The weather has cooled in Rhode Island. The nights can be chilly, but the days are still (debatably) warm enough to swim. We dragged my husband away from work and to the ocean for the first time earlier this week. Once he was in the water, he had a wonderful time taking the girls out deeper and deeper (and making me more and more nervous). 

To my complete delight, the older girls are starting to feel the independence that I had hoped they would experience while here. At home, COVID and riots had made them anxiety-ridden. They were at times scared to leave the house and tended to stay very close to me at all times. Here, we are staying in a quiet neighborhood on a river where kids have a lot of freedom. We've spent a lot of time exploring the neighborhood together and now the older girls are starting to take off on their own.

It started one evening after dinner. The girls pulled out their bikes and decided they wanted to go down to the beach for sunset. I walked with Anne, who was on her bike but moves much more slowly than her sister. Meg and Clare took off, yelling, "We'll see you there." 

The next morning, the older girls woke up early and went off for a bike ride along the river. They met other kids their age who gave them practical advice like "never put your bike down in the sand because the sand messes up the bike chain." Clare said she felt like Vicky Austin from A Ring of Endless Light (which I discuss here) jumping on her bike to ride around the island. Anne and I eventually met up with them and everyone went for a swim in the river. To our surprise, a bunny appeared out of the grasses beside the beach.

Later in the week, our family went miniature golfing. The course also offers something called bumper boats. Anne must have had a recent growth spurt, because she was a good two inches taller than the necessary height to drive her own boat. So each of the girls climbed into their own boat and my husband and I sat back and enjoyed watching them. 

After miniature golf, I took the girls back to the river for a swim. Meg called out, "There are fish!" Wow, were there ever. Hundreds of tiny fish swam in the water creating figure eights and elegant swirls. We watched their movements in complete fascination. Clare memorized every aspect of the tiny fish, so she could research them at home. 

Later that night, we drove to Frosty Drew Observatory and Sky Theater. This observatory, built on an old Naval Air Station, offers weekly star viewing for the public away from any light pollution. A few telescopes are set up around the field, where a knowledgeable volunteer explains what you are seeing. One volunteer used an amazing laser pointer (which seemed to point directly at the stars) to identify constellations. When we weren't looking through telescopes, we simply stretched out on the ground and watched the night sky. Anne would make up stories about what she saw in the stars and I told her that she was doing precisely what ancient people did when they began telling the stories of constellations. 

The highlight of the night was going into the observatory itself and looking through the high-powered telescope it holds. We could see Saturn, its rings and its moons. It was truly amazing. I had just written down a quote from A Ring of Endless Light that seemed perfectly applicable to that moment: "If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and that there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless."

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We have been diligently visiting the sites of Rhode Island since the girls were babies. But occasionally, we have had to choose to wait a few years to visit certain sites because the girls were not old enough to enjoy them. We finally were able to visit two of those places this week. 

Nathanael Greene Homestead

My husband grew up in Coventry, Rhode Island, which just happened to be home to Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene. I first became interested in Nathanael Greene in 2005 when I read David McCullough's 1776. General Greene is one of the major figures discussed in that book. My husband and I started dating the following year. I'm fairly certain that I identified the Nathanael Greene Homestead as a place I'd like to visit on my first trip to Rhode Island with him in December 2006. A mere fourteen years later, we finally toured the homestead. 

​The house, called Spell Hall, is a quintessential colonial house. The rural land it sits on is now picturesque, though our tour guide said at the time the view of the house was the family foundry that he ran. While Nathanael Greene may not have enjoyed the views from his windows, we certainly did. We also appreciated the cool breeze blowing through and cooling the house. Our tour guide explained that the house was well-designed to allow air to circulate. There is both a large center hall and small hallway connecting the rooms that allow air to move. In the winter the smaller hallways can be closed off to allow the fireplaces to more easily heat the room. 

I particularly enjoyed the period furniture placed in house. There were several beautiful desks, of which I took note. We also learned a great deal about foot warmers and bed warmers, which are very important for a cold Rhode Island winter. My Hamilton-loving children were more interested in the room that once hosted George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. Here are some pictures from our trip. 

The Breakers

I have wanted to go to The Breakers for even longer than the Nathanael Greene Homestead. I enjoyed watching A&E's America's Castles in the 1990s, which featured this Newport, Rhode Island, "summer cottage" belonging to Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt. I was thrilled when I realized all of our children were old enough to enjoy this beautiful home. 

The Newport Mansion Preservation Society provides audio tours of all their mansions which can be downloaded to an iPhone, Kindle or other tablet. We collected our devices and managed to provide each member of our family with an audio tour and headphones. This turned out to be for the best because we did move at different speeds. Our youngest Anne was diligent about covering everything on the audio tour, but she needed to move a fairly quick pace. Our oldest Meg wanted to listen to each "extra" included in the audio tour. Clare, who loves fabrics and decor from historical periods, listened to just the main audio tour, but needed time to just "oooh" and "aaaah" over the various rooms. 

For most everyone in the family, the library was a favorite room. We could all picture ourselves sitting in this room and reading for hours. Clare said it would the perfect place to read Harry Potter. 

The terrace was also a favorite part of the house. The audio tour explained it served as an outdoor living area. It would definitely serve that purpose well. The cool breeze of the ocean is wonderfully refreshing and the view is unbelievable. 

Somewhat surprisingly, among Clare's favorite places were the kitchen and butler's pantry. The kitchen reminded her of Mrs. Crocombe's English Heritage videos. These are charming if you haven't watched them. The butler's pantry is a two-story room full of various delicate and beautiful dishes. She was particularly mesmerized by tiny teacups. 

A special bonus at the end of the tour is the playhouse built for the Vanderbilt's twelve-year-old daughter. Our girls were ready to move in. 

Here are a few more pictures from our visit. 

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While I have blogged about our grander excursions in Rhode Island, much of our trip has been quiet. Some days our big adventure is simply walking down to the small beach by the river in our neighborhood or driving to a nearby ocean beach. We might stop by our local ice cream shop or find a Del's lemonade stand. Most nights we grill chicken or burgers on our deck. Occasionally, we gather around our fire pit and make s'mores. 

Our extended, quiet stay by the ocean has repeatedly reminded me of Madeleine L'Engle's book A Ring of Endless Light. Growing up, my mom introduced me to the Austin family series by Madeleine L'Engle. That doesn't quite capture how much these books were a quintessential part of my life. My mom read them to me. I would repeatedly check them out of the library and read them. Each Christmas (well into my college years), my mom would read aloud The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas (a short story about the Austin Family). On the night before my wedding, my mom read to me from Meet the Austins until I fell asleep because I was afraid my nerves would keep me awake. 

Of all the Austin family books, A Ring of Endless Light is my favorite. I read it repeatedly as a child and I've read it repeatedly as an adult. The book is set on an East coast island, where the family is staying at their grandfather's house (a converted stable) because their grandfather is dying. In the midst of this sadness, Vicky, the protagonist, is recruited by a marine biology student to work with dolphins. While her other siblings are the scientists in the family, it is her artistic nature that allows her to connect with these beautiful animals. 

A few days ago, I became overwhelmed with the need to read A Ring of Endless Light. My only question was whether I would read it by myself or with the girls. Meg prefers to read on her own and, much to my dismay, rarely joins us for read-alouds. The themes of A Ring of Endless Light are just too mature for Anne. That left Clare, who absolutely loves dolphins (you can read here about how she discovered this love during our overnight trip to the Baltimore Aquarium). She also loves being read to. She was thrilled when I suggested reading it. 

The first thing I realized about reading this book aloud is that the chapters are VERY long. We've been reading for over an hour each night. But Clare loves every second of it and, as long as I keep sipping water, my voice can hold out. 

The second thing I realized is how relevant this book is for right now. To be fair, some of the slang and descriptions in the book are very dated. But, if you can push that aside, you will find a beautiful discussion of how those who obsessively avoid death fail to truly live their life. Sadly, that fact has become far too evident this year. To be clear, I am not in any way attacking cautious and prudent measures people have taken to avoid COVID. But it has become very evident that there is a psychological impact to limiting our normal social interactions. Children are suffering panic attacks and no longer know how to behave when they are with friends. The CDC is now reporting that nearly a quarter of young adults considered suicide during the pandemic. The grandfather in A Ring of Endless Light says, "When one tries to avoid death, it's impossible to affirm life." 

Though we are spending huge chunks of time with the Austin Family while reading A Ring of Endless Light, it wasn't enough for Clare. She has read Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas many times (both on her own as well as having it read to to her), but she wanted to read again...immediately. Our copies are packed away with our Christmas books at home, so I found her a e-book copy that she could read here. I wonder if some day she will be reading Austin family books to her children. 

Several years ago, I wrote about letterboxing (you can read about it here). As a quick summary, it is an activity in which hikers and other adventurers place boxes in hidden locations and then place written clues (sometimes in the form of a poem or riddle) on a website such as Letterboxing.org or Atlas Quest. Letterboxers download the clues and search for the box. We recently decided to hunt down letterboxes with clues posted by the Rhode Island State Parks on letterboxing.org.

We started with the letterbox for Beavertail State Park. Beavertail is one of our favorite spots in Rhode Island. You can read about our previous trips here and here. The park, located in Jamestown, Rhode Island, is home to a lighthouse that sits at the entrance of Narragansett Bay. While the current lighthouse only dates back to 1856, a lighthouse has sat on this spot since 1749. The original lighthouse was the third lighthouse built in our country, according to the Rhode Island State Parks letterboxing clue. 

The clues we followed were in the form of a poem. We were a little confused at first and wandered down the wrong trail. We noticed that the number of paces given by the clues did not in fact get us to a fork in the trail. After we realized our mistake, we began again and found the letterbox quite easily. In fact, the girls commented on how accurate the clues were. Once we found the box, we stamped our letterboxing book with the two stamps included in the box. The box also contained a small notebook in which we noted the date on which we located it and included our family stamp. 

While we were on the trails around Beavertail, we turned on my Geocaching app and located a cache just a few hundred yards from the letterbox. Double the treasure in one trip! 

I will admit that this trip was not without its drama. Meg was ready to give up after our first mistake. I tried to use our misstep as a lesson in perseverance, but she was not convinced. Anne has recently developed an absolute terror of bees and other bugs. So at certain points on the trail, she froze and refused to move in the loudest of voices. I was forced to pick up my six-year-old up and carry her along a narrow trail while also balancing my phone which held our clues. But even with these negatives, Clare and I had a blast. And whether they admit it or not, I'm pretty sure Meg and Anne felt like adventurous treasure hunters. 

It has been one crazy week in Rhode Island. A tropical storm moved through and knocked our power out for nearly 24 hours. As we were recovering from that, Massachusetts announced that Rhode Island was no longer considered a "low-risk" state for COVID exposure (despite no obvious change in the numbers) and therefore would be subject to quarantine. For us, that meant we could no longer cross the state border for historical field trips. Luckily, we did visit one historic site in Massachusetts this week prior to the ban taking effect. 

Old Sturbridge Village recreates a rural New England Village from the 1830s. My children were mesmerized by this step back into time. Classic New England elements are brought into one place. There is a simple Quaker meeting house and a simple white New England church building. As a child, I remember repeatedly looking through a book about New England churches that my parents owned. Visiting here was like stepping into the pictures of that book. Additionally, a covered bridge brought in from Vermont sits on the property as does a perfect New England farm. 

While the picture above shows the girls inside a building, I must note that most buildings are not open due to COVID. Ropes close off the entrances, but do allow you to see inside the buildings. Many of the demonstrations have been moved outside. Also, the outdoor playground and indoor discovery room that would be perfect for younger children are currently off-limits. The good news is that entry prices are very reasonable through the summer. With the purchase of an adult ticket, three children are admitted for free. 

My girls quickly identify the animals as one of their favorite parts of Sturbridge Village. Chickens roam around the farm area. Sheep fill the pastures. Cows can be seen both in the pasture and up close in the barn. According to the website, even the breeds of these animals are historically accurate to the time period. Related to animals, we learned a very interesting fact about pounds, which I had always assumed were a more recent invention of urban areas. At Sturbridge, just off the town common, there is a stone pen called the pound. When animals strayed too far from home, they were placed in the pound where the owner could pay a fine for the animal's release.

Another favorite part of the village was the carryall. The carryall is essential an 1830s version of a shuttle bus. Two amazingly strong horses pull a very large wagon. We rode the carryall from the blacksmith shop back to the tavern for lunch. Our driver also served as a wonderful guide to the village. He explained the history of how certain structures came to village as well as how the mills worked. As a special treat, the horses pulled us through the covered bridge. 

The costumed historical interpreters were wonderful--even with masks. We very much enjoyed watching the cooper shape the wood, the blacksmith explain how wagon wheels were made and the shoemaker work on shoes. 

The girls also enjoyed the town bank. They found the display of 1830s money from different countries fascinating. It allowed them to pictures coins they had only previously read about. 

Old Sturbridge Village was undoubtedly a very successful outing. We enjoyed it even with the COVID restrictions, but do hope to return during more normal times. I will leave you with a few more pictures from our trip. 

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All Harry Potter fans know that July 31 is Harry's birthday. It is also the day Hagrid tells Harry he is a wizard. A couple of years ago, we began hosting enormous Harry Potter birthday celebrations. Forty of our closest friends usually crowd into our house, dressed as Harry Potter characters and eating Harry Potter-inspired treats. You can read about those events here and here.

Due to COVID-19, such a party was obviously not going to happen this year. That, however, did not mean we would forget Harry's birthday altogether. 

Our celebrations began with a movie marathon. As soon as Meg and Clare woke up, they turned on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. We made it through movies one through three over the course of the day. While the movies played, we began putting together a Harry Potter jigsaw puzzle. I purposely chose a puzzle with 500 pieces so it would not be overly challenging. I also chose a puzzle with lots of color. Some of the puzzles are just various tones of black and gray and I thought that would be too difficult. You can find the puzzle I chose here. 

Food is always a very important part of our celebration. I found bottled butter beer from the Flying Cauldron, which was packaged wonderfully. 

At the local farmer's market, we found rock cakes made by a British bakery. Hagrid serves rock cakes in the books, though his rock cakes are as tough as...well, rocks. These rock cakes were soft and delicious. 

The final element of our celebration was a cake. After all, you can't have a birthday without cake. I purchased a very basic round cake at our local grocery store. Clare carefully scraped off any superfluous decoration and added glasses with chocolate icing. She let Anne do the scar and all three girls contributed to the hair. 

My girls have been very into Revolutionary War history recently. That is partly due to a few trips to Williamsburg. The premiere of Hamilton on Disney+ has also contributed. I had wonderful plans for visiting Revolutionary War sites in New England this year, but COVID has put an end to most of my plans. Numerous museums and historical sites remain close. But there are exceptions.

The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum is a site we have wanted to visit for a couple of years and, happily, it is open. The movie theater portion of the experience remains closed, but most of it is open. 

Upon arrival, we were brought into a Meeting House where a Revolutionary explained the dramatic situation between the Colonists and British. Cleverly, the reenactors applauded the required pandemic face masks as a perfect disguise for our protest. 

We were then taken onto the first of two ships. There were numerous reenactors on the ship to explain the lay out as well as to explain the difficulties of pulling large crates of tea out of the storage deck below. Once we were back on the top deck, the girls picked up crates made to resemble the original tea crates and tossed them overboard. You will note in our pictures below there is a rope attached so the crates can easily be retrieved.

We then moved to the museum portion. Interestingly, there is a vile with some of the tea from the Boston Tea Party which one of the men removed from his boot. There is also a crate that washed ashore after the tea party that had been kept for generations by a family. 

After the museum, we moved to a second ship, where the girls were able to toss more crates over the side. Prior to boarding this ship, we were informed that this particular ship had just returned from quarantine due to small pox. The reenactor explained the ship had to be wiped down with vinegar and burning sulfur was used to cleanse it. The reenactor asked the girls, "Have you ever been quarantined? It is so hard." I loved this addition, because it connected the girls recent COVID-19 experience to what other went through in the past. 

At the end of our tour, we went to Abigail's Tea Room for a complimentary cup of tea. We also chose a few other tea treats, such as tasty scones and a piece of Boston cream pie, which the girls shared. 

After we left the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, we headed to the other historical site that I had confirmed was open. The Paul Revere House was built in the 1680s, though Paul Revere did not purchase it until 1770. It is the oldest building in Downtown Boston. It is quite unusual to see 17th Century beams in our country. 

The girls enjoyed seeing the giant fireplace that an individual could literally walk into as well as the pizza oven-type opening in the bricks, which was their oven. They were amused to learn that it was common to entertain guests in the finest bedroom, because the bed was the most expensive piece of furniture in the house and the owner wanted to show it off. They also learned it is best not to be the youngest in a family, because it was the job of the youngest child to empty the chamber pot. 

I hope by next year we will be able to have a guided tour of Boston's Freedom Trail as well as visit the various homes of John Adams at the Adams National Historic Park. I, however, am grateful there were a few sites open and we did have a wonderful day in Boston. 

We have been busy since my last post. We packed up, received travel testing for COVID-19 and escaped to Rhode Island. My husband is still working full days, but he can do that remotely. The girls and I are enjoying somewhat cooler weather. In truth, there has been a heat wave since we arrived, but it is still cooler than Virginia. Besides at home all the pools are closed, while in Rhode Island we have a river beach we can walk to, not to mention the ocean a short drive away. 

The girls have definitely been enjoying the river.

We have also spent time at the ocean, but I didn't take my phone (for it's safety), so there are no pictures of us tossing ourselves into huge waves for three hours. We immediately came home and napped from total exhaustion.

We drove to Newport to enjoy the Newport Cliff Walk. The Cliff Walk provides beautiful views of the water as well as the glorious Newport Mansions. A couple of the mansions have been allowed to open again to tourists, so we are hoping to visit the Breakers soon (pictured below). I remember seeing it on America's Castles many years ago and I would love to see it in person. 

We traveled to Casey Farm, which is quite near to us, for the Saturday morning Farmer's Market. 

We picnicked at a very unique formal garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Green Animal Topiary Garden is part of the Newport Mansions Preservation Society. As its name suggests, the garden is full of topiary in animal shapes. We visited this garden when older girls were much babies. It was fun to return. 

We have many more Rhode Island adventure planned. 

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​My kids have always been interested in learning to cook. We bake together a lot, but I have not included them in day-to-day cooking as much as I would like. Partly that's due to my own limited skills as a cook. 

This past fall, I signed us up for Raddish, because a friend recommended it. (This is not  a sponsored post. I'm just passing the recommendation along.) Each month we receive a box that includes three new recipes as well as a new kitchen utensil used in the recipes. A shopping list comes with the recipes, which makes it easy for me to figure out what we already have and what I need to buy. The recipe cards themselves are formatted in a clear step-by-step approach and even include pictures. 

I must admit that at the beginning we didn't always make the recipes. Back before COVID, we had a lot of extracurricular commitments in the evenings. But then COVID happened and we found ourselves with more time. We collected all the recipes we had not yet used and began working through them. I let the girls take the lead on cooking. I would be close by to advise and help as needed, but I let them chop, saute and even touch raw meat. That last one might not seem like a big deal, but I was well into adulthood before I dealt easily with raw meat. 

This month's Raddish box had a Japanese theme. For the first time, we decided we would make all three dishes at one time. This was particularly challenging, because these dishes included some skills new to me--such as rolling sushi!!!! 

Our menu was Teriyaki Chicken Skewers, Japanese Noodles and Sushi. Preparation included grating fresh ginger, simmering made-from-scratch sauces, cutting raw chicken into 1-inch pieces to place on skewers, and learning to use a sushi mat (which was our kitchen utensil of the month). All three girls worked so hard and pulled dinner together beautifully. Meg worked diligently with the sushi mat and generously taught everyone else how to use it.

Prior to our Japanese dinner, we managed to make the lavender wreath from the lavender we picked on  our trip to the lavender farm. Early in afternoon we sat down to a lavender tea party. We drank some of our lavender lemonade, which we followed with chamomile and lavender tea. We put our lavender-infused honey on the table to sweeten our tea. For our treat, we ate lavender shortbread cookies. When I tried to take a picture of our lovely tea party, Meg and Anne conspired to make grumpy faces. Clare, however, couldn't help but smile. 

After our tea party, the girls began separating the lavender we cut into groups of twenty stalks. I fastened each group together with floral wire and then attached them to wood picks. I had already fashioned a wreath base from grapevine and Spanish moss we had left over from our Midsummer Night's Dream party (which I wrote about here). Clare and I then carefully placed the lavender groups on the wreath by pushing the wood picks into the grapevine. We tried to overlap bundles so that the buds of one group would cover the stems of the other. After we finished attaching the groups, I used the Spanish moss to cover any wire or wood sticking out. I was very pleased with our finished product. 

After we finished, Anne gathered the buds and stems that had fallen around the kitchen table and created her own lavender products, such as perfume and fragrant sticks. She announced she had opened a lavender store and we were all required to purchase her products. 

Though we spent much of the day inside, we managed to have many varied adventures. It was a lovely day. 

I was grilling chicken tenders and sausages for dinner, when Meg came outside and said, "This was a good day." She has been the grumpiest of the kids during our pandemic lockdown. It was so nice to hear her say those words.

What made the day so good. We started it off by going to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm. We have been to this farm several times previously and you can read about one of those trips here. We did need to prepare for a slightly different trip. We brought our own scissors to cut the stems and we were asked to wear masks while interacting with others. We, however, were permitted to remove the masks while in the fields and away from patrons. This made the hot weather much more bearable. 

We did run into a problem the moment we reached the lavender. The plants were covered in bees. I encouraged the girls to move calmly and reach for stems that were away from the bees. Clare and I managed that approach perfectly well and were not stung. Anne, however, is terrified of bees. She froze and would not go near the lavender. Meg sweetly suggested she walk Anne over to the rabbit enclosure at the front of the farm. While Clare and I cut lavender, Meg and Anne played with the bunnies. They apparently came up with names for the bunnies and Anne was thrilled that one of the rabbits hopped near her and stood on his hind legs. 

Clare and I continued to cut lavender. We cut about 250 stems with the hope of making a lavender wreath. Typically, the lavender farm allows you to make wreaths in a tent near the field, but this year is all about social distancing so we will make our wreath at home. Similarly, the lovely play area is off limits this year, but that did not stop us from enjoying our time at the farm. While there were many bees, Clare and I were mesmerized by the beautiful butterflies amongst the lavender. There were many white butterflies and a few with bright yellow wings that contrasted so beautifully with the purple buds. Clare spotted one with soft blue wings. I tried to take pictures of the butterflies with their wings spread wide, but had little luck capturing how beautiful they were. 

On our way out of the fields, we bought lavender lemon cupcakes for everyone as well as two mason jars of lavender lemonade. I also picked up a bag of some of my favorite items from the farm's online store. I placed the order the night before and it was waiting for me today. A trip to the lavender farm would not be complete without lavender infused honey, lavender soap and lavender shortbread cookies. 

I had packed a picnic lunch, but due to the heat and Anne's fear of bees, we decided to eat it in the car. Our drive home was amazingly peaceful, which was most likely due to the fact we were listening to the audiobook of Framed! What a fantastic book that is. I talk about it here. 

Once we returned to the D.C. area, we decided to stop by Fairlington Park rather than go directly home. Fairlington Park was a favorite of ours starting when the older girls were babies. It was redesigned in the last couple of years and was closed during that renovation. Then it was closed again during the pandemic. The girls were happy to visit it again. 

Everyone was quite thirsty as we were leaving the park. I mentioned that it was a shame there was not a Sonic near us, because it was a perfect day for a cherry limeade. Meg countered, "What about a slurpee from 7-Eleven?" I told the girls they would need to wear masks in the store and they agreed. So, we drove to the nearest 7-Eleven and bought slurpees. As we walked out of the store, I thought, "This is as normal to a summer day as we have gotten this summer." It all felt so ordinary and that felt nice. 

​It was a good day, indeed.