Focht Family Blog

Sunday night I was able to visit with a friend of mine from high school days. She had moved near to where my mom’s camper was being worked on so that was wonderful. Her name is Kim and she does reenactments of the French and Indian War so we are going to try to go to one of the reenactments next year so the kids can watch and learn. :)

Monday morning we picked up my mom’s camper. It is better than new. They fortified the area that broke with steel and also the other side so it wouldn’t happen again. Here is a picture of the same area that was broken…

The gentleman who was working on the repairs also noticed that my mom had a large gap where her water heater is instead of the compartment being flush with the camper so he repaired that as well…

After we picked it up we were back on the road again. We drove through Rhode Island on the way back to Vermont so we could check off another state and we had ice cream for dinner at Kimball’s! :) LOVE that ice cream!!

Okay… I remembered the camera this day. We decided since we weren’t too far away from Williamsburg that we would head there on our way to Indianapolis so we stopped on Saturday and spent the day.

When we first got into the visitor’s center we saw a sign for costumes that you could rent for the kids. The kids wanted to so we rented them costumes.

With the costumes came a letter for each of the kids asking them to do chores for the author. The girls get to learn how to do a proper courtesy, plant some seeds and pick up a letter at the post office and deliver it to the printer. The boys get to learn how to be in the military (was closed when we were there), plant some seeds, and pick up a letter from the post office and deliver it to the printer.

We went to the garden so the kids could learn how to plant seeds. The gardener let Samantha hoe the line while the boys supervised to make sure her line was straight.

Next the gardener gave them all some cabbage seeds to place in the line.

Next Samantha had to hoe the ground again to level the dirt back over the seeds. While she was busy doing this the boys went with the gardener and fetched some water to water the seeds with.

Next we went to the post office and printers. We spent some time walking through the town and learning about the various shops and jobs. We samples some items from the bakery and listened to the fife and drums.

Next we took in a play and then on the way out of town we showed the children what would happen if they misbehaved.

Needless to say we had a fun day but we were all tired from the walking so we headed out hoping to make it most of the way to Indy before stopping for the night.

Nathan had work to do in Portsmouth so we found a commuter lot and parked for the day. Now the fun of the day was it took me 2 hours to figure out what town we were in so we could decide what to do for a field trip. I was convinced we were in Norfolk so I was ready to walk to the zoo. Thankfully we figured it out before we started walking the streets aimlessly. :)

So… we found a fun Children’s Museum in Portsmouth. My absolute favorite was the bubble room. I could have spent the whole day there. They had these mats you stepped onto where you could pull a rope quickly and a bubble came up around you and you were literally standing inside a bubble. It blew my mind. Also, their bubble stuff was amazing and blew HUGE bubbles. The lady there told us that they used 1 cup Joy to 1 gallon of WARM water. Apparently the water temperature is the trick.

There were also stations full of trains, legos, places where you could test your balance and stretching abilities, learn about science and pollution and vibrations. It was a very cool place and I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids traveling in the area. Almost the whole place was interactive which made it a great day for the kids. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so you don’t get to see me and all of the kids in giant bubbles. :)