Merry Christmas!

Daddy's girl!

Opening gifts

New toys!

Little outing to Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge

Kids loved kicking the snow

Monmouth Museum

Sam jumped out of a "time machine" - a slide from the space exhibit to the ancient Egypt room.

Archeological dig. Sam enjoyed figuring out where the skull and the different body parts of the dinosaur were hidden

Electric bubble experiment

Weather exhibit. Sorting out the items one needs (vs. what one doesn't need) in a weather/hurricane shelter.

Average temperatures in different cities around the world

Rocket shuttle

Inside the shuttle (2/3 scale model of a real shuttle)

Outside the time machine...

Annual model train exhibit

Sam loved doing a scavenger hunt on this model train

Writing "wishes"

Weather helicopter

Ancient Egypt exhibit - the part about scribes and writing

Katherine is enjoying the coloring project

Refueling with some yummy pizza

Jacobus Vanderveer House and Museum - Colonial Christmas

Colonial Santa!

Near here, there was a  major winter encampment of George Washington's forces during the revolutionary war.

Checking out the house (built in 1740)

Throw, again!

Lego achievements

Sam built all of these items (on both sides of the library shelf) at the Legopalooza! event at the Summit Library. He had a lot of fun and loved it!

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Germantown White House and Ebenezer Maxwell House, Philadelphia, PA (September)

This house is called Germantown White House (now a National Historical Park) because George Washington stayed spent the summer of 1793 here to escape the yellow fever epidemic raging in Philadelphia, while he was president

 

 

 

Sam earned another junior ranger badge and proudly showing off his badges

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a Victorian house in the same neighborhood

 

 

 

Historic Speedwell, Morristown, NJ (August)

Speedwell was an industrial site in the 19th century producing iron and using a stream and water wheel to power it

Behind the water wheel

This was also the site where Samuel Morse (the inventor of Morse code) first demonstrated Morse code. The tour guide is showing us the laboratories

 

 

Ironworks exhibit

There was also a workshop for kids where Sam made a model of water wheel and learned how it works. He got to keep it and used it at home, too!