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It is such a strange week this week. Meg and Clare are in school, though it is a mix of half-days and full-days. Anne has not begun preschool yet. She is still sleeping late in the morning and has added to that moping around the house until her sisters come home from school. After I finally got her moving today, she decided we needed to go on an adventure and dressed in her most creative adventure outfit. Our adventure consisted of me walking her around our neighborhood in her wagon while she came up with an imaginary story about finding our cabin.

I’ve been trying to write a review of my favorite vacation read this summer, but I have been having technical difficulties. The words of my post have been been deleted twice (with only a picture of the book remaining) when I tried to post it. This time I’m writing it in a separate document so I can cut and paste and hopefully not lose my text.

Now to the book. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was the most wonderful surprise for me. The book is very much in the dystopia genre and I am not usually a fan of dystopia. That is my husband’s genre. In Station Eleven, a flu epidemic has killed 99 percent of the world’s population. In the aftermath of the epidemic, a traveling symphony forms and performs music and Shakespeare plays for makeshift towns that have formed. The traveling symphony undoubtedly faces many of the difficulties one would expect in a post-apocalyptic world--including a homicidal prophet who preaches that the flu was God’s wrath on the world. However, the traveling symphony faces these obstacles with the belief that “survival is insufficient”--a motto they have taken from Star Trek:Voyager. This troupe of artists believes that humankind needs beauty as well as the basics as food, shelter and medicine to truly live.

Perhaps unfairly and inaccurately, I have always associated dystopia with hopelessness. Station Eleven broke that stereotype. It is a novel full of hope. Humankind has faced near annihilation and, not only survives, but is learning to live well again.

I highly recommend Station Eleven. It is a beautifully written novel. The story takes place in the years preceding the epidemic, at the time of the epidemic, and in the years following the epidemic. These time periods are woven together throughout the book, rather than the story being told chronologically, with characters in the various time periods being connected through an actor who dies just before the epidemic occurs. The title, Station Eleven, refers to a graphic novel being created by one of the characters prior to the epidemic that unknowingly mirrors the post-apocalyptic world. This novel is beautifully crafted and deserves its status as a National Book Award Finalist.

Meg and Clare's first day of school arrived. I was terribly sad. The summer went too quickly. I missed the girls so much when I dropped them off at school.

That being said, there is a huge advantage to the school year--a schedule. We are very free-form in the summer. Meg and Anne stay up too late and sleep in late. Clare falls asleep at her normal time (though usually on the couch because she's trying to stay up later) and wakes up at 7 a.m. Breakfast seems to be an all-morning affair with everyone eating as they wake up and then requiring second breakfast, as if they were hobbits. Lunch varies based upon when everyone ate breakfast. Dinner is determined by whether the neighborhood children are playing outside. This free-form existence is nice for awhile, but it cannot be sustained. A few weeks ago, as school was approaching, Clare said, "It will be nice to have a schedule again."

We began focusing on the schedule the night before school began. At 8 p.m. all the girls gathered in my room and we read the first two chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Okay, Anne actually sat in the library off the bedroom and watched Doc McStuffins on the Kindle. But she still felt a part of the group. After our bedtime reading, the girls headed off to bed. 

Our first morning of school, everything went according to plan. Meg and Clare woke up at 6:50 a.m. Everyone got dressed, ate breakfast and we were out the door by 7:45 a.m. That will likely be the only time this year our morning goes so smoothly. (One exception is Field Day--the girls will be ready to leave by 7:30 a.m. on Field Day). 

The girls only had a half day of school on the first day. As is almost an annual tradition, we met our friend Nicole for a celebratory lunch. We went to IHOP for some festive pancakes and eggs. After some down time at home, we walked to Fort Ward park. The girls performed at the amphitheater, checked out the cannons and the recreated Civil War fort and then headed to the playground. Everyone thoroughly exhausted themselves...and then we had to walk a half mile home. (For the record, I pulled Clare and Anne in the wagon. Clare is still recovering from her surgery, so we had to limit her activity a little bit.)

At home, I made a solid family dinner and required everyone to come to the dining room at the same time. We ate roasted chicken, black-eyed peas, steamed green beans and corn bread. We had cake bars for our celebratory dessert. I found these at the Safeway bakery. I didn't want to buy or make a whole cake because my husband's birthday is this week. Two cakes in one week seemed over the top. The cake bars allowed everyone to have a little taste of cake without going overboard. 

After dinner, it was time for baths and bedtime reading, so we can do it all again tomorrow. It is nice to have a schedule again. 

So, I dropped the ball on the solar eclipse. I know. I know. This type of event is precisely the kind of thing I'm supposed to help my children experience. What did I do instead? I scheduled surgery for Clare. 

Clare was born with an umbilical hernia that never healed (for most babies, these hernias eventually close on their own). Clare had reached the age at which doctors recommend closing it. The concern is that part of the intestines could get caught in the hernia, which would result in a serious health crisis. During the past school year, Clare began experiencing tenderness in the area of her hernia, so her doctor recommended surgery over the summer. 

Easier said than done. The hernia surgery requires about two weeks of recuperation. Most of the possible dates for surgery would have required Clare to drop out of her Irish step dancing camp or our family to delay our scheduled vacation. I picked August 21 to avoid these conflicts and because she would have one full week of recovery before school began. She will be on limited activity at school, but considering they start with half days that should be fine. I knew August 21 would mean we had to return from Rhode Island in weekend beach traffic, but it didn't occur to me that surgery on that date would interfere with our solar eclipse viewing. 

I don't suppose it had to interfere completely with our family's viewing. Clare and I were back from the hospital before noon. She was in a lot of pain, but I had her tucked into bed. I could have taken Meg and Anne out to see the eclipse, but I had not gotten the special eclipse glasses because we were on vacation for the previous two weeks. I did not want to take three-year-old Anne outside without the glasses, because telling her not to look at the sun would be an invitation to look directly at the sun. My husband caught a glimpse of the eclipse and took Meg out to see its reflection. I watched from the window as it became slightly darker outside (we only experienced a partial eclipse in our area). Soon Clare woke up. We fed her jello and yogurt and I let her watch NASA coverage of the eclipse on my phone. That's the best we could do. 

We may have failed on the eclipse around here, but we had a big win in the garden. While we were away, we hoped for rain but didn't have anyone look after our garden. When we returned and Meg inspected our garden, she found the zucchini pictured above. We are so proud of it. We decided if we had a fair to enter it into, it would definitely be a blue ribbon winner. There was some debate over what we should do with the zucchini. We've decided to compromise. We will grill some slices from the zucchini and turn the rest into zucchini bread. 

Near the end of our Rhode Island trip, we visited Beavertail State Park located in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Jamestown sits on a lovely island just beside Newport. It is a very beautiful area of the state. Beavertail is home to a lighthouse as well as a stunning coastline. The lighthouse, unfortunately, was closed when we were there (though it was supposed to be open), but we still enjoyed visiting the coastline. 

Lest anyone think we have neglected classic vacation past times, today I'm sharing pictures of our bowling and mini-golf outings. 

When in Rhode Island, we love to go to the duckpin bowling alleys. For those of you who don't know, duckpin bowling uses a much smaller ball (without finger holes) and smaller pins. It is very kid-friendly. For her last birthday, Meg very much wanted to do a duckpin bowling party, but our closest alley at home is nearly an hour away. So, she had to settle for normal bowling (we still had a good time). 

In Rhode Island, we all enjoyed watching three-year-old Anne take her turn at bowling. She experimented with numerous methods of pushing the bowling ball down the lane. Regardless of the method it would move at a snail's pace. During the long wait to see if it would knock down any pins, she would do all the classic bowling moves. If the ball moved too far to one side, she would lean the opposite direction, hoping to will the ball to move, Sometimes, she would just cover her eyes with her hands because she just couldn't watch. The ball often managed to hit a few pins and she would cheer accordingly: "Go Annie! Go Annie!"

We also enjoyed mini-golfing during our vacation. Clare had the best time and surprised everyone by sinking two holes-in-one. Meg was mostly just hot and wanted to go home. Anne played mini-golf her own way. At the beginning of the round, we told her she could put her golf ball wherever she wanted. So, at each hole, she put it right beside the hole and knocked it in. I'm going to start playing mini-golf her way.

The Washington County Fair in Rhode Island is an annual tradition for my family. My husband went to this fair every year as a child and it is pure nostalgia for him. I love going because I grew up going to county fairs similar to this in the Midwest. Our kids love the Washington County Fair because, hey, what kid doesn't love a fair.  

Each year we seem to spend less time with the animals. The girls still enjoy the rabbits and the baby chicks. While there are some seriously strange looking chickens at the fair for judging, Anne refused to go into the barn to look at them because they were too noisy. The cow barns are located in the sunniest spot of the fairgrounds, so the girls are anxious to move on. In the past, we often spent a large part of our time at the cow barns. When Meg was a baby, my husband's relatives still showed cows at the fair and we would spend time with them at the cow barns. But those days have passed and now we move quickly pass the cows. All attention is on the rides.

Meg and Clare are ride daredevils. These two will ride anything. If they are tall enough to go on a ride, then they jump on it with absolutely no fear. Their two favorite rides were the two scariest. And yes, my children were on the rides pictured below when the pictures were taken. Yikes!

Anne and I were playing it much safer. At this point, Anne does not like rides that go up in the air--even the ones designed for preschoolers. Anne refuses to ride many of the rides her sisters loved when they were her age. She definitely has some motion sickness issues, so I'm certain that impacts her choice of rides. At the fair, she liked three rides: the cars, the tea cups and the dragons (as long as I rode the dragons with her and kept our dragon from spinning too much). Anne and I just continuously walked in a circle, riding those three rides over and over and over again. 

The Washington County Fair turned out to be a full day excursion for us. After drinking quite a bit of Del's frozen lemonade, the entire family returned home and collapsed in exhaustion. 

We decided to add a Connecticut day to our vacation. We spend a lot of time driving through Connecticut on our way to Rhode Island, but we don't often return to Connecticut for sightseeing. This year we decided to make the short drive back to Mystic, Connecticut to visit the aquarium. 

There are two wonderful things about the Mystic Aquarium: the penguins and the beluga whales. The aquarium has all the fantastic exhibits you would expect from a top aquarium. There are touch tanks with stingrays. Long tubular displays hold floating jellyfish of many varieties. There is a fantastic tank full of sea horses and another giant tank with sharks. There are outdoor exhibits with seals and sea lions. These are all great and would make a trip to the aquarium completely worth it. But the most awesome exhibits are the penguins and the beluga whales. 

Mystic Aquarium has African penguins. They are small as penguins go. The exhibit is designed to allow the penguins to rest on rocks above or swim in water below. Visitors can view the penguins from either spot. In the past, we have enjoyed watching the penguins come right up to the glass as they swam in the water. We laughed at memories of Clare being taken by surprised when she was suddenly eye to eye with a penguin. On this trip, the penguins were mostly relaxing on the rocks. Just as we were about to leave the viewing area by the glass, two penguins began swimming high in the water. Unfortunately, there were no eye to eye encounters with the penguins. 

There, however, was an eye to eye encounter with a beluga whale. I love beluga whales. Perhaps it is because their mouths seem to be stuck in a permanent smile. Perhaps it is just the adorable shape of their heads. I don't know exactly why I love them, but they definitely make me happy. We were lucky enough to snag a fantastic viewing spot of the belugas at the aquarium and one kept swimming right beside the girls. When the enormous beluga whale would suddenly appear in front of them seemingly out of nowhere, Anne would scream, turn around and run to me. Then she would go back to the glass and wait for him to return. The picture below captures her mid-scream and turn.

Following our trip to the aquarium, we did a little relaxed sightseeing. We drove through the town of Mystic and Mystic Seaport. When in Mystic, I always expect to run into a 19th century sea captain. The town is pure New England charm. The houses are old, but well care for. Old ships sit in the seaport. It is simply a beautiful place to visit. 

We also visited the nearby retreat center at Enders Island. This beautiful island is the perfect place for a retreat. Whether you are sitting in a beautifully manicured garden or on a glacier rock that nature placed there randomly, every spot provides a place for reflection and prayer. The retreat center includes a beautiful chapel built of rock perfectly designed for the environment of the island. If anyone is looking for a place for a spiritual retreat, I strongly encourage you to consider this location. 

After Enders Island, we headed to nearby Niantic, Connecticut--home of the Book Barn. The Book Barn consists of several locations throughout Niantic. Its main location is not a single building, but a landscape filled with random structures full of used books. In the midst of these structures are fantastic play areas for kids. There are cats that wander freely and goats that are confined in a fenced area (if the goats were allowed to run free, I'm guessing there wouldn't be many books left to buy). The only thing lacking at the Book Barn is a real bathroom. There are only porta-potties available. Three-year-old Anne desperately needed a potty, but she flat out refused to use a porta-potty. We had to cut our trip short a little bit and the lack of a real bathroom probably cost the Book Barn a larger sale. That being said, I did well in the time we had. On the recommendation of the same friend who initially recommended the Book Barn, I bought several Geraldine Brooks books and I'm excited to read them. Meg and Clare picked out an assortment of books as well, including a couple that they are considering for a book club meeting. Anne wasn't too interested in the books, but she loved a tricycle she found and rode it throughout the grounds and into various buildings. Here are some pictures from the Book Barn. 

We added a new outing to our vacation this year--Edaville Family Amusement Park. A few years ago I read that Edaville was opening a Thomas the Tank Engine Land as part of their amusement park. My first thought was to wish my teenage nephew was still a preschooler so I could take him. He loved Thomas so much as a child. My girls like Thomas, but not the way my nephew did. As we were preparing to go to Rhode Island this year, I researched Edaville a bit to see if it was something our family would enjoy. We decided to take a chance on it and we were so glad we did. 

Prior to even entering Thomas Land (as they call it), Edaville is filled with rides perfect for elementary age children.  Meg and Clare enjoyed classic rides such as the tilt-a-whirl and flying planes. There was a ladybug roller coaster that they absolutely loved, which both twirled and zoomed.  While Anne was tall enough to ride many of these rides with an adult, she was very timid that day and refused to ride most of them. When I rode with her on the flying planes that we could maneuver up and down in the air, she said, "This is like a really scary carousel." Hmmm, probably not what the park was going for with those rather tame planes. The jolly caterpillar ride was much more Anne's style. Considering Anne's timidity that particular day (which might have been attributable to motion sickness), I was very glad that there were several calm quiet rides that suited her perfectly. While the big sisters rode every crazy wild ride they could find, Anne occupied herself with little train rides and other tame options.

The rides incorporate some of the shows favorite characters, such as Bertie the Bus, Harold the Helicopter and Toby the Engine.

Meg and Clare road a Cranky the Crane ride that I couldn't even watch. It was one of those rides that went high and then dropped. Yikes! How are my little girls old enough to ride those types of rides! A much calmer ride that we all enjoyed were the cars that circled high above Thomas Land and provided a wonderful view. 

As the day came to a close, Meg and Clare headed back to the main park to ride the ferris wheel and bumper cars. I stayed with Anne to watch the Thomas show. By some engineering magic, engines were talking along with Sir Topham Hat and a driver, who was the only actual human in the show. Anne loved the show and had to finish the day off with a big hug for Percy. 

Edaville was a huge success. Meg and Clare were so proud of being big enough to ride all the rides and they can't wait to go back next year. Anne woke up the next morning and asked to go see Thomas again. That's a pretty good sign she loved it.  

We recently have been vacationing in Rhode Island. I strongly concur with the decision of the Vanderbilts and other tycoons to build their Newport "summer cottages" in Rhode Island to escape the summer heat of the city. We aren't in Newport. We rented a little house just off a rocky beach in Narragansett. But like those tycoons, we have been enjoying the much cooler temperatures and lower humidity in our escape from the city.

One of our first outings of the vacation was to Watch Hill. Watch Hill is the new cool spot for Rhode Island mansions. Entertainers such as Taylor Swift and Conan O'Brien have homes there. Other celebrities stay at the breathtaking Ocean House--a five-star hotel that appears to be the very definition of luxury. We, however, did not go to Watch Hill for the luxury. We went for its legendary carousel. 

The Watch Hill flying horse merry-go-round is the only continuously operating carousel of its kind. It was built in 1867 and has made Watch Hill its home since 1883. It is small as carousels go and only children weighing less than 100 pounds can ride it. The girls were thrilled to be first in line so they could carefully choose their horses. Clare chose the horse looking most like Black Beauty. 

Our next major outing of the trip was our annual pilgrimage to the New England Patriots Hall of Fame. My husband is a lifetime Patriots fan. His grandmother used to take him to Patriots training camp at Bryant College. He, now, takes our children to training camp at the practice field beside Gillette Stadium. The girls don't get much out of training camp because they are too short. The crowds are enormous and they simply can't see over the heads of all the adults. But they love the Patriots Hall of Fame. Their favorite part of the Hall of Fame is dressing up, though they do have to wait patiently while grown men also dress up in Patriots jerseys and helmets and pretend they are about to win the Super Bowl. 

I'll continue with more of our vacation outings tomorrow. 

We are not frequent visitors to the Children's Museum of Richmond. Their closest location is in Fredericksburg, which is an hour drive from our home. But there are times when an indoor play area is needed--for example, during a heat wave. A few weeks ago, when every day was nearing 100 degrees and my kids were sick and tired of being in the house, we drove to Fredericksburg and visited the children's museum.

While the Fredericksburg location is not huge (it is part of a shopping center), it is well designed. For the most part, the various play areas are located along the sides and the middle area is kept open with only a few play centers that do not impact the flow of kid traffic. It feels spacious and it is easy for parents to keep track of numerous children at once. 

When the girls need to get rid of energy, there is nothing better than the giant mountain of tires at the museum.

This structure allows the kids to climb, slide down ropes and engage in fantastic pretend play. My girls joined up with numerous other children at the museum to play pirate ship on the tires. I could hear Meg shouting orders across the museum, so I assume she was the captain. My favorite part came when she yelled, "Man the ship." A boy then yelled, "Yeah, abandon ship." Apparently, these pirates were having some communication problems.

The grocery store play area is a constant favorite of my children. I'm not sure what it is about grocery stores and children. Is it that they spend so much time observing us in grocery stores and they want the opportunity to do it themselves? They do seem to love the opportunity to be the shopper and especially to be the cashier. The museum offers the kids grocery carts and shelves lined with food boxes as well as a produce section filled with plastic fruits and vegetables. After filling up their carts, the kids can head over to the checkout where they find a cash register as well as a sensor that allows them to pretend to scan the food. My girls spent so much time scanning groceries. 

A play diner is located right beside the grocery store. This was well-planned. The kids take food back and forth from the grocery store to the diner. There is even a pass-through between the two play areas, which makes it easy for kids to ask for certain food and makes clean up a little easier as well. The diner includes a place to cook and plate the food as well as tables on which to serve customers. Parents often play the part of customers and, I can tell you, the kid-size seats can be a tight fit. But it works. 

The play areas also include a bank and a dentist office. The bank never seems to get much traffic. It makes me wonder whether the kids really knew what the bank was and how to pretend play in it. So many of us manage our banking through ATMs, direct deposits and phone deposits. I rarely take my kids into a bank. The dentist office was a little more popular. Anne had recently been to her first dentist appointment and I noticed, of my girls, she had the most interest in the dentist office. She very much enjoyed using the dental tools to clean the teeth of the mannequin patient. 

An ongoing favorite section for all of my kids is the art area. Here kids can use paint, markers, scissors, glue, as well as cardboard, tissue paper and various other supplies to create their masterpieces. The girls kept returning to this area to make new things. We were able to store their artwork on a drying rack until we were ready to gather it up before heading home. 

A new addition to the museum since our last visit was the building area. Anne loved this area. A partially framed room allowed kids to pretend to be contractors working away. The girls made walls with blocks. They used toy tools to hammer and saw. They even pretended to do a little wiring. It is a very fun area.

The Children's Museum of Richmond (Fredericksburg) continues to be a fun outing. Some of the play areas are starting to show a little age. As I recall, a few things in the dentist office were not working. But the kids had no problem imagining around these technical difficulties. The best review has come from Anne, who continues to ask to go back every other day.