Saturdays

We caught Mount Vernon just before they took down their Holiday decor. The best thing about visiting Mt. Vernon during the holidays is that they take tours up to the third floor. This is not available most of the year. When Michael and Colette came in November, we saw the cellars of Mt. Vernon in the National Treasures guided tour.

I know, you're thinking, "What the heck? It's an old house." We drag most visitors down there because we happen to like it; and most of our guests give it a positive review, too. Come visit us and you'll see, too, what there is to do there.

This last Saturday we packed both girls into our stroller [some day we'll probably want to obtain a double stroller; it's a bit packed in there] and headed down town to visit the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Yep, 2 3/4 years in D.C. and we hadn't been there still. It's pretty impressive.

Lizzy was totally captivated by the Hope Diamond, justifiably. We enjoyed displays on the oceans, gems, minerals, Africa, dinosaurs, insects, and bones. Lizzy watched while Clinton handled a caterpillar, and we watched a tarantula get his weekly lunch of cricket. We saw the largest squid ever caught; and she has shrunk a bunch since her capture and preservation, poor old girl.

The exhibit on Bones showed human skeletons, how they heal, how they can help scientists estimate age, health, diet, profession, and, how they can tell about history. We saw the skull of a tailor and the femur of a cobbler, and three heads of people who smoked clay pipes. They highlighted what they have learned from the graves of Fort James Virginia (Jamestowne 1609), and a recently discovered burial ground in St. Mary, Maryland.

We felt a connection, because we think it likely that Clinton is descended from a Reeder who landed in St. Mary in the late 1600s. St. Mary was the fourth permanent British settlement in the new world. It was the capitol from 1634, when they landed, to 1695, when the capitol was moved to Annapolis. St. Mary sort of melted away, the buildings crumbled, and all that was left by the revolution were fields.

Digging around in what was once the church in St. Mary, they found 3 lead coffins. Studying the bones, decided that they belonged to Philip Calvert, the son of the first Lord Baltimore who got the charter for Maryland from the king of England. Baltimore himself didn't live long enough to come to the colonies, but his son, Philip, was the governor. He and his wife and one child were in these lead coffins. Anne, the wife, was laid out in nothing but her bones for all the world to parade by and look at.

No pictures, of course, since the camera broke.