"They Practically Named This Town After Me"

In a number of newpapers and blogs is a section called "Overheard" where funny things people overhear while sharing public spaces have a forum for publication. While our family was strolling down the pedestrian only streets of Colonial Williamsburg, this is what Bill and I over heard-- William on the cell phone with his buddy Oskar: "Yeah man, they practically named this town after me". And later same conversation: "Let me check my bars, oh wait they are good considering I'm in the 18th century."

The kids woke up before the alarm went off this morning. Both were outrageously excited to play with their plastic soldiers. This is what the floor of our hotel room looked like (and it was only half of the battle happening at the time). I am thinking that though I may not enjoy the soldiers myself, they will provide hours of imaginative play for the kiddos. And for that, I suppose I am grateful.

After we pulled the little ones away from their play long enough to shower and eat, we headed outside. On the way to the car, the boys begged to play the giant chess set they have set up on the sports court. We weren't in any big hurry, so we stayed and played. William has gotten so good at chess, he regularly beats Bill or they come to a stale-mate. Today was no exception. They stale-mated with just 4 pieces left of the board. It would have been HOURS before any one's king was cornered enough to loose. We chose to call it a tie and go about our business.

First item on our agenda: drive the Colonial Parkway to another one of my old neighborhoods and find the last house I lived in. We found it, and it was much changed, but fun to see. Then we continued up the Parkway to the Yorktown Battlefield. I didn't think the boys would be very interested for staying long here-- there isn't really that much to see, just a bunch of hills, trenches and flagpoles really. I was wrong. Romney was hot and bored, but William was totally into it. He just kept peppering Bill with questions about what happened and why and how the Rebel Colonies ended up winning the Revolutionary War there. We stayed for over an hour and William was soaking it all in. Romney did too, for the first half, but was baking hot by the second half. However, he must have taken something from all the history he heard, because afterwards he did feel inspired and wanted to hit the toy store to buy a special Revolutionary War set of soldiers to play with.



Our next stops were part of a nostalgia tour for Bill, whose family lived about 20 miles away in a town named Poquoson. We stopped by his elementary school and his middle school, his church and his old home. It was fun to have Bill feel that strange, almost de-ja-vu like feeling I have been experiencing for the past few days. He kept saying "this feels so strange." And really, it does. It is also a lot of fun. We got to hear fun stories that Bill hadn't thought about, but were jogged loose from his memory by seeing old sights. It is nice to get to feel more connected to those years in his life.


After subjecting the boys to a nice long day, we stopped for ice cream and headed back to Colonial Williamsburg. Yesterday, it was dark when we finally started walking around, and I wanted to see the place in some day light. The boys also had not had a chance to see any of the buildings yet, so we parked the car at the end of Duke of Gloucester Street that we had not yet walked down and walked back to the toy store (Remember, we on the hunt for Revolutionary War plastic soldiers).

It was just after 5:00 p.m. when we arrived, and all of the costumed workers were walking down the street (usually in big groups of friends) back to their vehicles to get home. They made for a lovely photo and also must have impressed William (who was impressed they had cell phone coverage in the 1700's--wink, wink).







We listened to a fife and drum crew while watching a military brigade set off the cannons a couple of times (another impressive moment for my boys). We offered the boys the chance to go back to Busch Gardens for the evening, but they said they would rather just get some take-out, go back to the hotel and play in the exercise room and swim there. Pretty easy to please, I say. Today we enjoyed taking a leisurely walk through history (both from the 1700's and the 1980's), loving our moments together as a family and enjoying some relaxation after our museum blitz in D.C.