Mount Vernon
We took a somewhat impromptu trip to Mount Vernon on Thursday. It was tentatively on the schedule, depending on what the weather did, then off again when the children misbehaved, then back on again when I decided to show them mercy because it was really my bad mood that caused me to cancel the trip. Thursday morning dawned cool and clear, with chance of rain in the afternoon, and good moods and behavior all around, so we hit the road.
Here’s the children waiting with George and Martha. They are in their scout uniforms because I thought scouts are free during the school year. Turns out that it was just in February. They got a lot of attention wearing them.
On our way up to the mansion we met another homeschooling family that also uses Sonlight! Phil was wearing our Sonlight backpack, so the other mom started talking to us. They were visiting from Idaho.
This is the mansion and the bowling green right in front. Ol’ George sure knew how to live! Below is his view of the Potomac from his back porch. Very nice.
Here are the children sitting on the back porch, enjoying the view. They’re having a good time, really.
Washington added a cupola on the roof. He would open the cupola’s windows in the summer to let the heat out. I can’t imagine living here without air conditioning! On top of the cupola is a weather vane made to look like a dove with a twig in it’s mouth.
To keep all the animals at Mount Vernon from getting too close to the mansion, Washington built a low wall into a hill. It was better than a fence, because you couldn’t see it! If you were playing on the lawn and didn’t know the wall was there, you might fall off of it and everyone would laugh. This may be why these walls were called Ha-Ha walls. Here are Pumpkin Girl and Boo about to fall off a Ha-Ha wall.
Here’s Pumpkin Girl laying a flower on Washington’s grave. She didn’t attract nearly as large of a crowd as President Bush did.
We stayed until lunch time and still didn’t get a chance to see everything. We bought annual passes so we can go back as often as we like.
