Monticello

A while back we went on our first family "field trip" to Monticello. We had a lot of fun at Thomas Jefferson's house. 

Each part of the house was designed with purpose and careful thought. Ellis enjoyed the tour and learning about all of the reasoning behind various items and structures in the house. If Ellis could build his own house, he would go through many of the same thought processes. We would have one unusual, practical, interesting house!

My favorite part was the garden. So beautifully designed, and you can't beat the view!

For the kids, I think their favorite part was a tie between the fish pond (full of tadpoles) and the children's discovery museum. After barely surviving a tour of the house where we constantly said, "DON'T TOUCH!!!," it was pretty neat to be able to get their hands on things and explore without getting in trouble. :)

 

I am not sure which part of the day Ellis liked better: the tour of the real house, or the fake "childproof" version of Thomas Jefferson's bedroom where people can explore his inventions.

For example, there was a working model of Thomas Jefferson's copy machine: while you write with one pencil, it simultaneously moves another pencil so that you have a copy of your important documents.

Here is Ellis,writing something important. 

All in all, a pretty interesting, fun....exhausting day. I would say the kids pretty much summed it up on the way home. Here they were about five minutes after we left!