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​Kindergarten has not been easy for Anne. Most days I have to carry her to the classroom as she screams that she wants to go home. We are assured that once she is there she is fine, but there has been so much drama before and after school. 

About a week ago, my husband came up with a brilliant plan. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is undergoing renovations. It was announced that their model of the Star Trek Enterprise would be put in storage for several years. He and Anne love to watch the original series of Star Trek together, so he told her she could go see the model before it went into storage if she behaved when going to school.

Over the last week, we've had several ups and downs with school, but, after an overall evaluation, we decided she had behaved well enough to visit the Enterprise. We took advantage of a half day at school and the entire family went to the Air and Space Museum. This was Anne's reaction to seeing the Star Trek Enterprise in person. 

If you aren't familiar with the song she is singing, you can listen to it here.  Shockingly, this song went to number one in the UK in the late 80s. 

The Air and Space Museum was one of my very first museum outings with Meg and Clare as toddlers. At that time, I learned two very valuable lessons. First, exhibition ropes do not prevent toddlers from walking too close to valuable objects. Toddlers simply walk under the ropes. Second, free museums are fantastic, because it is okay if toddlers only enjoy one exhibit. At that time, three-year-old Meg loved an exhibit of an early passenger plane and would walk up the stairs, into the plane, down the aisle, out the exit and then do it all again. Over and over and over again. 

On our recent trip, Meg and Clare tried something more adventurous. They went on the flight simulator. The problem was that just before going into the simulator, Clare realized the simulator could make a 360 degree upside-down turn. In the not too distant past, this would not have bothered Clare. She has always been incredibly adventurous on rides. However, this summer she had a bad experience on a fair ride on which she was turned upside down repeatedly. Clare nearly refused to go on the flight simulator, but we assured her she could be the pilot and control how far the simulator turned. Once inside the simulator, she panicked and moved the simulator as little as possible. She later told me that she was afraid that it would spin out of control on its own. 

All three girls did enjoy the How Things Fly exhibit. The hands-on activities in this area allowed the girls to design a rocket, sit in a cockpit, and learn about shock waves. We also enjoyed seeing Amelia Earhart's plane in the Pioneers of Flight Gallery as well as the Wright Brothers' exhibit. 

If any of your kids are Trekkies, don't miss out on the Star Trek Little Golden Books. 

Today I am continuing my reflections on our end of the summer outings. When we are in Rhode Island, we always spend a day at Roger Williams Park in Providence. The park makes me feel like we've stepped back a century and that is appropriate because the park was built in the late 1800s. 

I started off our morning with a short reading time by the pond. The view was extraordinary and, as I recall, the weather was quite cool that morning. If you are wondering, I am reading Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South in the picture below. 

Following my short read, we climbed on the swan boats and peddled around the pond. We ran across a real swan on our excursion. We were later told that he was a young swan and that is why his feathers were brown. Anne quickly recalled Trumpet of the Swan which we read in the spring, because Louis, in the book, is described in much the same way as our swan was described. 

Continuing with our turn-of-the-century fun, the girls headed to the carousel. They first stopped to say hello to Mr. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head was invented in Rhode Island and this large version used to be located in the fantastic playground near the carousel. However, it has recently been moved under the roof of the carousel pavilion. I assume that weather was taking its toll on the big man. 

Our final stop of the day was the park's Natural History Museum. Like many Natural History museums, this museum arose from the fascination with categorizing nature that was prevalent in the Victorian period. The museum was founded in 1896 and retains so much of its antique charm. The girls always enjoy the scavenger hunts the museum offers at various levels of difficulty.

As always, we thoroughly enjoyed our time at Roger Williams Park. The park has much more to offer, including a fantastic zoo. If you are in Providence, make sure you stop by this lovely park. 

With the girls in school and our activities, by necessity, decreasing, I have decided to occasionally look back at some of the outings I missed blogging late in the summer. I spent our time in Rhode Island with a broken tooth. Between the exhaustion of travel and the pain of the broken tooth, I blogged very little. However, I do have some beautiful and funny pictures from that time to memorialize here. 

Perhaps my favorite place in Rhode Island is Jamestown. It is an island. The houses are a mixture of colonial and coastal. The smells and the sounds are exactly what a beach escape should be. The water hits roughly against the rocks. The air smells of salt water. I instantly relax as we drive over the bridge to Jamestown.

Beavertail Lighthouse, a picturesque lighthouse in Jamestown that sits at the entrance of Narragansett Bay, is one of our favorite stops. The land around the lighthouse is a state park and there is plenty of nature to absorb. Meg and Clare's favorite part of this area are the rocks that line the coast. They are rugged and a little scary for a mom to watch her children climb, but the girls love the adventure. Anne, on the other hand, took my words of warning a bit too seriously and refused to venture anywhere near the rocks for fear she would fall. 

The lighthouse property itself holds a lighthouse museum and a very small aquarium. I believe the aquarium houses sea life that has been rescued fairly recently. There was a small shark circling around its tank, which would periodically lunge out of the water in what appeared to be full attack mode. Other creatures were more sedate. The aquarium worker told Clare that some of the creatures would pose for selfies and indeed they did. 

At some point in the future, I am going to take a very comfortable lawn chair and sit right on the rocks for hours and hours and read while I listen to the waves crash. The kids are a little too young for me to pull that off quite yet, but it is a goal. 

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For me, the ultimate staycation consists of new pjs, a cup of tea and an Agatha Christie book. I love anything Agatha Christie. I love the books. I love the movies and television shows. I once dragged my husband to a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap at a local theater. To his amusement, the audience consisted of us and a bunch of senior citizens. I didn't care. I loved every second of it. 

I love Agatha Christie books because they are well-written cozy mysteries. Sure there's murder, but there's never undue gruesomeness. The characters are amusingly drawn and the towns are often quintessential English villages. If set in London or the Middle East, you still have lots of tea and crazy British characters. The most important point is that the books are well-written. Christie writes beautifully in a perfectly light tone, while always being in control of her plot. 

During our recent trip to New England, we stopped at a favorite bookstore, The Book Barn in Niantic, Connecticut. I was terribly disappointed that their mystery section had been moved from their Haunted Bookstore building to another location in the town. First, I missed the ambiance of the little building. Second, our family of five was scattered all over Niantic trying to find the genres we wanted. That being said, I was thrilled to find a coffee table book entitled, Agatha Christie at Home.

I did not even know this book existed. I have had so much fun flipping through the book and reading biographical facts and seeing pictures of Agatha Christie's various homes with a special emphasis on her home, Greenway. 

I have also recently discovered several fun editions of Agatha Christie's books. I simply adore this Harper Collins edition of 4:50 From Paddington, which happens to be one of my favorite Christie mysteries. Lucy Eyelesbarrow is an absolutely fantastic character. 

Facsimiles of early editions of Christie's books are also being produced. I recently purchased The Thirteen Problems, which is a fantastic collection of Miss Marple short stories. Characters in these short stories later appear in books such as The Body in the Library and A Caribbean Mystery. 

I purchased the Crooked House facsimile edition after watching the fabulous movie of the same title starring Glenn Close and Gillian Anderson. While I love having these special editions displayed on my bookcase, there is certainly nothing wrong with an Agatha Christie paperback. I have a shelf full of those as well and many happy memories reading them. 

That being said, I have enjoyed decorating with my beautiful editions of Agatha Christie books. In addition to the books I mentioned above, I have compiled a decent amount of books from Bantam's Agatha Christie Mystery Collection. These are often found in used bookstores or thrift stores and I highly recommend them. I like these editions because they look great on a shelf, but also are packaged nicely for reading. The covers are soft to hold in your hands and the pages remain nicely white for easy reading by those of us with less than perfect eyesight

If you haven't embraced Agatha Christie, I recommend starting with any of the books I mentioned above. I also recommend The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Murder at the Vicarage. Both of these books are simply amazing. 

Kindergarten has been a tough adjustment for Anne. She loved Kindergarten the first day, but that was a half day. When I picked her up after the first full day, her eyes filled with tears and she said, "I just miss you too much." We assumed this would pass, but halfway through her third week of school the tantrums began. She began climbing to the back of the minivan and hiding where I couldn't reach her. When I managed to get a hold of her, she screamed, kicked and screamed some more. Twice I was at school for around two hours before the staff could successfully separate her from me. The second time, she later informed me, "You ditched me." 

Anne's outbursts have impacted her sisters as well. Meg is mortified when her friends see Anne throwing a temper tantrum. Clare never lets anyone cry alone, so when Anne cries, she cries too.

Emotionally, we are all exhausted. We have found comfort in making our time at home incredibly cozy. After a particularly tough day, Anne and I cuddled on my bed and watched The World of Peter Rabbit. If you aren't familiar with this fantastic 1990s BBC production of many of the most-loved Beatrix Potter stories, you must watch it immediately. Each story begins with a scene of Beatrix Potter at Hill Top Farm painting and eventually finding her way back home in the rain to write a letter. Beatrix Potter's stories began as illustrated letters to children she knew. 

Everything about this series is relaxing. The music at the beginning is beautiful. Children often mention the sound of the paint brushes hitting the glass water jar at the very beginning of the scene as if it were almost mesmerizing. The animation itself is strongly reminiscent of Beatrix's Potter's artwork--much more so than more recent adaptions. 

As Anne and I watched, Clare heard the music from the bathroom as she finished a shower and yelled, "Is that Peter Rabbit I hear?" As quickly as she could, she joined us. We were all so happy snuggling and watching this family favorite, I was inspired to to wake up the next morning to bake scones and make chamomile and lavender tea for the girls. Clare later told me she had the best day at school because her morning started out so nicely. 

Since then, I have made a pot of tea each morning and tried to have something special to offer for breakfast. Luckily, Trader Joe's has stocked their fall pumpkin items, so a special breakfast can be as easy as popping pumpkin waffles in the toaster. Pumpkin products from Trader Joe's has been a comfort food for us for many years. 

When the girls are at school and I am still reeling from an emotional drop off, I have found comfort in rereading the light mystery series The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter by Susan Wittig Albert. These books ground me in a sense of home and comfort so that I can hopefully offer the same to my children. ​

Have you missed us? I have been otherwise occupied with a series of unfortunate dental issues amidst starting back to school and reorganizing the house after summer. But I had to report on our exciting adventure at the Maryland Science Center. 

The Maryland Science Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a family favorite even when they are not hosting a Harry Potter event or a sleepover. The Maryland Science Center is part of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, which means membership at the Maryland Science Center will allow you free admission into hundreds of science museums across the country. 

The Maryland Science Center hosts a surprising number of sleepovers at a price significantly cheaper than many other museum sleepovers. When a friend alerted us there was to be a Wizard Academy sleepover, we bought tickets immediately. The best part about it was that the sleepover was open to kids 5 and up, which means Anne could join us for her first museum sleepover ever. Another bonus was that a family that includes close friends of both Anne and Clare were also at the event. The girls had so much fun experiencing the museum and the special events with their friends. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the sleepover was the planetarium show. I did not know how they were going to make a planetarium show specific to Harry Potter. Boy, was I ever surprised. Most of the members of the Black family are named after stars (which, of course, received their names from mythology). Some examples: Bellatrix, Sirius (which is known as the Dog Star--a significant tie to Sirius's animagus), and Regulus. Merope Riddle is also named for a star. Other characters are named for constellations or even galaxies, such as Draco, Cygnus, and Andromeda. 

Following the planetarium show, we went to Potions class in the SciLab. I was amazed by how orderly this proceeded. We proceeded from station to station following the detailed directions of how many drops of creatively named solutions we should add to our mixtures. 

The Wizard Academy included its own Diagon Alley. The kids were able to make wands using a pencil and brown, gold and silver hot glue. At Flourish and Blotts, the young wizards made bookmarks by placing a cloth on a hot pan and allowing crayons to melt onto the cloth. There were plenty of wizard clothes to dress up at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. At Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, the kids sucked on hard candy and smelled different scents to see how it changed the taste of the candy. We were also given a map to locate our own golden snitch. 

Anne was getting quite tired as we reached Diagon Alley. Full days of Kindergarten have been taking their toll and this was her first sleepover. Just as we thought we would need to find a place for her to sleep, we ran into our friends and she got her second wind. The girls and their friends thoroughly explored the museum. One of the best things about this sleepover was that the kids were allowed to delve into the hands-on exhibits always present in the museum as well as the Harry Potter-themed activities. While not on topic, we had a fantastic time in the Dinosaur Hall and Newton's Alley. 

Just before 11 p.m., we set up our sleeping bags on the second floor of the museum in a spot that overlooked Dinosaur Hall. Air mattresses were not allowed, so it was a tough night's sleep. But we dutifully woke up at 6:30 a.m. so we could pack our belongings and head to breakfast. The sleepover ended with a viewing of the IMAX movie Superpower Dogs, which my canine-loving daughters thoroughly enjoyed. 

I fully recommend a sleepover at the Maryland Science Center.