"Look at the castle!"

This weekend we made our way to Durham to see the Duke Chapel.  We did not end up taking any official tour, so mostly just oohing and awing.  

  Eli was excited when he saw the "CASTLE"

We had assumed that it was another historic building. 

After a little research we found out it was finished in 1932, 

Sooo not as old as we thought.  

It was still pretty impressive!

This is all concrete.  How....Whaaat?

.

After the chapel we went to look at the Sarah P. Duke gardens

I am thinking it is probably more impressive in the spring? 

 I was very green and pretty, but it is green and pretty everywhere here.

A fun shot of my cute little butts:)

(They were not impressed when they realized what I took this picture:)

It started to heat up, so we didn't last long in the gardens.

History 101

Stagville Plantaion  is North Carolina's largest pre-Civil War plantation and one of the South's largest. It once belonged to the Bennehan-Cameron family, whose combined holdings totaled approximately 900 slaves and almost 30,000 acres by 1860. Today, Stagville consists of 71 acres, on three tracts. On this land stand the late 18th-century Bennehan House, four rare slave houses, a pre-Revolutionary War farmer's house, a huge timber framed barn built by skilled slave craftsmen, and the Bennehan Family cemetery.  http://www.nchistoricsites.org/stagville/stagville.htm

In front of one of the slave houses

These slave houses were considered quite nice, in comparison to most. The houses were raised with wood floors and lined with brick for insulation.  Check out the rock foundation, only on the corners! 

We picked a Good/Bad day to visit.  They had a bunch of music, vendors and free activities for the kids to participate in. All good! 

 Ry is signing the Declaration of Interdependence with a quill pen!

 Its alot harder than it they thought!

WAGON RIDE!

  I missed out on this one! It was HOT and so I decided to stay behind in the shade.  What I didn't know was that the ride was actually quite short and took you to this huge 132 ft long barn.  So I can only tell you second hand how AWESOME it was.

There were trees everywhere!  Thick, tall, trees.... NONE of which were here while the plantation was functioning.  The Camerons sold the plantation some time in the 1950's  It was hard to imagine.

Because of the festivities over at the slave headquarters, they were not giving regular scheduled tours.  So all we could do is peak in the windows :(

The small portion of the house was built first and then ten years later the two story piece was added.  

One of the MANY things we learned was that kitchens were not attached to the house.  (only rocks from the foundation remained from this kitchen.)

Token outhouse shot

 We had to save Eli, the chicken was not afraid and went after him. 

Due to the destruction caused by the Civil War, there are not as many historical sites at the finger tip as I had assumed there would be.  This one was relatively close, only a half hour drive.  It was a great day, so I imagine we will continue to soak up what we can!

Museum of Art

Aaron and I have never been very adventurous or creative people.  We are known to spend many a Saturdays at home, very uneventful.  Turns out all we needed was to be stuck in an apartment with very little natural light and four kids!  This weekends "adventure" (weak in comparison to my brother in-laws) took us to the Museum of  Art.  It was a great museum, and we....I had fun trying to incorporate the art and kids together.

This was the girls favorite painting.  They are ALL girl!

My favorite was the Mona Lisa upside down.  It consists of 5184 spools of thread hung on the wall!

 When you look through the glass ball it flips the Mona Lisa right side up. I loved how this picture turned out!

I like mine better!)

The painting was called Dentist. We made Ry stand in front because she has had a similar experience with one of her former dentists.  Just Painful!

Deep in thought or bored?

 They gave the kids a little booklet and these tags to look through to better observe the art details :)

 Staring contest, Ry lost!

In her defense, she was all clothed!

I know, I know Super Cheesy...but it still makes me smile!

 Sydney was mortified after the picture was taken, and she realized that I had taken her picture with the "half naked guy" (She was standing in the middle of the room, so she didn't know what I could see, hehe)

Eli was just along for the ride, this is one of the only pictures I have to prove he was even with us!

We spent a good two hours walking from section to section.  I think the kids really enjoyed it, I know I did! Next time we will hit the outdoor displays!!  

Mommy Houdini

The girls never latched on to anything as babies. Not a binky, blanky, or animal.  Then came Eli!  Meet Doggie!  Oh how he has loved his doggie.  I would watch him love on him and wish he would give me even half those lov'ns!  

After a year of weekly washing and lov'ns... Doggie "broke"  Now if I loved him as much as Eli, I may have been willing to pull out a needle and thread, but he was soo gross!!  Instead I got on line and found a similar dog that will stand up to the washer a little better. The trick was going to be making the transition.

I went into his room as he was waking up from his nap and said "Oh poor doggie is broken, lets fix him"  I put him under his covers, dropped him to the floor and pulled out "Doggie all fixed!" He was still not quite awake yet, gave me and the dog a funny look and then off he went!  Illusion successful? 

The test would be going to sleep that night....And I am a brilliant magician!!

I had to get a snap of him in his "trains" I loved his little bum in diapers, but nothing beats those little cheeks in "trains"!!

Memorial Day at Pullen Park

About a minute on the toys:

 until the direct sun became uncomfortable

The Pullen Caboose 

A ride on the C.P. Huntington miniature train, a one-third size, near-replica of the famous locomotive of the same name.

 A lovely boat ride!

(Ryile decided she was too big for this one)

Finally Eli smiling, he really Did enjoy it!

 And last but not least a ride on the Gustave A. Dentzel Carousel (1911), which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

 The park website says that Pullen Park is the fifth oldest operating amusement park in the United States and the sixteenth oldest in the world. Just a fun historical fact to throw in

Keep'n Busy

We aren't  able to put the kids into the school that they will be attending next fall and so we decided that I would home school them for the last  four weeks of the school year.

 So for four hours in the afternoon, starting when Eli goes down for a nap, the girls are doing their studies.  I have done my best to get out of the house every morning so that we don't go absolutely MAD!)

 Lucky for us there is a TON of Gorgeous parks with Lakes, toys and sand and plenty of shade for ME!

According to the locals, shade doesn't help in the months June-August.  If you aren't at a pool, you are inside.  So we are getting in what we can.

 We have also been  to the Museum of Natural Science, which is FREE to the public.  I figured with it being free it would be  mediocre.  It was AMAZING!  Six floors of exploring, and three of the floors are new with new technology and hands on learning. We went to a class they had called Meet the Animals.  They talked about how we eat and then introduced us to a turtle, alligator and guinea pig.  Great Science field trip for my homeschooling curriculum:)

This touch screen lab had a ton of screens that allowed to the kids to zoom, rotate the 

dimensional planets, the girls loved it.

Eli was ready go by the end!

I had to stick this one in, just cause he is so dang cute to me!

We were excited to make the trip to the beach!  It took us right around 2 1/2 hours to get there.

 The kids LOVED it!  

 Eli was so funny.  He would get water in his mouth from a wave and start gagging, border line throw-up.  BUT he was not about to stop, he kept going back for more!

On a side note, I wanted  to show how high our back porch is off the ground.  We knew we were on a slope, but we had NO IDEA the extent.

 They finally built the stairs this week.

 We have a decent size lot, unfortunately the only thing it is going to be good for is ice blocking!

Progress on the house is slow. We were suppose to be able to move in the end of June and now they are saying the end of July :(