John-John wrote a letter to Santa last night, all on his own. Personally, I think it’s the cutest thing ever!

Translated it says:

John

I want the Starwars Legos.

I want a new RC car.

and make your own paper

motorcycle. I want a watergun.

Last week at John-John’s school, his kinder class had a little Thanksgiving celebration. All the kids made indian headbands and pilgrim hats with collars. When I asked John if he was going to be an indian or a pilgrim, he looked at me like I was crazy and told me he was going to be an indian. I asked him why he didn’t want to be a pilgrim and he said because he didn’t want to wear that thing around his neck that looked like a bra!

He’s got a good point. Thankfully my boobs aren’t up that high.

John took me out to dinner the night before my birthday at one of my very favorite restaurants, House of Genji. We had a fun dinner with two other couples who were also celebrating their birthdays! Here’s a picture of the two of us:

Dinner was delicious as usual and I was stuffed! After dinner, John drove up to SFO to fly out to Taiwan for his new job.  Thank you honey for the special evening! I love you!! *

I’m not sure if this was fog or low lying clouds, but either way, it was an eerie view over the lake yesterday morning.

Misty Morning

I’m 40….

‘Tis not been a fun week at the Bautista house. First John-John was sick and throwing up, on his birthday no less. Then I was sick. Then Alanna. Then Kaileigh and then Jono both on the same night. Seems like the flu bug has made its way through our home and wanted to make sure we all got a little taste of the fun! Hopefully we’ve all had our turn for the season and can make it through the holidays and new year healthy.

After a bit of shopping, we left the Gettysburg visitor center for a two hour bus tour of the battlefield and surrounding area. I was surprized by the size of the battlefield over 25 square miles long. I’m not really sure what I expected, I guess just an open field or something, I was surprized to see so many homes that were original to the area during the civial war.

Our tour guide David was great. An ex-english teacher, he had a passion for telling the stories of the battlefield and captivated all the kids. They really paid attention to what he was telling them and you could tell he loved his job.

Tour Guide David!

We made our way through the “town” area of Gettysburg before we got to the battlefield. David showed us how all the historic homes all have a bronze plaques on the outside that states “Civil War Building”. You could see some of the holes in brick buildings from the bullets and cannonballs. He also said that at the end of the war, most of the homes were used as hospitals for the wounded soldiers.

Everywhere we went, you could see mounments, plaques, headstones, etc. Most of them were dedicated by vetrans of the civil war and through private contributions. We stopped at an open field and he had the kids all line up in rows, just like the soldiers of the civil war would do when marching through a battlefield.

David went on to explain to the kids why this method was not very effective and why battle at Gettysburg had the largest number of casualties in the Civil War.

Robert E Lee Memorial Statue

View from Littel Round Top

General Warren

Pennsylvania State Monument

I think this was one of my favorite monuments. We were able to get out of the bus here and climb a long spiral staircase inside the first column to the top of the monument. The view was spectacular!

Kaileigh & David from the top of the Penn Monument

We finished our day and drove, once again, to the next hotel. Dinner was at the Cozy Inn buffet. The food was good, nothing spectacular, but the pumpkin/sweet potato pie was awesome! Luckily our hotel was right across the street and we both fell into bed exhausted once again.

Our third day of the trip and we were up again at 6:00am and went down for breakfast by 6:45. Breakfast was good. Another morning of scrambled eggs, bacon, little potatoes, juice and fresh cut fruit. I have to say, one thing that I really liked about this trip was the fact that the trip leader (who looked like buzz lightyear) let all the parents get in line and eat first. I loved this little bonus!

After breakfast we hopped back on the bus and left for Monticello (which in Italian means “Little Mountain”), home of Thomas Jefferson. Before we could actually go down to the house, we had to line up (again) and get on a shuttle bus.

Before touring the house, we had about an hour or so to view the grounds and surrounding area around Monticello. We walked down a long dirt road that lead to the family cemetary and had various displays along the way.

Monticello was beautiful. We went on an inside tour of the home (where no pictures were allowed). All the beautiful furnishings either belonged to Jefferson or were exactly the same and from the same time period. The library was amazing and I loved his inventions that were scattered throughout his home.

After our tour we left Monticello and drove a few hours to Gettysburg. We stopped for fast food lunch and watched the Princess Bride on the bus. Most of the parents slept, while the kids forced themselves to stay awake and played cards or watched the movie.

We finally made it to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We started our tour at the Gettysburg Visitor Center and shopped for a bit. Don’t ask me how I talked her into it, but I was able to snap a picture of Kaileigh wearing an Abe Lincoln hat! Doesn’t she look cute! (and just so thrilled!)

After spending the morning in Williamsburg, we headed for Jamestown which is one of the three locations of the “Historic Triangle“. Our first stop was to the visitor center where they had a replica of the Powhatan Indian village and boats that came across the atlantic brining supplies and settlers. Some of the boats were so small! There is no way I would have gotton on one of those! We also toured the museum which had artifacts from the original settlement.

We got to watch as a guy demonstrated how they used a wood shaver/carver thing and watched a guy load and fire a shotgun.

Cute picture of Kaileigh and Maya at Jamestown

After Jamestown, we left for Yorktown to see where the British army surrendered to General George Washington, thus declaring the US as an independent nation. It kind of had an eerie feeling standing there looking out on to the field…

We then drove by bus for 3 hours to Charlottesville, Virginia, and watched “The Ultimate Gift” along the way. I fell asleep so I have no idea how it ended, but the hour or so that I saw, looked like a good movie. We stopped at Michie’s Tavern for dinner. The tavern was built in 1784 and served food that you would find during the same time-period. We had dinner by candlelight and it was delicious. Chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn bread, coleslaw and peach cobbler with ice cream for dessert. YUM! This was, in my opinion, one of the best meals we had on our entire trip. The perfect end to our long day. After finishing up dinner, we left and checked in at the Holiday Inn around 9:30 and we were both asleep by 10:30.

After what seemed just like a short nap, our wake up call was ringing at 6:30am. Time to get cleaned up and head downstairs for the first of many breakfast buffets consisting of powdered eggs, bacon, sausage, cold cereal and pancakes. By the end of the week, I think both of us had enough buffet breakfast to last a lifetime. If I never see a big vat of powdered eggs again, I will die happy.

After breakfast, we left for Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Our tour guide, ironically also named Virginia (which she pronounced Virginer), took us on a tour of the historic area.

It was a beautiful day in the sun in Williamsburg, just slightly humid but not uncomfortable. One of our first stops was at the Tailor shop. They had several displays of period clothing, all stitched from hand, including his entire wardrobe.

One of my favorite stops in the town was at the Silversmith shop. Not only did they have beautiful displays, but the silversmith was super funny and kept us entertained. Did you know that cups were made for ‘cup stuff’?! Unfortunately, the shop was really small and I was in the back, so I didn’t get a very good picture of him but a great shot of the kids standing in front of me!

After visiting with the Silversmith, we went to the Blacksmiths shop. Another pretty cool trade back in the 1700’s. The walls were painted white and had a slight dusting of soot, which I imagine is how you would go home everyday as well! The Blacksmith was pounding out nails from iron bars. It was pretty cool how he would heat it up in the coal then strike the bar with the hammer and sparks would shoot out everywhere! I also thought the big bellow were interesting to watch.

The last of the trade shops we visited was a saddle shop. I thought it interesting all the different types of ‘leather’ they had tanned in the shop, including if I remember correctly, frog….

After visiting the trade shops, we stopped by the Jailor’s house and cells. It was facinating that they actually kept people locked up in there. The back side of the cell had a small hole where food would be passed from the kitchen into the cell. Apparently these cells even housed some of Blackbeards pirates!

At the backside of the house, you can see a replica of the gallows in the distance. Creepy.

Can you believe this beautiful view is just down the street?! How gorgeous it must be in the fall with all the changing colors and leaves on the ground.

The end of our visit we spent touring the Capitol which was built in the early 1700’s.  The kids had fun sitting in the general court area. I thought it would be funnier if they were wearing those long white wigs. Kaileigh scrambled and got a great seat on the left side. I sat behind the barrier where the spectators would have sat.

After touring all over Williamsburg, we were free to go our own way for a couple hours and had lunch and shopped a little bit. It only around 2:00 and we still had to visit Jamestown, Yorktown, drive for a few hours, and eat dinner before checking into our hotel for the evening. More about that in the next post!