Mount Vernon Tour and Potomac River Cruise

My friend Nancy is a big admirer of George Washington and has season tickets to Mount Vernon. She received special tickets to tour the basement of Mount Vernon and could bring some guests, so she invited us.

This is a neat stained glass window with a scene from the Revolutionary War in the visitor's center at Mount Vernon.

Kent and I have been to Mount Vernon many times but had never been on the basement tour.

This is basically the view of the hallway that goes under the house.

Here's one of the symbols from the last 1700's on the masonry on the support beams.

One of the reason there's a basement tour at Mount Vernon is because it was featured in the second "National Treasure" movie, so Kent and I watched it the night before.

Another very exciting difference between this house tour of Mount Vernon and all the other tours we've taken is that picture taking was allowed!
The next three photos were taken in the largest room in the house, used as an assembly room.

These are close up photos of the marble fireplace in the large room.

Pictured below is the key to the Bastille in Paris, that was given to George Washington by Lafayette after the French Revolution in 1789. Cool, right?

       

                        
The dining room is below.

One of the guest bedrooms, which has recently been refurbished.

Another guest room, with a baby cradle.

This was George and Martha's bedroom,

 where George Washington passed away in 1799. 

Below are two views of George Washington's office and library.

  

                              
This is the view of the Potomac River seen from the back of Mount Vernon.

Another thing we did this visit that we've never done before is to take a Potomac River cruise that left from Mount Vernon. Here we are on the deck of the boat.

This is one of the views of Mount Vernon from the river.

Another view of Mount Vernon from farther down the wide river.

On the Maryland side and down some, of the Potomac, is Fort Washington, a fort built in 1809 to protect the city of Washington, DC, and is now part of a park. We've never been there.

We're very lucky to live so close to such an amazing historical home!!

Bealton Hot Air Balloon Festival and Lego Sculptures

Once a year in August the "Flying Circus" air show that's held at a small airfield near where we live has a balloon festival. We'd never gone before, so we decided to go this year.

                                                                            It was perfect weather for the hot air balloons.

We arrived at 7:30am since early morning is the best time for balloons to go up.

I took this picture because it shows a few of the bi-planes that regularly perform in the flying circus.

There weren't ever very many balloons in the air at one time.

Some of the hot air balloons came from other locations and landed at the air field.

I'm not sure why we didn't get any pictures of us with the hot air balloons.

The bi-planes were also flying as the hot air balloons were floating around.

The picture below was as the balloons were landing and being taken down.

Kent saw that people could pay for a ride in a bi-plane, and is now hoping to do it someday. It's pretty pricey, though.

After the balloon festival we drove to Winchester, Virginia, to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

They had an art installation on the grounds of their garden.

All the "sculptures" were made with lego bricks!

These deer sculptures were life-sized.

Gardener Kent posing in the garden by the lego wheelbarrow.

Except for the hat, notice how Kent's clothes match the grandpa gardener in the lego sculpture below!

This bee and pansy were MUCH larger than life-sized.

There was a sign by each sculpture telling how many lego bricks it took to build each one.

This spider hanging in the tree would be a perfect Halloween decoration.

                              
The gardens themselves were very nice, and even had a small section with a Japanese garden. Kent was quite enthralled with the place, and the lego sculptures were unique and fun to see.

It was a lovely August day for an outing in the countryside of Virginia!

Matthew's Blessing in Kansas

After the reunion in Texas Kent and I flew up to Kansas at the beginning of August to spend time with Garrett and Krystal's family before Matthew's blessing.

The Carson home in Kansas is on a hill and has a great deck overlooking the surrounding area.

The kids had fun playing with the fairy garden Granddad gave them at the family reunion.

I took the chance to hold my adorable grandchildren whenever I could!

Granddad with little Matthew.

This is a mattress in the playroom in the basement. Daniel and Adam are playing with some of the micro machines their Daddy played with when he was a boy.

Daniel really took a shine to the calezedors that Kent had brought.

Alexa is very good at folding washcloths, so I took a picture of her doing her work.

A group hug is included after family prayer, which they have every evening before bedtime.

Here's little Matthew, the star of the weekend, on his blessing day.

               

                                  I   I couldn't decide on my favorite photo, so I put in several. I made Matthew's blessing outfit, but I kept it pretty simple.

I LOVE this family photo of the seven Kansas Carsons. 

Krystal's parents also came for the blessing, so it was a busy weekend!