Colonial Williamsburg

I LOVE Colonial Williamsburg! It sounds very corny, but it is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. My parents were taking a vacation there the first week of July and we decided to join them for a few days. We really had a wonderful time, learned a lot and even had a few exciting adventures.

Adventure #1: Traveling with a baby that only wants to crawl/toddle everywhere is extremely difficult when all that is separating your child from precious antiques is a rope that can easily be crawled under. Oh my goodness! It was incredibly difficult to tour the houses with sweet Ravenna inserting her own commentary of modern parenting into our tours of the houses of Williamsburg.

One time it even got me into trouble, or rather, I got myself into trouble! The employees of Williamsburg take their jobs very seriously. When we were touring the Governor's Palace Ravenna got upset at being unable to move around on her own so I asked the tour guide if I could leave and he VERY willingly obliged. I was on the second floor at this time so down the staircase I went and stopped in the foyer below where I was met by a very upset footman. "You need to exit this way, M'am" he says to me. "But can't I just stay down here and look into these rooms?" "No, you need to exit this way," he replied getting more frustrated by the second. "Why can't I just stay right here?" I asked, because seriously, what on earth was I going to do with the guy watching me like a hawk? "You can't stay here because of all the antiques. You need to be with your tour." I then explained to him in very serious terms that I had to leave my group because of my daughter and that I would just wait here for my tour to return, at which point he realized that I wouldn't do what he asked and he gave up.

At the printer's: This guy was hilarious but nobody got his jokes but me and a few others. It really made a bit of an awkward situation but the guy took it in stride. The book binder was really funny as well, but in a really creepy way. He kept saying things like "we don't know who we were."

A lady blacksmith! You might be thinking that this wasn't very historical but I learned something new about women's history: women were employed in just about any profession and trade that you can think of. Seriously! Women basically did whatever their husbands or family's did, although very often women had their own trade along with their husbands. The head blacksmith at the shop pointed out that back then only the wealthy could afford for their wives to stay home. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that this changed.

In Yorktown with my parents!

The obligatory photo-op, and below, a video of me helping to make bricks

Williamsburg will always have a special place in my heart. Going there was such fun and I really hope to be able to go back again soon! Oh, and I got a really awesome gardening hat but it was STOLEN. I almost cried. More on that later.