Museum sleepovers have become one of our favorite parts of summer. Two years ago, Meg and I participated in the Smithsonian Sleepover at the American History Museum, which you can read about here. Last year, Meg, Clare and I slept over at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which you can read about here. This year we tried something different. Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth hosted at sleepover at the Baltimore Aquarium. Meg and Clare were anxious to participate. 

The girls have always loved aquariums. For years, Meg informed everyone she would one day be a marine biologist. As a preschooler, she regularly watched Jonathan Bird's Blue World. We have made regular visits to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut and the Woods Hole Aquarium on Cape Cod. Five years ago (I can't believe it has been that long!), we took an Oceanquest Hands On Discovery Cruise out of Woods Hole. An overnight at the Baltimore Aquarium was undoubtedly a great fit for us.

Our sleepover started with dolphins. After dropping off our bags, we headed to the Dolphin Discovery Amphitheater. We spent our time with the two male dolphins, Beau and Foster, and quite simply fell in love. Foster has an adorable underbite that makes him easy to identify. Beau is big and friendly. The moment captured in the first image below in which both Beau and Foster simultaneously put their chins on the edge of the pool was perhaps our favorite point of the evening. 

Following our dolphin experience and a filling make-your-own-tacos dinner, the girls participated in an animal rescue exercise. They were given a turtle with accompanying information that they needed to diagnose and treat. This experience was both a great hands-on activity and an opportunity to get to know some of the other children better. We met families from Texas, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 

After the classroom experience, we were given an in depth tour of the aquarium. One of our favorite areas was the Rainforest exhibit in which visitors walk through the habitat itself, so birds, toads and frogs were all around us. We, sadly, did not spot one of the four sloths in the exhibit, but we did see a lot of birds, which Clare loved. 

While exploring the more traditional aquarium exhibits, we were excited to see an eel move much more than it typically does (at least that is what we were told). 

Another treat during this part of the tour was seeing a tiny, baby star fish. Yes, that is what the dot just above the finger is in the picture below. 

 One of our more unusual opportunities during the sleepover was being allowed to walk across the catwalk over the shark tank. This is how employees at the aquarium feed the sharks. The kids were definitely a little nervous walking out on the catwalk. No one could have exposed toes. We could not take any extra bags. The only thing we could hold was our camera and we were warned that if the camera dropped, it would never be seen again. These pictures are not great because we were above high voltage lighting and our space was very limited. 

After a quick tour of the kitchen where the shark food is prepared, we set up camp. Where did we sleep? We slept in Shark Alley. That's right we slept with sharks circling us all night. The lights decreased gradually on the fish. When we first settled in, it was mesmerizing to watch the various creatures swim. When the lights went out completely on the tanks, we could only occasionally see a dark silhouette pass.  

We were woken up at 6:45 a.m.  and after a quick breakfast, continued our adventures. The morning activities included watching a 4D movie about dolphins (4D means you actually get wet when the dolphins splash on screen, wind blows in the theater and sometimes your seat even jolts). We said good morning to Beau and Foster as the curtain was opened on the dolphin exhibit. Beau swam to the window to greet everyone. We then watched stingrays being fed. After the official sleepover schedule ended, we returned to the Dolphin Discovery area to say goodbye. Clare, in particular, became very fond of the two dolphins during the sleepover. I've already started researching whether there is any possibility of a dolphin cruise when we are in New England later this summer. 

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​I truly don't know why this is, but around the Fourth of July each year I find myself at IKEA buying furniture that I will need to assemble. I did this last year with bookcases for the kids' rooms as you can read about here. As I noted in that post, several years ago, I put together four giant Billy bookshelves from IKEA over the Fourth of July holiday. 

This year we were concentrating on expanding Meg and Clare's desks. Several years ago, we bought them very basic white Micke desks from IKEA. At the time I bought them, the store only had desks with green drawers in stock, so that is what the girls received. 

When they were quite young, the girls mostly used their desks for art and calligraphy. I came to love the desks because they are so easy to clean. In fact, the easy-to-clean nature of these desks inspired the purchase of our kitchen table. We have a dining room table on which we eat. The kitchen table is where the girls bake, do crafts and do homework. I needed something we could clean easily and the Oppeby table from IKEA has worked beautifully.

Back to the desk. Over the many years we have had the girls' desks, we have only made two upgrades. I replaced the desk chairs we initially used and I spray painted the drawers. One summer, Clare's drawer became pink and Meg's drawer became blue. 

The girls have become older. They continue to use their desks for art, but they also use them for homework. In fact, during our brief homeschooling stint, Clare used her desk to take her standardized test. The girls have more books and more school supplies. To help them organize their lives a bit better, we added the Micke drawers and hutch. The hutch comes with a large magnetic white board. These additions meant a lot of assembly for me and my back is definitely paying the price. But the final product is worth it. 

Just after finishing college, my friends and I loved to have dinner at a hibachi grill. The act of grilling food right in front of customers with all sorts of tricks and flames is entertainment in itself. Also, the many courses served in hibachi create a lengthy dinner that allows for in depth conversations. I must have known at the time that hibachi would be entertaining for kids because I took my young niece to a hibachi grill right before I moved to Virginia. That outing, fifteen years ago, was the last time I had been to a hibachi grill until today.

Several weeks ago, Clare attended a birthday party at a local hibachi grill called Samurai Hibachi. To our complete surprise, she loved it and tried food she would not normally eat. She raved about the broth of a mushroom soup. She normally cries at the sight of a mushroom. Based on Clare's rave review, Meg was anxious to try hibachi. When we realized that we would need to eat lunch out today due to workers in the house, Meg suggested hibachi and the entire family agreed. 

The girls had a wonderful time. They loved the chef juggling eggs with his utensils and starting roaring fires in the middle of the table. They ate their food well and had a great time doing it. Here is their review. Anne is a little hyper, but I think you will get a sense of how much they enjoyed it. 

To the best of my memory, I owe thanks to the Bookish Princess, a book reviewer on YouTube, for discovering Elizabeth Goudge. I had probably heard at one time or another that J.K. Rowling identified Goudge's The Little White Horse as her favorite children's book, but I was totally unaware of the adult literature written by Goudge. 

I began my journey with Elizabeth Goudge by reading A City of Bells. The story is set in a cathedral town, the fictional Torminster (though it is assumed that Goudge's own cathedral home town of Wells is the inspiration). The protagonist, Jocelyn Irvin, has been injured in war and he comes to live with his grandfather, who is a canon at the cathedral. Though elderly, Jocelyn's grandparents have taken in two young children. One is their grandchild, Hugh Anthony, and the other is a delightful orphan named Henrietta. These people and others in the town help Jocelyn to heal from his war wounds and grow as a person. He soon becomes the town bookseller. 

When reading A City of Bells, I couldn't help but drawing comparisons to Gene Stratton Porter's Keeper of the Bees. In both books a man is recovering from both the mental and physical wounds of war and a young girl plays an important role in helping him see life around him. As a reader, both books allowed me to see the beauty of life all around us and the kindness that we are capable of showing one another. 

A City of Bells is the first book in the Torminster Saga, but it is also considered the first book in Goudge's Cathedral Trilogy. Because I very much enjoyed the peaceful setting of a Goudge's cathedral town, I chose to read the books in the Cathedral Trilogy. As you can see from the picture above, I chose beautifully packaged editions of the Cathedral Trilogy from Hodder & Stroughton.

The second book in the Cathedral Trilogy is Towers in the Mist, which takes place in Oxford in the late sixteenth-century. Once again, the family of a canon is at the center of the story. The story also includes wonderful historical figures. I was so pleased when the poor character Faithful and the children of the canon's family accidentally wander into Edmund Campion's Catholic chapel. Other historical figures include Robert Dudley (Earl of Leicester), Walter Raleigh, Philip Sidney and even Queen Elizabeth I herself. But perhaps more charming than the presence of historical figures is Goudge's use of the time periods own myths to enrich the story. Towers in the Mist even has its own changeling. 

The final book in the Cathedral Trilogy is The Dean's Watch. This final book would be on my list of all-time favorite reads and I would especially recommend it for anyone who serves in ministry. The book follows the dean of the cathedral, who is a good man, but has a dignified distance from the people he is supposed to serve and is typically feared by those people. We see his journey to becoming a better servant of God. Part of his journey is his friendship with a clockmaker, whose father was very much a fire and brimstone minister and made the clockmaker fear anything to do with God or the church. 

In The Dean's Watch, Goudge provides wonderful contrasts in characters that allow us to see that joy often does not come from what we might expect. The clockmaker's sister, Emma, is perhaps the most joyless character in the book and is depressed by things such as having a small house and being "weighed down by the perennial sorrow of having no dining room." The orphan girl Emma has acquired as a servant is described as the "possibly the happiest person in the city," who finds herself feeling sorry for the gentry due to all their worries.

Perhaps the most amazing character in the book is Miss Montague. As a child, Miss Montague's brother broke her leg by pushing her down stairs and it left her essentially crippled. Initially, Miss Montague expects to marry and live a life similar to that of her siblings, but she soon realizes that her family believes she could never be married off. She felt (and probably was) quite unloved by her family. But rather than succumbing to pity for herself, Miss Montague came to believe "that she, unloved, should love." She loved her siblings and their children better than anyone else could love them. She loved everyone in town by listening to them as no one else would and they all sought her out. It is said of Miss Montague, "Those upon whom her eyes rested immediately thought the world of themselves, for it was obvious that she saw with one glance all the good in them to which their own families seemed so strangely blind." It is Miss Montague who instigates the friendship between the dean and the watchmaker that would so change both of their lives. 

These books by Elizabeth Goudge make me strive to be a better person. I strongly recommend all three books. 

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I love the British television show Escape to the Country. The premise of the show is that home buyers are searching for charming (often cottage-type) homes in the English countryside. From watching this show, I learned the term "snug," which refers to a cozy, comfortable room. 

When we purchased our current home, I decided that our family room should truly be called a snug. It is a long, narrow room with a huge fireplace as the centerpiece. A previous owner added built-ins that add to the coziness of the room (and hide away games and toys). French doors on one side of the room lead to our backyard. I recently added screens to these doors so we could let in fresh air when the weather permitted. 

One tricky aspect of this room is furniture. A large open doorway leads to our kitchen and another leads to our front hallway. This makes for wonderful traffic flow, but it makes placing a full-size sofa or sectional in the room essentially impossible. Because our children and their friends prefer this room, I have spent much of our time living here trying to figure out how to provide the most seating possible. 

Our staples in the room are a love seat, a Lazy Boy recliner and a simple chair and ottoman (unfortunately, the latter does not have a good sight-line to the television). A child-size dish chair and small beanbags have made their way into the room to provide extra seating . 

With summer reading upon us, I wanted to maximize the coziness of this room. I started off by putting a couple of shag rugs on the hardwood floor. While my personal taste tends toward more traditional style rugs, I love the feel of a shag rug on my feet. 

I then made another decision that went against my traditional design tendencies in favor of comfort. I purchased a giant navy blue beanbag chair. It was an immediate hit with the kids and can easily accommodate two or three kids at a time.  We know from experience it can certainly accommodate two kids and a small dog. 

I always have baskets of books placed around this room filled with books that I hope will appeal to the kids. Some times the books are seasonal. Other times they are just current favorites. This summer I purchased two additional bins marked "books" for the specific purpose of holding our "Battle of the Books" selections, our required summer reading, and excellent books the girls own but haven't read yet and should read this summer. In other words, they are the go-to bins for when the girls are looking for something new to read. If the girls are looking for any additional inspiration, they can always look to the artwork in this room, which quite purposely features sisters reading.  

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Anne hates to sleep in her own bed. She has an incredibly comfortable bed and she enjoys sitting in her bed during the day. She hates sleeping in it at night. From the moment Anne was in a toddler bed, she jumped out of bed and ran to me over and over again each night. 

In some ways I am more stubborn than my children. I regularly tell Clare when she is being difficult about something, "Don't think you can out-stubborn me." I don't say that to Anne. It is always a concern that she will out-stubborn me. She certainly has succeeded in out-stubborning me when it comes to staying in her bed. 

We bought Anne an Amazon Echo Dot for her birthday with the hopes that bedtime would be easier if she listened to audio books (like Clare) or classical music (like Meg). It was not immediately successful. However, a couple weeks ago she asked Alexa to play The Penderwicks and sleeping in her own bed has been a breeze since then. 

Our family loves The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall. Before any of the girls were even old enough for me to read the books to them, my sister gave me the first three books in the Penderwick series. You can read my reaction to those books way back in 2014 here. I was hooked and read the first book in the series, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and a Very Interesting Boy, to my girls as soon as they were old enough. They enjoyed it, but I did not move on to the next books in the series because I was afraid some of the topics might be too emotional for them at such an early age. 

In 2017, we rediscovered the Penderwicks on Audible and at that time we did move on to the next books in the series. In fact, we couldn't stop listening to the Penderwick series in the summer of 2017. Anne loved Batty, the youngest Penderwick sister. Meg and Clare saw themselves in various ways in the other three sisters. 

On one occasion, we were driving back from some adventure and still had a good 20 minutes to go. The girls were fighting. One was bleeding. Another vomited in the car. I was at a loss as to how I would successfully make it home between rush hour traffic and the crying and yelling that was happening in the car. I turned on the Penderwicks and everything immediately became quiet. No one cried. No one fought. They all listened. 

And listening to the Penderwicks is what Anne has been doing the last couple of weeks. She listens every night before bed. She listens while she plays in her room. She has begun to regularly quote from the Penderwicks. "Blue eyes; blue Skye" (a trick for remembering one of the sisters' name) has become one of her favorite things to say.

Several nights ago, Anne woke up with a bad dream at 3 a.m. and was convinced she could not go back to sleep. After a little while she said, "Turn on the Penderwicks" and she listened until she fell back to sleep. During our visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, she was particularly grumpy. We convinced her to allow us to visit a few more exhibits by agreeing that we would listen to the Penderwicks in the car on our drive home. While we filmed our impressions of the new dinosaur exhibit in the museum cafe, Anne began a book review of the Penderwicks, which she referred to as her second favorite book because she had already reviewed The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.  As I edited her Penderwicks review to put on this post, Anne said,"The Penderwicks is actually my favorite book." I assured her that I knew that already. 

I hope you will enjoy Anne's review of her favorite book (actually). 

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After five years of construction, the new dinosaur hall at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum is open. When last we were at the dinosaur hall, Baby Anne was a newborn and my wallet was stolen. You can read about our misadventures on that day here. I'm happy to report no valuables were stolen from us today. 

The new dinosaur hall, now known as the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils--Deep Time, is definitely more colorful and interactive than its predecessor. During our visit, the girls very much enjoyed anything they could climb on or touch. Because the hall has just opened, it is still very crowded, which definitely impacted the girls' enjoyment of the experience. Anne was grumpy throughout the day (which you will see in the video below). I hope we will be able to return during a less crowded time in a few months so the girls can more fully take in the exhibit. 

Rather than rely on my own take, I'll let the girls tell you what they thought. Don't take Anne's comments too seriously. As I have said, she was grumpy. When Meg and Clare refer to sleeping under the whale, they are talking about our Smithsonian overnight trip, which you can read about here. 

On a side note, we stopped by the Q?rius room, which is the museum's hands-on educational center for tweens and teens. We love that Q?rius Jr. (intended for 9 year olds and younger),which used to be located in the Discovery Room just outside the Ocean Hall, has been moved to a loft overlooking Q?rius. I could sit with Anne in the area containing hands-on experiences for her age group, while still watching Meg and Clare as they looked through microscopes below. Here are some photos from this wonderful hands-on room in the museum. 

If you won't be able to make it to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum this summer, but want a hands-on experience, we always recommend the Smithsonian Makers Lab and the Smithsonian Makers Lab Outdoors. These books contain great experiments for kids that typically utilize supplies you already have around the house. Also, the books contain explanations as to why certain things happen in the experiment for those kids who are most curious. 

​The National Geographic Museum's Queens of Egypt exhibition has been on our "to do" list for awhile now. We loved Nat Geo's Tomb of Christ exhibit last year so much that Meg and Clare went twice.  The 3D and virtual reality experiences messed with Anne's sense of balance a bit too much, so we weren't sure she would join us for this outing. I am happy to say Meg and Clare talked her into going.

Meg has been excited to see the Queens of Egypt exhibit because she has been taking an online reading course about Ancient Egypt. She aspires to be an archaeologist, so she is our resident expert on all things ancient. Clare will be studying ancient cultures in school this coming year and she has an ongoing fascination with Egyptian princesses as you can see from her most recent Halloween costume. (Meg is the mummy. I have no idea if I can make an Egyptian connection to Anne's Ninja Turtles costume.)

My own interest in Egyptian archaeology has increased greatly since I began reading the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. You can find my blog post on the series here. I am now on book 7 in the series and continue to love it. I do recommend beginning with the first book, Crocodile in the Sandbank, though I admit the early books in the series can be difficult to locate in libraries. 

We enjoyed the Queens of Egypt exhibit quite a bit. While the older girls were disappointed there was no virtual reality element, there is an amazing 3D exploration of the tomb of Nefertari. Additionally, the accompanying displays were far more extensive than the displays for the Tomb of Christ. A scavenger hunt, provided by the museum, helped us to fully explore these displays. Anne and I learned about the shabtis, tiny wooden statues that were included in the tomb to provide workers for the afterlife. Here is a picture of Anne trying to look scared of the shabtis. 

The exhibit also included hands-on displays. There was a display teaching how to play Senet, the oldest known board game. There was a display that allowed visitors to use hieroglyphic cards to create words. A touch screen display allowed Meg and Clare to learn about hieroglyphics and the role of scribes in Egyptian society. One of Meg's favorite rooms in the exhibit was about the assassination of Ramses III through the plotting of one of his secondary wives. She was fascinated that researchers had only recently been able to solve the mystery of how he died, though his body was found over a hundred years ago. 

We highly recommend this exhibit, which is open until September 15, 2019. There is a family day about the Secrets of Egypt at the National Geographic Museum on July 20, 2019. If your child is interested in reading fictional books inspired by Ancient Egypt, Meg highly recommends Rick Riordon's The Kane Chronicles and R.L. LaFevers' Theodosia series. 

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We have something different for you today. The girls often watch YouTube Book Related videos (known as BookTube) with me. They wanted to attempt their own video book reviews. 

Meg is preparing to hopefully join the Battle of the Books team at her school this coming year. One of the books on next year's list is Restart by Gordon Korman. Here is Meg's review of that book. 

Next we have Clare's review of her favorite book from the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Finally, we have Anne's review of one of her favorite picture books: Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.

A few months ago, I began seeing buzz about Anna James' Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers from British writers, vloggers and publishers that I follow on social media. This is a middle-grade book that was released in the UK in Fall 2018, but (I believe) will not be officially released in the U.S. until Fall 2019. Happily, I was able to secure a used British copy so I could decide for myself what I thought about this book.

But after reading it, I still don't know what I think about this book. 

The jist of the plot is that Matilda Pages (Tilly) lives with her grandparents in a home connected to their amazing, sprawling bookstore in North London called Pages & Co. Tilly's father died before she was born and her mother disappeared soon after her birth. Tilly is beginning a school break and is looking forward to reading a few books. 

As the story progresses, Tilly realizes that she is seeing fictional characters come to life in the bookstore. Her grandmother is talking to Elizabeth Bennet. Her grandfather is talking to Sherlock Holmes. She is running into Anne Shirley and Alice (from Wonderland).  It turns out that Tilly and her family are bookwanderers, which means they can quite literally go into stories. 

The story really gets going as we realize that Tilly's mom (who has disappeared) was also a bookwanderer and that there is something peculiar about Tilly's bookwandering--even within the world of bookwandering.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but I have some hesitations. The book began a little too "on the nose." As we are just getting to know Tilly's grandparents, they are spouting quote-worthy statements left and right. In just the first few pages of the books, her grandmother says, "Often it's the things that don't come naturally to us that are the most important." A few pages later, her grandfather says, "Sometimes a person who becomes a friend is the least likely person you'd expect. Friends should bring out the best in you, not be the same as you." Both of these are great thoughts, but they are dispensed before the characters of the grandparents are developed. It would be like Dumbledore providing all of his sage advice to Harry at the beginning of each Harry Potter book, rather than at the end. Happily, this slightly didactic tendency quickly ends and we see Tilly's grandparents as more genuine characters. 

Also at the beginning of the book, a key plot point seems to be that Tilly's best friend, Grace, has left her behind for other friends. This is a great topic for a middle-grade book because so many kids this age face friends deserting them. But, other than a brief mention later in the book, Grace's abandonment of Tilly is not fully explored. 

Another problem at the beginning of the book is that things happen just a little too easily. It truly strains the reader's suspension of disbelief. After a lifetime of no one talking to Tilly about her mother, suddenly (while looking for vanilla) she finds a box of  her mom's books in the kitchen cupboards. Presumably, Tilly has been in those cupboards thousands of times, why does she just find the box now? Conveniently, while still looking for vanilla, Tilly runs across the street to a bakery and runs into the owner's son Oskar, who becomes her sidekick throughout the book. Additionally, Oskar's mom just happens to have a picture of Tilly's mom pregnant with Tilly ready to pull out and give to Tilly. That was one fortuitous search for vanilla. 

It also strains the suspension of disbelief that Tilly so readily reveals her secrets to her new friend, Oskar. She tells him about her mother, who has seemingly deserted her. She then surprisingly tells him about seeing fictional characters. I'm pretty sure if I began seeing fictionaly characters, I would not share that with even my closest friends. Simlarly, once Tilly finds out she is a bookwanderer, her grandparents readily tell her and Oskar everything about her parents, even though they have been hiding it from Tilly for her entire life. It just doesn't ring true.

Still, I can forgive these things because the story is very enthralling. And yet, I have one lingering issue. My biggest problem with the book is the twist about Tilly's father. I can't go into detail about it without major spoilers, but it is just weird. I can't put it any other way. It's weird and it impacts a character of a major classic of children's literature. The twist does explain a lot about Tilly, but I kept imagining my 10-year-old and 9-year-old reading the twist (that concerns a book they love) and I know they would be very confused. It is a story line better suited to the Jane Austen fanfic so popular among 20-something women than for a middle-grade novel. 

All of this being said, I did truly enjoy reading the book and I do think my kids would enjoy the premise of a girl falling into books. It is a book about books. What avid reader doesn't love that?! It is well-written overall and it is a fun setting. I like the grandparents. I like Oskar. I like the mysterious library located under the British Library (one of my favorite places in the world). Even the antagonist in the book has his own fascinating twists. There is a lot to love about this book. 

Ugh, I just don't know how I feel about Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers. It is clearly the beginning of a series and I undoubtedly will pick up the next book to see what the author does with this unusual world she has created. By chance, I found a video with the author discussing some of her favorite children's books. Here it is for your enjoyment.