Henry's 10th Birthday

Henry turned 10 way back on March 21. Double digits!!  

It was a school day, but Henry opened one present before heading off for a long day of learning. 

The D&D Monsters Manual was a huge hit!

After school and work, Henry opened the rest of his gifts.  

Will chipped in for a Yu-Gi-Oh book.

We always go out for a birthday dinner and the boys almost always pick Tokyohana. We arrived to find the restaurant shuttered and had to quickly come up with Plan B. We decided on The Melting Pot, which was the perfect place to celebrate Henry's 10th birthday.

One of the best parts about Tokyohana is watching your food be cooked right in front of you, and The Melting Pot has a similar concept.

Birthday sweets

We even picked the s'mores dessert fondue, which was lit on fire!

Even though it wasn't our first choice, we all decided that The Melting Pot was the perfect place to celebrate a birthday. I wouldn't be surprised if we celebrate there again!

Another birthday tradition is getting cupcakes from Crave. The boys rarely have room for dessert after their birthday dinner, so we almost always eat our birthday cupcakes a day late. 

For Henry's birthday party, we decided to try an escape room, and it was one of the most fun parties we've had (not to mention about 1000 times easier than hosting a party at our house!).  Henry invited five friends and we headed to Midtown to Room Escape Time to try to escape from the Villains Hideout. The premise was that we were superheroes who had lost our powers and had been captured by an evil villain. We were handcuffed (Henry is wearing two sets because he was so dangerous) and locked in a room, where we had just one hour to figure out the clues and escape.

We made it out -- with some help from the host. It was so much fun!

Back at home, the kids played games in the backyard before sitting down for some birthday cake.  

Henry saw a recipe for a "Sicilian Love Cake" on the Food Network while we were on vacation, and that was his birthday cake request. It's a simple cake mix with a mascarpone/ricotta filling and it is quite delicious!

It was so windy that we had to come inside for Henry to blow out the candles.  

Presents afterward

We had such a wonderful time celebrating our new 10-year-old! Happy birthday, Henry! 

Virginia 2018: Day 5

On our final day in Virginia, we headed down to Jamestown to learn all about the first permanent English colony in America. There are two sites to see: Jamestown Settlement, which is a living history museum, and Historic Jamestowne, which is the actual site of the first colony.

Jamestown Settlement

Jamestown Settlement includes a re-creation of a Powhatan village

and the colonists' fort. 

We also climbed aboard reconstructions of the two smaller ships that carried the colonists to America in 1607.

The boys used a pulley to lift a coiled rope from below deck.

 

Jamestown Settlement was fascinating and really brought to life the early days of the colony.

Next up, we visited Historic Jamestowne, which is the actual site of the first settlement. The memorial church behind us was built in 1907 in honor of the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. 

The site of the first church at Jamestown. 

Pocahontas 

It's a really beautiful spot!

We also visited the Jamestown Glasshouse, the first commercial attempt at glass-making in America (1607).

 

As with everything else we saw on this trip, the stories of the colonists at Jamestown really came to life for all of us!

We left Jamestown in the early afternoon as we needed to get back up to D.C. for our early morning flight the next day. It was Pi Day, so we stopped in Fredericksburg in an attempt to find pie. As you can see from the picture below, we only managed to find doughnuts!

We wandered around Fredericksburg a bit more (it really is a very cute town) and popped into a number of shops, including Riverby Books, where Gene and Will found several books and I found the coolest signs.  

I'll leave you with one final photo of the four of us in Virgina.

This really was an incredibly fun trip for all of us and we learned so much. There is so much more to see in Virginia and it's a place we'd love to visit again!

Virginia 2018: Day 4

On our fourth day in Virginia, it had stopped snowing but everything was still covered in white. What a beautiful morning to explore the second half of Colonial Williamsburg!

The Governor's Palace

The gardens behind the palace

This boy loves snow! 

We toured some of the houses and made sure to visit the courthouse. 

Outside the courthouse, we found the stocks and locked Henry up -- poor kid!

We had hoped to have lunch at Chowning's Tavern because Gene ate there when he visited Colonial Williamsburg as a kid, but it was closed for the first half of March.

We popped over to Shield's Tavern instead, where we enjoyed the food

and period music! 

After exploring all morning, we spent some downtime in the hotel before heading to the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, which has been open less than a year! This incredible museum tells the story of how our nation was founded through interactive exhibits and movies (including a very exciting 4D movie of the Battle of Yorktown) as well as through outdoor living-history areas.  

A recreation of the Continental Army encampment at the Battle of Yorktown

A reconstruction of an 18th-century farm

The museum was really engaging, but we still had one more stop -- Yorktown Battlefield Park, where Cornwallis surrendered, essentially ending the Revolution and ensuring American independence. 

Yorktown Battlefield

These are redoubts 9 and 10 -- when the Americans captured these small forts, the siege line was complete and Cornwallis surrendered shortly thereafter.  

All the interactive exhibits and experiences really brought American history to life for the boys on this trip.