Plymouth Rock, people. The rock. Pilgrims. Mayflower. All set in beautiful New England. It was lovely! Let me back up ...
Wayne had pastor's conference in Massachusetts and Zanna and I tagged along. While the men spent their time in meetings, Lisa Gumm and her kids hung out with us and explored the area. We spent the first day exploring a mill in Providence that was one of the first to spark the Industrial Revolution. Serious history, ya'll.
We took the guided tour followed up by a picnic lunch in the perfect fall weather.
Once the men were relieved of their duties, we packed the gang up and both families headed for Plymouth. Time was ticking and we went straight for Plimoth Plantation - a live museum with people dressed in costume and playing their part on the plantation. We toured the Wampanoag tribe's settlement and walked the street of the Pilgrim's village, peaking our heads in to explore their homes.
That night we took full advantage of the hotel we managed to score. It was right at the top of the hill of the original Plymouth "main street". It boasted a pool and waterslide that was built into a replica of the Mayflower! And the hot tub was built into "Plymouth Rock". It was super cool!!
Plymouth Rock itself was nothing to write home about as you can see above. It was a rock (duh). You looked at it from above. It was surrounded by fence. It had the date inscribed on it. At night, it wasn't even lit up. But whatever!
The next day we visited the Mayflower 2 - replica of the original. Again, people were dressed and in character to answer questions having to do with the long trip over from England. It was really neat to imagine what it must have been like for the passengers.
We also enjoyed some good New England fare: NE Clam Chowder, Lobster Rolls and Mayflower Golden Ale.
We really enjoyed and cherished our time spent with good friends. We thank God for their friendship!!
Back on the home front, Zanna finally finished her sewing project with godmother "Auntie" Karen. Karen had given her books on sewing ideas for her birthday. After picking one out, the two have been meeting regularly to complete the project. Karen has inspired a love of sewing in this girl! She's now the go - to gal in the family to fix clothing tears, puts buttons back on and has made little things for her dolls. Thank goodness because that's an area her mother doesn't do well;)
Mother-in-law, Fran, came for a visit to see us for just over a week in October. We enjoyed having her join us in our regular goings on - dragging her to swim and violin lessons, homeschool co-op, Bible classes, choir, the grocery store - you get the idea! We also took a special trip to Quebec City on our "weekend" (Monday and Tuesday).
It was totally worth doing a city tour and getting a local to guide us around for a few hours pointing out places and filling in history. The days were cool but sunny and beautiful! Some fall colour still clung to select trees and bushes - just enough to keep it cheery! We got a great workout walking up and down all those hills and treated ourselves to authentic French-Canadian fare: Quebec meat pies, pea soup, maple syrup pie, poutine.
No kidding - around every corner of this city is a picture! Lovely!
On the home front, I recovered my dining room chairs. The following is particularly for my mom's benefit, but if you happen to care please feel free to read on.
It started at IKEA, where all good schemes seem to start. I didn't realize I needed fabric when I went in. But by the time Mom and I came out, both of us possessed fabric we couldn't live without. And because I don't sew (see above comments), I could only come up with the excuse of recovering my chairs. Before we left IKEA, we managed to talk some other strange lady into buying this fabric too.
Anyway, when I got home I proudly and excitedly showed Wayne my new fabric and shared what I planned on doing with it. Do you know that he wasn't nearly as excited as I expected him to be? I didn't get it? Why should he care? It cost me all of $15 so it couldn't be the unneeded expense. Sure, the fabric on them already was still in good shape but this would update them. Who doesn't want to update?
I finally got around to this project on his day off - a Monday - because I needed him and his staple gun. And since I don't use his staple gun, I needed him. It was at that point I realized, this is not my project - I've just signed him up to recover our chairs! You're welcome, honey!
So here's the before on top and the after on the bottom. He did an awesome job (except one of the chairs has upside down fabric, but whatever). They bring out the Scandinavian in the style of furniture. The fabric (not the upside down).
I can not believe how fast this season is going! Will is having a great Sophomore year at Prep and I have not seen him for THREE MONTHS! So we are really looking forward to being with him soon. And believe it or not, Advent is around the corner and I might almost be done with my Christmas shopping. Yay!! And I also have an exciting announcement for my upcoming blog book club for Advent. Stay tuned because you're NOT going to want to miss this one. I hope you will join me:)
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