Merry Christmas 2017

The official 2017 Christmas eve pic. I'm not sure why Molly looks so guilty...maybe because it is obvious she has sneaked a bit too many treats!

The real picture from Christmas Eve. After opening sib gifts and reading Luke 2 we put on A Christmas Carol. Noah turned to me about half way through and said he was so bored that he was finally feeling calm.

Grace got a total of 13 books! She carried them downstairs in this blanket to show Sheila at dinner time. We call Sis. Koch our NC Grandma. She was going to be all alone today. I couldn't believe none of her kids wanted her with them. We were super happy to have her join us for dinner. Jason made an even more delicious turkey - I think he has just about mastered it. 

I made everyone take a picture after church. We figured out how to use our self timer for the first time. I made the mistake of telling Sophie she could hold her hamster in the picture. If you look close you can see her little head trying to escape on Sophie's shoulder. The girl's played viola with a group of youth during our Stake sacrament meeting. I was so proud of them I cried! They played Still, Still, Still. It wasn't perfect, but it was beautiful. Feeling very blessed today. Merry Christmas!

Mendenhall House

Jamestown NC was settled in the 1700's by a Quaker family from Pennsylvania, the Mendenhalls. This house was built by Richard Mendenhall in 1811, and has come to be known as the Mendenhall Plantation. It was not ever a plantation, Richard was not a slave owner. He and his Quaker family and friends were an integral part of the underground railroad before the Civil War. It is amazing to me how a well built house has withstood 200 years!  You can see the hand hewn beams, orginal doors, windows and hardware through out the house. I have been to a lot of historic houses and this one is by far the best in my opinion!


Upstairs in the main bedroom is a small access door to the porch. A similar Quaker home 5 miles away has a documented underground railroad hiding place exactly like this. There is no record of the Mendenhall's being a part of helping escaped slaves to freedom, it was illegal and no written records were kept. It is known that the Mendenhall's were abolitionists. Interestingly we learned that  not all Quakers were against slavery.  Beneath is the door from the outside under the porch. Of course there would have been a ceiling on the porch creating a small, hidden room. I read a slave memoir where a women hid in this exact spot in a home in northern North Carolina.

 

There are several original outbuildings including the barn, smokehouse, spring house (of which I envious, things spoil so quickly here! A building that was used for a school is now a small museum. It has amazing things, just in this little back shed. The kids LOVED this pump organ. I loved the the historian doing our tour let them play it. I laughed when I heard Olivia and Grace playing the Star Wars theme!  It was sobering to me to see slave shackles and common coins with notched edges - how a family would know who to take in and hide.

This bell is original to the property, again the kids all got ring it! Richard was a tanner, he and his wife Mary built  a general store, a pottery, a milliner and something else I don't remember on their property. Richard's brother George inherited slaves through marriage to his first wife. Many of these slaves learned trades from the Mendenhall's and then were driven to Ohio to become free. I think up to 60 ish.  There are records of George buying slaves in order to keep families together and at the request of the slave, but never selling them. I am sure it is not all clean and tidy. But I have never heard of a family like the Mendenhalls and how they fought slavery on such a personal level. 

 This is one of the few remaining false bottomed wagons documented as being used to carry escaped slaves. This wagon was not owned by the Mendenhalls, but another local Quaker family. It was driven to Ohio by young men several times. It was thought that the young drivers would not be thought of as carrying slaves. It is so important to me that we remember and learn from our history. Besides sweet Olivia Powell , my kids were not all that interested in all of this. Maybe as they mature they will recognize the significance.

When the girls were 4 and the boys 2 we had pictures taken on this bench. Of course I had to recreate it ! If, when, my stupid printer will talk to my computer I will add the original.

Pumpkins & Football

Grace carved our only Jack O Lantern this year. We just got busy and the kids were not thrilled about using our homegrown pumpkins. They are a mellow, light orange, really pretty, but I guess not as cool as the bright orange. I asked the girls to sit down and look normal. This is Sophie's normal.

The boys had playoffs today for football. Their team won their first game. Both boys had some great plays, Noah got creamed really hard once - no call- I keep telling my kids officials aren't perfect and it is just part of the game. Luke scored a touchdown! He was qback on a pass play that didn't work out and ran the ball in to score. It was fun. And cold for the first time this year.

Grace, Sophie and Jason were the line markers. It was quite the learning experience for the girls! At least Sophie couldn't complain of being bored. I have pictures but I am too tired  to try to figure out why they aren't loading right.

It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day. Girls went to the temple this afternoon, boys to a birthday party and Jason and I split and stacked wood. Goes SO fast when you have a splitter! I can see why Jason wanted one so badly.

Halloween 2016

Ghoul, Crazy Taylor Swift, Peacock, Day of the Dead Senorita, Sniper

 

Noah was smart and chose a gillie sniper suit for his costume. Everyone thought he was Sasquatch which was fine too. Luke always has to go creepy. I made him smile for the picture! We did Grace's face with tatoos, it looked really cool. Sophie was trying to recreate a scene from Taylor Swifts Blank Space video, Molly is supposed to be the white deer behind the crazy Taylor Swift singing about how all her ex lovers think she's insane. If you look close you can see the mascara all down her face. She worked on this costume for 2 months, funny kid. The girls went to their first Halloween party. It seems like such a teenager thing to do. Of course it was in Abby's garage with all girls so I guess it was not that grown up!

Steelers Football

 Luke and Noah had their last regular season flag football game today. They played Jacob Arny's team. They won!!!! I loved Luke and Noah's congratulating Jacob when he made good plays even on the opposing team.

 Luke playing quarterback 

(green and black shorts)

Noah at the beginning of a 40 yard run. He got through all those players and almost scored! He is number 13, orange and gray shorts.

The Steelers, well most of them.  A few boys were missing.

Outer Banks with Grandma and Grandpa

 Last week we went to Duck, NC on the Outer Banks for 4 days. This is Wednesday afternoon when we got to the beach. It was the tail end of a tropical storm and still really windy. We found all sorts of cool things on the beach - shark or skate egg sacks, beautiful drift wood, tons of crabs, huge horseshoe crab shells, a huge dead ray (it was 4 feet across at least) and the most shells I have ever seen. If you look in the gazebo you can see Luke rejoicing! We are a family that seriously loves the beach!

This is the only picture I have of all of us together. I was going to crop out the Birthday message fro Lindsey, but I'm too lazy to care that much :)

 I am surprised I didn't get a picture of Jason with Luke. Along with Craig, they fished most of the time we were at the beach. Luke caught a small Sheep's Head (?) no one else caught anything. But they had fun!

Wright Brother's Museum and Memorial

 Duck is about 30 minutes north of Kitty Hawk. We actually came here with Heather and Eli and baby Issac years ago. I wanted to get a picture like the one I have, boys in the stroller, girls on either side. You can see how  helpful Sophie was being.

Noah and walked out the full distance of the 3rd and farthest flight in 1903

 I can't find some of my pictures. This is a replica of the Wright Brother's first plane, well first plane that accomplished manned flight. Noah and Jason went on a small sightseeing flight and the pilot let Noah control the plane of the Wright memorial. So his first flight is where the actual first flight was! Noah was beyond enthralled. He talked all of our ears off about it the rest of the trip.

I think this is my favorite picture of our trip. With our new pick up we can drive miles out on the beach. You really are all alone, it is so amazing. There are other people sprinkled here and there, and huge crazy big vacation homes. Luke got really carsick and did not have fun this trip on the beach. We had just finished our traditional seafood lunch, his didn't sit too well. Other 3 kids had a ball.

 
 Wild horses, luckily we saw them right away once we turned to go inland. Luke was soooo sick. Poor kid. These pictures look so wild and remote. The rest of the herd across the street , which to be fair was only sand, was grazing in someone's front lawn, junky cars in the background. It was really cool to see, especially for Grace.

 

Sophie is lots of amazing things. Good at jumping pictures she is not. Noah and Grace cracking up makes me laugh every time!

 

Our last day at the beach Sophie and Luke figured out how to catch the ghost crabs that were all over the beach. She kept this one as her pet all day and mightily tried to get me to let her bring it home. It was really cute, when sand got in it's eyes it had small arms that looked like windshield wipers to clean itself.




Craig and Dessa drove Jason up to Philadelphia and the kids and I stopped by one of the NC aquariums on our way home. It was fun, small, but had some cool things we hadn't seen before. Good trip, lots of fun memories.

Washington DC

On the way home from Philadelphia we stopped at Washington DC. Because of the crazy hot weather we had to adjust plans. We ended up in museums - Air & Space, Natural History and American History. Always super fun, more to see then we have time for.

Noah was especially excited for the Air & Space. He was in heaven with all the planes. He has become really interested in WWII history. It was fun for him to see planes he had read about. Of course Sophie is being Sophie...

My favorite thing we did this visit was visit the Smithsonian Zoo. It is not on the Mall, so a bit out of the beaten path. So fun. And SOOOO hot. Luckily there was lots of shade. There were these art pieces through out the zoo, all made from trash picked up on beaches. We also saw Pandas! I didn't get pictures, there were a ton of people by the pandas. Sophie and Luke and I also explored until we found the Amazon exhibit. Super big fresh water fish, a bird that almost bit me, yes I know you are not supposed to try to touch them, flamingos and HUGE frozen yogurts when we were done.

 This is at the Air & Space annex. Again, Noah and Jason were in heaven. Luke was good for the ride. The girls and I were tired and not so interested. I made Sophie and Grace see the space shuttle and a few other highlights. This pic makes me laugh, Grace with a book and Sophie with headphones on listening to T Swift. This is a WWII Corsair, a favorite of Noah's and Jason's.

Proof that my kids really are Southern's. We stopped for gas at some random station and this Nascar crew and car were there for a promotion. Luke knew exactly who the driver was ?! Made me laugh. 

Philadelphia Temple Open House

 On our way to Philadelphia we stopped in Leesburg, VA to meet Lisa Jones (Palermino) and her family. She has 4 boys, the oldest is going to BYU this fall. Her youngest is the same age of Luke and Noah. The boys went downstairs and played Nerf war while the rest of us chatted. Lisa told us about her conversion, it was so interesting to hear from her perspective now as a 20+ year church member! I remembered some things she was super interested to know too. She looks just the same, huge smile, lots of energy. What a blessing to spend a little bit of time together and get reacquainted. Lisa is the YW president in her ward. I always felt blessed to even be a part of her conversion, she had learned from several sister missionaries before Sis. Manwaring and I. But I hadn't remembered that Lisa was not committed to baptism when I met her. I do remember Sis. M and I kneeling in prayer with her to set a baptismal date. I need to find my journal from my mission and read what I wrote then. Lisa is amazing and it was sooooo fun to see her.

 Philadelphia Temple

The Philadelphia Temple open house was amazing. The temple is right downtown. The contrast of peaceful, calm, beautiful temple compared to loud, busy, crazy city was profound. The temple itself is gorgeous, looks just like it was built 200 years ago. Colonial hardware, original paintings, so beautiful. I loved being there! The walk from the hotel was a killer. The heat index was like 107, it was HOT. But so worth it.

 

We went to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. No one was as excited as me to be there. You can tell in the pictures if you look close. Independence Hall was amazing to me. To be in the room where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were drafted and worked on. The only original thing in the room is the big chair up on the dais. It was were George Washington lead the Congress. The decoration on the chair looks just like the Sunstones from Navoo. Our guide told us that Benjamin Franklin recorded that he wondered if the sun was setting or rising on the chair. He decided it was rising, symbolic of the rising of the new nation.

 

Directly across from our hotel was a huge indoor marketplace, Reading Market. It has been there since the 1800's. We ate the BEST donuts ever there. And delicious cheese steak sandwiches, and Thai food, and candy. Yes. Food is important to the Hardy family.