Wheeling, West Virginia

Our first visit was the West Virginia Independence Hall which was built in 1859 as a federal custom house. It has served as the home of the pro-Union conventions of Virginia in 1861, the capitol of Virginia from June 1861 to June 1863, and the site of the first constitutional convention for West Virginia. The Renaissance Revival-style structure is a National Historic Landmark. Our second visit was the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum. It has thousands of toys and trains dating back many decades. There are operational train layouts where the kids could press buttons to get them going and some toy layouts where you could play with the layouts and trains. Owen and Milton had a lot of fun. Owen loved the real train outside the museum. We also visited the childrens museum in Wheeling itself which was just toys for the kids to play with, another kit with the boys. The bridge out of Wheeling spans the main channel of the Ohio River and was the largest suspension bridge in the world from 1849 until 1851. It was part of the National Road. Also running through Wheeling was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. We stayed at the McLure Hotel which was built in 1852. At least 11 presidents have been guests, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon. The original building was demolished, and an extensive renovation of the hotel was completed in 1985. It was once managed by the Ramada hotel chain, but that has since been removed. You can still see the weathering outlining the old hotel name on the front of the building. The hotel has definitely seen better days. Driving home we stopped at the Cabelas store which was enormous.  The center of the store had a 2-story taxidermy animal display and the back of the store had a play shooting range.

Fredericksburg, Virginia - Ellwood Manor

Ellwood Manor is the Georgian-style home completed circa 1790 by William Jones. Confederate forces used Ellwood as a headquarters and then hospital after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. The family cemetery at Ellwood was where Chaplain Beverly Tucker Lacy buried General Stonewall Jackson's arm after being amputated after a friendly fire incident. That wound ultimately led to the general's death. Ellwood later served as a Union hospital during the Union movement to Richmond. Since 1998, the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield has tended to the building offering tours of the house and the civil war displays.

November 2018

November had tons of time playing in the leaves and we even had a little snow storm.  Milton wasn't a huge fan of his snow suit but Owen loved going out to play in the snow.  We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and had Colton and family along with George, Cindy and Jack. It all went well. Owen and Damon did the Turkey Chase (see Thanksgiving post). Since we were going to Wyoming for Christmas we wanted to get our tree up early so we went the day after Thanksgiving.  We tried at one of the tree places but they weren't open yet.  Once we got home we realized that the tree was not exactly the best with a rather large bald spot, but the kids liked it so that is all that really matters! Damon did the Philadelphia Marathon so we were able to all go up and visit with Kory and her girls.  Owen and the girls played so wonderfully together.  Milton wasn't feeling super great that day so he was a bit grumpy. Owen still loves school and will always talk about his friends; Ian, Luke, Elliot, Julie, Kendal, and Andrew.  Owen's biggest accomplishment for November was I had a conference with his teacher, Ms. Ouaefa and she says he is on track for going to Kindergarten in the fall.  She has been Owen's teacher since he was 2 and Owen adores her. The evaluation they did was very comprehensive in not only testing if he can recognize letters and numbers, but what he does say for each.  Such as saying lion when he sees the letter L instead of just saying the letter. Milton is still a kid of few words, but he will get there eventually. He plays wonderfully by himself down in our basement with the toys and at Grandmas house.  We spend many mornings at my moms house working on her various projects for sorting things and in general getting settled into her new house.