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Friday, August 31, 2007

Caleb, the civil engineer




I am preparing to teach a Bridge-Building class this year at our co-op. I imagine there will be a little more interest in bridges due to the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota.

In our family, Caleb is our bridge-builder. This week he built a model of the "Firth of Forth" bridge in Scotland. He likes to pretend he has super human strength.

The canon crew


We had a great time on our trip to the Northeast in June. We had twenty-four days of camping and sightseeing in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We saw lots of cool Revolutionary War sites and the boys got to drill as an artillery unit using the canon. We saw a huge re-enactment of the French and Indian War at Fort Ticonderoga.
We also spent time in big cities like Philadelphia, Boston and New York and traveled by train, subway, ferry , tram, sailboat (and conversion van).

The purpose of this trip was to immerse ourselves in early American history. We also threw in a little family fun by visiting the beach, biking on Cape Cod and hiking in New Hampshire.

Our favorites: Once Upon a Nation story stops (Philadelphia), Monmouth Battlefield (because the curator took the time to teach the boys how to use the canon), U.S.S. Constitution Museum and Plimouth Village

Our not-so-favorites: taking the train from Newark to NYC, visiting the observation deck of the Empire State Building (most of the kids were scared of heights and we had to wait in a long line), Cambridge (though we did have some great burgers there)