Pirates and Plymouth Rock

As our move to a new home (location still unknown) seems to be moving closer and closer we are trying to get as many New Englandie activites fit in before we go. Today on a spur of the moment whim I decided that we needed to go to Plymouth Rock. It would have been just wrong for us to live 90 minutes away for 2 years and never go. So we loaded the kids up and headed out.

Now for those of you who don't know, when traveling with 3 kids you NEVER get there in the amount of time you have planned. We ended up spending almost 25 minutes...YES 25 MINUTES in New Bedford. Why you ask?? Was everyone hungry?? NO...Was there something wrong with the car?? No to that one as well... The reason we spent all that time there (in CVS parking lot) is because Clay had to use the potty. This may be too much information for some, so if you don't like potty talk, scroll down and continue reading about once we finally got to Plymouth...

Still with me?? Ok...maybe it's gross, but I keep a potty in the back of my station wagon. We are on the go (no pun intended) a lot and sepnd a lot of time at parks without bathrooms, and with two potty trainers I never know when we will have a potty emergency. So 15 minutes into the trip we had to stop. I got him on the potty (he won't use public toilet...so we could just walk into the CVS) and we sat and sat and sat....AND SAT waiting for him to finally finish...and then of course Caleb wouldn't be left out of the fun so he had to sit too!! He didn't take long (using his favorite potty line "s'not workin' momma") so we then got back on the road...but of course not before momma got a shot of Caleb hanging out in the back of the car :)

When we got to Plymouth we discovered the there was a festival and parking was hard to find. We have gone to Plymouth before, only to turn around because it was too busy...not this time..I was determined ...there was no turning around!! I perservered and we did eventually find a city parking lot with a spot open WOOHOO. When the boys saw the MayFlower II in the distance they got sooo excited!! The boys LOVE pirates...they have already decided they want to be pirates for Halloween and it is one of their most common make believe games at home. So when they saw a "real" pirate ship they got excited...really excited!! How could a momma say no?? She couldn't...I sent Joseph off with Addie for some ice cream and a bottle (respectively) and I headed onto the ship with the boys.

They had so much fun running around in the ship. When I showed them the pirate's beds (no I didn't try to explain the pilrims, we talked about pirates the WHOLE time) they were just TOO excited and had to sit in the beds themselves.
Ignore the looks on their faces...they were just annoyed because I made them pose for so many pictures here before I finally remembered to turn on the flash...they were indeed very excited when they first got on.

The boys are very well versed in pirate talk. They can often be heard running though the house yell "ARGH" (as I have mentioned before...but it happens so often it is worth mentioning again). Anyway, Caleb astounded me with a term I didn't even know he knew. As we were walking back out on to the deck from viewing the pirate beds there was a rope laying on the ground, Caleb grabbed hold of it with both his little hands and started dragging it yelling "HEAVE....HO.....HEAVE...HO" at the top of his lungs. This had everyone in our vicinity laughing hysterically. It was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen!.. and of course I couldn't get my stupid camera to work so sad...that's what a get for breaking my nice camera. So here is a picture of him admiring another rope (while Clay is fascinated with the tiny pirate ship is that water below (I think it was a pilgrims dingy if there is such a thing))and one of him and Clay working together to "HEAVE...HO" on a rope in at of the hands-on displays at the museum.

We then caught back up with Daddy and Addie and headed to THE ROCK. Which for those of you who have never been there is utterly unimpressive looking, albeit still neat to see (and added proof that Addie was indeed on the trip with us)

This may not see like a lot, but it took us almost 2 hours!!! (the occassionally tantrum and naigating crowds and the boys refusing to forget that I promised them ballons and hving to go hunt some down added a lot of time to all our pilgrim schenanigans. After finaly dragging to very worn out boys back to the car we headed back home, with only one potty break and they crashed nice and early...which is why I had the time to write this and add all the pretty pictures :)