Virginia Capitol

A few weekends ago we went to Richmond to visit Mollie Doodle (and the cousins/aunt/uncle).  We have been studying Virginia history this year for Princess Sparkley's 4th grade curriculum, and just read about the capital moving from Jamestown to Williamsburg and finally to Richmond, so we decided to head to the capitol in between our cousins' basketball games. 

Little Guy didn't want me to take his picture, but he was laughing and being so cute as I tried to capture him.

And of course we saw Mollie Doodle.

the Holidays: day four

3/8/10

We started our the morning at Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey (the Pennsylvania side also has a visitor's center, but it is closed for budgetary reasons right now).


We drove by the Capitol in Trenton, NJ (Trenton is a pretty dumpy capital- the town, not the building).


We saw this Trenton fire station which seemed pretty cool.

We also drove through Princeton University's campus and learned that you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey, it's all full serve. I'm sure we picked up a lot of counties along the way... B will have to fill us in on that.

Then, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa M who joined the science museum in Columbus, Ohio, Cosi, we were able to use the museum reciprocal agreement and get in free to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The kids of course loved this.


Baby X at the human heart exhibit.


Benjamin Franklin National Monument inside the Franklin Institute.


Buddy with a Lego reconstruction of Philadelphia.


PS


Baby X pilots a plane. He LOVED this.


PS as co-pilot, to pilot Buddy in the airplane part of the Franklin Institute.


Baby X "flying" with wings.



Buddy with flying wings in an air tunnel type thing.


Outside the Franklin Institute. We didn't see the Body Worlds 2 exhibit, advertised on the buidling. PS was adamant that we not go near it. I wouldn't have taken them to see it anyway, although it is intriguing.


We tried to be better about not just getting pictures of the kids. But I still don't think we got very many of us. Here I am with the kids, facing the Franklin Institute with Philadelphia skyscrapers behind us.


The kids with the LOVE statue in JFK Plaza.


B explaining to the kids about Philadelphia's city hall.


Buddy with the Pennsylvania Railroad building. I should explain that Buddy insisted that when we cut his hair last week, we leave it just as long on top so he can flatten out his bangs and have them tickle his eyebrows. B is much nicer than I am, and allowed this. So every morning, instead of a nice buzzed head, he wakes up with crazy bed head and we have to we and gel and comb his hair down. And by the middle of the day, he ends up looking like this little boy who is all hair.


Pennsylvania Railroad.

Capitol of Ohio

The last time we drove through Columbus, Ohio and saw the Capitol, it was the middle of the night as we drove from Kansas to Pittsburgh for Great Grandma M's funeral. The picture, being taken in the dark, wasn't very good, so we took another on this trip.

Des Moines, Iowa

Me and the kids in front of the mini Statue of Liberty at the Des Moines State Capitol.

I read about these in this great book (well, great if you're in Kansas) called Kansas Curiousities by Pam Grout so I was excited to actually see one.

(from Wikipedia.org : Between 1949 and 1951, approximately 200 100-inch (2.5 m) replicas of the statue, made of stamped copper, were purchased by Boy Scout troops and donated to various towns in the United States. The mass-produced statues are not great art nor meticulously accurate (a conservator notes that "her face isn’t as mature as the real Liberty. It’s rounder and more like a little girl’s"), but they are cherished, particularly since 9/11. Many have been lost or destroyed, but preservationists have been able to account for about a hundred of them, and BSA Troop 101 of Cheyenne, Wyoming has collected photographs of over 50 of them.)


The two most recent state capitols we've visited have been Lincoln, Nebraska, and now Des Moines, Iowa. They have both been fairly fancy as far as state capitols go, and surprising to me since they are sort of just Midwest farm states. The capitol in Des Moines is by far the most impressive that I've seen. Although it looks as though it's about to undergo a huge renovation (peeling wall paper, new landscaping, etc.). Plus we walked away with a bunch of free stuff (ie: Capitol pencils, a coloring pages packet, a temporary tattoo, a magnet, etc.)


The Capitol.

The ceiling of the dome inside.

Princess Sparkley and Boy in front of the Capitol.

Downtown Des Moines, from the Capitol.