Clemson Boys

Today was Pa And Mimi Day With The Boys.
We started with Terraria on the Kindles.

Mimi and the Boys went to breakfast.

Then we went to the Children's Museum in Greenville. John raced the Formula One car.

John and Mimi raised John in the hoist chair.

Christopher helped John at the drive-up teller window.

Christopher raced the Formula One car.

After we got back, James and Andy dropped by to play 4-way Terraria on Kindles.

Henry dropped in to see what everyone was doing. Then June dropped by to invite everyone to her Earth Day party to hunt for earthworms. Everyone went down to Henry and June's house and collected earthworms for a while.
Then it was Taco Bell, baths and bedtime.
We had a wonderful day!

Granddaughter1 and Us

From Naomi's Baptism Pizza Lunch...

Over There - Twenty Third Day

Here is a view of the nearby pub, from the front porch.

It really is 'just across the street'. They have really good hamburgers.

Over There - Eighteenth Day

This is the story of the hedge at the back of the garden.

1. There was a wood fence, behind which was a hedge about 8 feet in depth. The view over the fields was blocked. Mark started by removing the fence panels and posts.

 Next, we started removing the hedge. This is Hedge Day 1.

 After Hedge Day 2, it was about half gone.

 By Hedge Day 3, only the breeze block wall remained between us and the view.

 Finally, Hedge Day 5, just a bit of the wall remains. It awaits a future burst of energy. The dirt mound behind the wall was filled with all kinds of rubble, including pieces of asbestos-concrete roofing material.

Arthur did his part to help, by tending the Garden Waste bags full of Hedge Clippings.

He and his Dad took a stroll around the garden before bath time.

Over There - Fifteenth Day

We all went for an outing to the Devon Railroad Center. It is the site of a former railroad stop at the village of Bickleigh. There are small trains to ride, and model train layouts installed in old passenger rail cars.

 There was a small "drive it yourself" train for kids. Ada and her half-cousin enjoyed the ride.

Ada also demonstrated her skill on the climbing wall in the playground.

 Her Dad likes to give her other kinds of wild rides!

 Afterwards, we had lunch at Fisherman's Cot pub in Bickleigh. It is situated on the bank of the Exe River, next to a nice old stone bridge.

Ada sorted the ice cubes from her orange juice. She likes multiple straws in her beverages.

 Everyone had a good time.

Over There - Eleventh Day

The weather turned really nice over the weekend. Mark took full advantage, and made huge progress in cleaning up the back yard. Three of four old fence panels - Down!

Meanwhile, Arthur was working with Tissue Origami.

Over There - Tenth Day

On Sunday, Ada was ready to head to Nanny's house for an egg hunt.

So was Arthur.

The egg hunt was a great success. Nanny has a wonderful yard for hiding eggs.

(The Easter Nanny had the foresight to make a map, so all the chocolate was eventually located.)

Arthur enjoyed sitting on Nanny's stairs with Mimi. "So this is what Baby Jail feels like!"

Later, Arthur practiced standing and leaning on the table.

"Look, Mimi! No hands!"

Over There - Forth Day

The first week or so was chilly and rainy, so Mark kept us warm with the stove.

We went shopping in nearby Nailsea.

Ada's Grandma Nanny gave her a very nice art kit for Christmas. One of the best parts were some Frozen ink stamps. She soon had Elsa stamps all over herself!

Over There - Third Day

We had good flights and arrived in reasonably good shape, vis-à-vis jetlag.
However, a good nap is always in order when Mimi arrives.

(Note: Days one and two were mostly rest and settle in days.)

At first, Arthur would only associate with Mimi. Pa had to wait a while...too scary looking in person.

Christmas 014

Just a start...

There was so much more fun! We'll get more posted...pretty soon.

Cousins' Big Trip To Virginia

Four Cousins and three Cousin-In-Laws made a 10 day trip around Virginia. It was a combination of family reunion, genealogical research, and historical sight seeing.
We began by meeting at a bed and breakfast inn at Williamsburg.

We spent the first day at Jamestown Settlement, the site of the first permanent British colony. This was an archeological dig at the site of a home's foundation. When the Queen visited in 2007, she insisted on climbing down into the dig, in spite of the mud from recent rains.

We learned a lot from the docents that were on site.

Next was a day at Historical Williamsburg. This is a view looking up the main road, from William and Mary college's Wren building.

Our tour guide filled us in on many interesting details.

There were pretty fall colors, too.

Looking back toward Willliam and Mary.

Another day, we visited Dogham Farm, which bordered the Horn farm in the mid 1800's.

In Richmond, we visited St. John's church, where Patrick Henry gave his famous 'Give me liberty, or give me death' speech.

We had a nice dinner at the inn in Williamsburg where Thomas Jefferson stayed.

Later on, we toured Appomattox Courthouse, where General Lee surrendered his army to General Grant, effectively ending the secession of the South. This is the Courthouse at Appomattox Courthouse. We were shocked to learn the surrender ceremony was NOT at the courthouse. Appomattox Courthouse was the name of the town.

The ceremony was actually at the McLean house.

We moved on to a lovely lake house on Smith Mountain Lake, south of Bedford. This is Rusty.

David and Robin.

Cousins - Rusty, Gaylene and David.

David had set up several meetings with people to whom we are distantly related, to discuss their knowledge of our ancestry.

This is a 'bill of marriage' - similar to a marriage license - for John Horn and Sophia Sinar, in 1836.

We had s'mores on the deck one evening.

We moved on to Bedford, where we visited the National D-Day Memorial.

Oops, this is back in Williamsburg. That's Tom Jefferson with Gaylene and Robin.

We stayed in a modern log cabin outside of Bedford. It got cool enough to have a fire one evening.

All of us on the porch of the cabin ...

On the last day, as we headed to the Richmond airport to drop off Robin and David, we toured Jefferson's Poplar Forest home near Lynchburg, where he retired after serving as President.

Thank you David and Robin and Rusty and Phyllis and Gaylene. We had a really nice time!