramel corn our tears were all dried up and all was well.

But we knew we needed to come up with a different gameplan for tomorrow because everyone was just frustrated by this first day! I'm not saying it wasn't a fantastic day. It was. But I was trying to make everything perfect for everyone and the only thing I was accomplishing was making myself mad.

We headed back to the hotel and crashed. We were all exhausted!!

By the way if anyone wants to see more photo's friend me on facebook. I have all the pics up there. I can only load so many on Blogger so I have had to pick and choose