This is us with our lively guide Daniel, who also played "Don Pedro" in Much Ado. He was a riot!

We're on stage!

The view of the stage from the front balcony, where we sat for the performance of Much Ado. There was no photography during the performance.

The stage backdrop and balcony at Blackfriars II. Just like in Shakespeare's day, the "marble" is really woodwork painted to look like marble.

This is the ceiling area of the Blackfriars II Theatre in Staunton, Virginia, which oddly enough is pronounced like "Stanton." We were always messing up our Virginia towns. We also went to "Buena Vista" which instead of being pronounced as though it were Spanish, apparently in Virginia it is no longer a Spanish name but a Southern one, and is prounounced "BYOOONah Vista"
Anyway, our camera simply cannot do justice to this theater. It was amazing.

A formation in the caverns at Natural Bridge. We toured them, as I had always wanted to be in a cavern. I discovered, however, that I do not like caves. :-) It was all I could do to keep from running out screaming, for some odd reason. I tried hard to stay calm and not alarm the children, but they must have noticed Mommy was a bit wild-eyed. LOL I felt like kissing the ground when we got out.

The Natural Bridge in Virginia. It was immense and amazing. If you look closely at the little dots that are people below, in about the middle of them you can see some light blue and dark blue dots; that is us. :-)

This is a wax museum scene based on Da Vinci's The Last Supper. There was a very nice audio commentary discussing Christ and the crucifixion and resurrection. People in Virginia seem very unselfconscious about their faith; I can't imagine a scene like this at a major public attraction in Iowa. We loved it though!

Figures in a wax museum at Natural Bridge. I picked this picture to blog for Becky's sake. :-)

Tallman enjoying how tall he is in the gift shop at Natural Bridge, VA.

Boy, am I glad the conference is over! Dh snuck a picture of me.

We saw these gorgeous flowers everywhere, all along the mountain roads, but did not know what they were until we saw them at the museum. They are mountain rhododendrons. Aren't they beautiful?

Old rail fence on the 1850 Virginia farm at the Frontier Cultures Museum. For some reason I love old fences like this. The only kind I like better are the ones in western Kansas, where they had no wood, and used big stone posts to hold up the barbed wire.

Cheery and PMM feeding chickens at Frontier Cultures Museum

This young lady was a re-enactor in the 1690 English farm at the museum, and she had been homeschooled her entire life! She was a really impressive young woman, doing this in her spare time around college and working.

1730 Northern Ireland blacksmith shop, there was also a farm from the same place and period

PMM feeding the ducks at the Frontier Cultures Museum

This picture is from a very cool living history museum we visited called the Frontier Cultures Museum, in Staunton. It had four separate living-history farms with costumed re-enactors living just like the different peoples would have lived. This first is my favorite--a 1710 German flax farm from the Palatinate--not far from where Sinks and Barnharts would have come from, and a bit west from where Stines came from, in Germany, at about the same time they would have left! I felt like I was seeing how my ancestors would have lived before coming here. Very cool! This man was working with harvested flax; also on the farm was a young boy working in the flax fields, and a woman in a kitchen making lunch.

Well, I have a lot to report on since I posted right before Mother's Day. Dh and children gave me gifts on Sunday, then we left to drive to Kansas City so we could be on the plane early Monday morning. They know me very well; I got several things I had wanted for a long time: A Heart Like His, by Virginia Pearce, and Mary, Martha and Me by Camille Fronk (+ whatever her married name is now, to me she'll always be Camille Fronk) Both of those are sure to be things that are just what I need in my journy right now. So is the nice CD I got, Jenny Phillips' The Miracle.
None of our children had ever flown before, so Monday the 15th was exciting for them, we flew from Kansas City to Atlanta, and then on a smaller plane to Lynchburg, Virginia, then drove to the house we were staying at near Raphine. We took the Blue Ridge Parkway, and it was exquisitely beautiful, beautiful views all around of mountains, valleys, streams, and tall, tall forests! We never did quite get used to the very winding, twisty roads, though. I still was getting dizzy from them when we left! Tuesday, the 16th, we went to a zoo and a safari park, and a place called Foamhenge; pictures below. Our oldest son got sick at lunch, so we sort of took it easy after that, and spent a quiet evening at the house we rented, playing games. Renting a house or cabin is definitely the way to go! It cost less than a nice hotel suite for a week would have been, and we had 3 bedrooms, two baths, a stocked kitchen and laundry room, fireplace, treehouse, fire ring . . . so much more comfortable than hotel rooms! I was also stocked with some prescriptions for sleeping and migraines, to try and avoid my typical vacation difficulties of lack of sleep followed by migraines that keep spoiling and cutting short our vacations. It worked! The sleeping pills were just temporary, for while I was away, but I'm keeping the migraine medication, even though it is $40 for six pills! A bargain, IMO!
Well, there is lots more, but I'll be blogging in installments! Check back tomorrow! :-)

This is a "Gangster Llama" at a drive-through safari park in Virginia. We saw many amazing animals, and fed ostriches, elk, and many other creatures from pails held out our window. But these llamas were the funniest! They had a whole system worked out; groups of them would stand by the road, and when a car came they would go stand right in front of the car. One or two would stay there while several others attacked your windows, hoping for a feeding bucket. They would even change places to give the ones at the front of the car a turn! It was hilarious. They were exceedingly persistent and persuasive.

Baby Bengal tiger cubs at the zoo.

Cheery and PMM, wrassling a concrete gator at the zoo at Natural Bridge.

This is "Foamhenge", a replica of Stonehenge made out of huge foam blocks. It was hilarious! We saw it from the highway and had to investigate. So touristy. :-)

All of us at Foamhenge. :-) 

Well, happy Mother's Day, everyone! I'm signing off for a while, we leave tomorrow for Virginia and won't be back until the 23rd. Pray for me on the 18th, so I don't faint, or throw up, or something stupid like that, when I have to speak! LOL

The children had fun in this iron cage taken from a local jail before it was turned down. That is, they had fun before we shut the door and told them we were going to lunch--then they started to bang and rattle the bars! You can see Cheery's green shirt, but I don't see PMM. Oh, and we let them out before we went to lunch, after all, since they pitched such a fit. LOL

This is the burial site of the Nelson family's beloved white mules, both of whom served in the Civil War to pull artillery. They passed away at an advanced age, and were buried in these plots, on satin pillows, with headstones. :-) A favorite of the children. We also stepped on cattle scales in a building to the left of this, and our entire homeschool group weighs 2,625 p ounds. !