There were fire hydrants in the 18th century?

We recently took a family vacation to Williamsburg, VA.  It was full of:

Camping.

Playing.

Many new sights.

And lots of naps.

We also spent a fair amount of time seeing all of the historical sights.  This area of the country is so rich in history.  I'm not a history buff, but it's fun to see the things we only read about in books growing up in the midwest.  Part of the fun, I have to admit, is mocking the attempts to recreate history.  Brad and I like to speculate as to what really would have been there.  Like the fire hydrant at the beginning of this post.

We visited the Jamestown settlement.  I was struck by how much of their life was consumed with pure survival.  They had no time for facebook or tv in between hunting, preparing meals, and making sure their huts didn't burn to the ground.  

Fun fact: Brad's ancestry traces back to a Wooten who was a surgeon in the first Jamestown settlement.  How cool is that?

Then we headed to the Yorktown settlement where we walked the road to the revolution.

This was Brad's favorite part.  

Zac held on tight for the ride of his life.  He was in the stroller A LOT over the course of two days.  He didn't really seem to mind though.  He gave us plenty of goofy faces like this one.

The next day, we went to colonial Williamsburg.  This was my favorite.  We decided that if we do have 5 children and homeschool, that we will go back and have a "day in the life" vacation where we make them dress in period clothes and do the things they would have in the 18th century.

We enjoyed a nice lunch under some shade.

And Zac enjoyed being OUT of the stroller.  You can tell how hot it was.  Almost 100 degrees this day.

Here's a little family photo.  Zac would be looking towards the camera and turn JUST as the timer would go off.  This was the one decent photo we got.

All in all a GREAT vacation.  We look forward to more!