October 16, 2012

Over the last week I have gone swimming, hottubbing, played with my cousins, gone boating and canoeing, gone bowling and have done lots of driving!

On Friday I went to Williamsburg to see my friend Kalisi.  We used to be in book club together.  We ate at the pizza palace.  After dinner, we walked around Williamsburg and saw the stockades.  We saw a tiny parade with a drummer, a man with a flute and a man with a torch.  They were dressed like Revolutionary War people.  Lots of people followed them to a tavern called, the King's Arms Tavern."  Once they got there, there was a guy who said, "Come in!  We will supply you with food, music and company!"  We didn't go in.  It was great to spend time with my friend Kalisi and her family.  We ran up and down the streets of Williamsburg together.

Today, October 16, we are going to fly home.  I feel sad because I have had a great trip.  I will miss my grandparents and my cousins.

3

October 6 and 7,

Saturday was our longest day yet. In the morning we got up and drove for two hours to the ferry on Staten Island. Once we got on the ferry, we rode for half an hour over to New York. While we were on the ferry, we saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Once we got to New York, we took a subway to Times Square. We had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays. When we were finished eating, we headed over to the Toys R Us. The Toys R US was probably the most crazy part of the whole trip. There were so many people there. We went on a huge ferris wheel. It had different character cars you could ride in. I would have liked to ride in the Mystery Machine with Shaggy and Scooby or the Monopoly Guy car, but we wound up in the M&M car. After we walked around in the toy store a little bit, we bought some toys. I got three LEGO mini figures and four little squishy Star Wars guys.

When we were done shopping at Toys R US, we walked to Rockefeller Center. When we got there we ate at Starbucks. We saw where the famous ice rink is and where they put the Christmas tree each year. When we were first in line to go to the top of the building, I got cold feet. So, GramB and I went back and waited for Mom, Dad, Christopher, and Grayce to come down. When they got down, Dad had bought me a pack of silly bands from "The Top of the Rock".

We took the subway back to the ferry then drove two hours back to our hotel. We got to our hotel around 11:30 pm. That was definitely our longest day so far.

On Sunday, we drove back to Baba and GramB's house in Chesapeake, Virginia. We drove through the capital of Delaware. We also drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Since the bridge wasn't tall enough for the barges to go under, parts of it are tunnels that go under the water. It is over 17 miles long and takes you all the way across the Chesapeake Bay. When we got to Baba and Gram B's house we just rested and played after our long trip. I had a tea party with Grayce and her stuffed animals. It felt good to take a rest after our long long trip.

October 5

I had been looking forward to today because we went to Daniel Boone's Homestead.  I did a gigantic ancestor report last year in Mrs. Sontag's class.  I am a direct descendant of Daniel Boone.  He is my great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather.

At the Homestead there were two barn cats.  We took a guided tour of the house.  We saw the spinning wheel room, the dining room. kitchen and bedrooms.  We also saw the basement that had a cold spring that always stays 40 degrees year round.  It never freezes over.  They used it as their refrigerator.  It had been there since Daniel Boone lived there when he was a boy.  I bought a leather pouch as a souvenir.

After that we went to a fancy McDonald's.  It had a big fancy playground we played on.  We played there for about an hour.  It was in Reading, Pennsylvania.  Then we went to Valley Forge.  We took a driving tour.  We saw where George Washington stayed during the winter.  We also saw small log cabins the soldiers stayed in.  I got a small stuffed animal owl, I named Fred, as a souvenir.

It was a long day.  We were glad to get back to the hotel.

October 4

Today there were four main events.

Event #1:  Today was my birthday.

Event #2:  We went to the US coin mint.

Event #3:  We went to the Adventure Aquarium across the river in New Jersey.

Event #4:  We went to Friendly's for dinner.

Now to tell you about the events.  As you know, today was my 9th  birthday.  I got nine presents.  It was a coincidence.   My three favorite presents were Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl and Poke Park II.  Since we didn't have wii at the hotel, I didn't get to play the wii games. 

Our first stop of the day was the US Mint.  When we saw where the coins were made, we were very surprised it was about 4 football fields long but there were only 2 or 3 people working there.  We guessed the machines did all the work.  We saw them making pennies.  After that we went down to the gift shop and bought ourselves some gifts.  I didn't see anything I liked there so I took a picture in a photo booth instead.

After that we went to the aquarium in New Jersey. We heard from Christopher's friend's mom who lived in Philadelphia that we should definitely go to Adventure Aquarium. We didn't write down the names of all the fish and stuff because we found it was too much work.  Here were my favorite exhibits:  the penguins, the hippos, and the ginormorous tank with sting rays and manta rays.  We saw a show in the tank where some divers dove in and told us about their equipment.  The hippos were in an African river exhibit with some birds.  You were able to see the hippos really well through the glass.  In the bird part of the exhibit there was a sign that said, "WARNING:  Birds poop every 15 minutes.  How long have you been standing here?"

I got a robot ring that I think looks like my dad at work.  I also got a sea turtle stuffed animal.  I named him George.

I went to Friendly's for my birthday dinner.  I had  mini grilled cheese sandwiches.  They tasted very good.  The best part was my ice cream.  Here is what it was:  a double cone that has 2 places for ice cream scoops.  I had 2 scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough with cold melted marshmallow and carmel toppings.  It took me a long time to eat it because it was so messy.  My ice cream was the very best part of the day. 

October 3

Today and yesterday were very memorable days. Yesterday, I forgot to mention that the fire alarm in our hotel went off at 7:00 pm. Then it went off again this morning at 5:00am. There was no fire at either time. It was just a false alarm. It made me nervous and now I feel like it is going to go on again at any second.

Now back to the main and more positive events of the day. Here are the places we went today: the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross's House, Ben Franklin's Grave, ruins of the first Presidential House that George Washington and John Adams lived in before the White House was built, and Independence Hall. We had a tour guide at Independence Hall but he was pretty boring so we left early. While we were there, we saw George Washington's sunrise chair and the old fashion court room. This is also where they signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

After Independence Hall, we had lunch at a food court that only sold fast food. I ate a piece of pizza dipped in ketchup. It tasted very good. I also had 2 scoops of chocolate marshmallow ice cream. I bought a small replica of the Liberty Bell with a stand.

We had a walking tour but we only stayed for about 15 or 20 minutes. The tour was free but your were expected to pay a tip. Here is the conversation Mom had with the tour guide before we left:

Mom: "I am sorry, but I underestimated my children's attention spans."

So then Mom tried to give the tip to the lady but the lady said:

Lady: "I am sorry but I am not allowed to accept any tips on Federal Grounds."

I am not sure why you aren't allowed to accept tips on Federal Grounds, but that is what I heard Mom and the lady say.

So then we walked by ourselves to see Benjamin Franklin's graveyard. We had to pay $6 to get in. Only after we found the grave, did we find out his grave was next to the fence and we could have just looked in for free.  When we were done, we went to look at the outside of Betsy Ross's house. We saw a replica of the flag she had sewn.

It was really hot today. We were glad to get back to the hotel, (even though, I still feel like the fire alarm is going to go off at any second).

October 2

The Franklin Institute is where we went today.  Early in the morning, we had breakfast in the lobby of our hotel.  We had to eat our breakfast fast so we could take my dad to work.  Once we dropped my dad off, we went to the Franklin Institute.

First we went and saw a big statue of Benjamin Franklin.  The first real exhibit we went to was the Earth exhibit.  In the Earth exhibit, we made our own weather forecasts and measured our carbon footprint.  Next we went to the electricity exhibit.  You made a call with your cell phone next to a large wall of lights.  When you made a call the lights lit up.  The second part of the exhibit showed Ben Franklin's lightening rod and how it attracted electricity.

The third part of the exhibit there was an educational video game (not x-box or something like that) where you supplied electricity to 8,000,000 people with mines, solar plants, wind plants and dams.  There were so many more exhibits, I can't name them all.

We also went to the planetarium and learned about the night sky.

There was a sky bike, which is basically a bicycle on a tightrope except it has a lot more safety equipment.  I rode on it.  You were supposed to ride back and forth twice, but I only did it once because it felt like I was gong to tip over and fall.  The sky bike was on the 3rd floor and it went out across the atrium.  You had to get off where you started.

It was a good day to be in a museum because it rained all day.  I got a bounce back ball as a souvenir.

October 1

   Today we went to the oldest zoo in the country. Here are the names of all the animals we saw (you don't have to read all the names if you don't want to) : camels, turtles, apes, ibis, chickens, roosters, bugs, goats, turkeys, donkeys, sheep, lions, pumas, black footed cats, mongoose, jaguars, tigers, red pandas, hornbills, hippos, giraffes, Coscorabas swans, lots of reptiles, amphibians, alligators, crocodiles, peahens ( female peacocks ), screech owls, okapi, marmosets, duprasi, tree shrews, aardvarks, lynx, otters, Aldabra and Galapagos tortoises, Central American river turtles, black swans, Cape Barren geese, black headed swans, Humboldt penguins, Andean bears, polar bears, rhinos, zebras, storks, addax, gazelles, coati, pelicans, vultures, squirrels, rabbits, chinchillas, ducks, snow leopards,  and mirror cats.

TOTAL NUMBER OF ANIMAL TYPES SEEN=

58!

The peahens were not in cages but they were rooming the park freely,  so were the squirrels.  The bunny rabbits got their own miniature town to hop around in, in their cage.  Christopher sat on some bird poop and we had to wash his pants.  My favorite animals to see were all the turtles, tortoises, penguins and otters.  I thought the coolest exhibit was the penguins because it looked like it was a  camp where the revolutionary war soldiers camped out.  Their homes were the tents and small buildings. I didn't get a prize there because there were lots of other zoos you could get prizes from so I didn't waste my money.

We went to Wegman's, the grocery store, for lunch.

Highlights for animal pictures:

Look at the aardvark's eyelashes!

The tortoise is staring at you!

 My GramB was the photographer. She's really good!