.: Day 3- Monticello and Luray Caverns

On day 3, we were lucky enough to visit Thomas Jefferson's home - Monticello. We got there early in the morning and had several hours of fun exploring his estate. There is a new Visitor Center/Museum with a new movie, that we really enjoyed. Here is Parker meeting Thomas Jefferson, he wanted several pictures so that he could show is preschool class when he got home. First, we went on the tour of the house. I was a little nervous about the boys, we were the only ones with children. I explained that the tour guide was our teacher, and that we needed to be really quite and listen to all that he said. Parker walked right up to the guide, introduced himself and was his little buddy the entire tour. He was so excited about all that he saw, the guide was careful to point out things to the boys. Parker was really into the tour and you could see him soaking up all the information.

My two sweet little boys, on the porch. Parker started posing in all the pictures this trip...I love it!

The "Nickle View"...did you know that the Monticello is on the nickle ?

They had a cute little tour for the Children, with lots of fun activities for them to do. Here is the boys learning how to write with a quill...it is NOT as easy as it looks! We also got to make a rubbing of a nickle, dress up and work on wooden puzzles.

We saw all the basement, Parker loved the apple juice (beer) store room. We had a lovely walk down to the graveyard and then through the forest to the parking lot. What a beautiful place, I am so glad that we were all able to see this place together and learn about our nations great history. When Parker was asked by our second tour guide about what he had learned and how he liked the home this was his reply...
Guide:"How have you enjoyed your day?"
Parker : "It was good, I went to George Washington's house...and it had lots of guns and swords!"
Guide: " So do you like Thomas Jefferson's house?"
Parker: " Ya, but I liked George Washington's better...it had lots of guns and swords!"
Nothing like brutal honetsy there Parker, at least you got a laugh out of the rest of the tour group.
And now on to our next adventure.

After the most amazing drive through the Appalachian Mountains, we made it to the Luray Caverns. I got to go here with my family and Grandparents when I was 5 ,and I still remember it! The boys were a little apprehensive about going into a cave...Parker's exact words were "I am NOT going in there...it's dark!" and Jordan "Bears live in caves, I don't want to go on a bear hunt!". So the beginning of the journey was with two crying children, as we carried the stroller down the 79 steps (78 going back:) After we let the kids listen to the headphones, they had a special children's tour, the boys were really into it. They were careful to show us upcoming landmarks, and to tell us all about it. They were very scared of Pluto's Ghost, loved the "pipe organ" and watched the whole 1.5 miles for the two fried eggs at the end. It was so beautiful, Ryan took a ton of pictures...although they never look as good as the real thing :(

Jordan with his head set, what a cutie!

This ghost isn't scary !

On the was out we found a cute little car museum. We thought it might be fun to walk through, the boys absolutely loved it. They ran down the middle pointing to everything saying "look at this, look at this" . Also at the end of the museum, the boys found these cute little wooden swords and sheaths. We were sure they must be $30, as everything we had seen was about that, but to our surprise they were only $2...so we ended up with 2. Two happy boys,with two active swords!!!