Last Days

Here we are wrapping up our visit. Where has the week gone? None of us can believe that we are already heading home, although each of us are looking forward to being home for different reasons. Daddy seems to top the list for all of us. We have missed having him with us this week.

Yesterday morning we had some time before we needed to leave on our field trip to Beaufort, so the girls took me down to the beach so they could show me all the things they had found the past couple of days. When we stay with my father the girls would spend all their time down at the sound shore exploring the marshes for all sorts of treasures. So far this week we have more fish backbones, a few crab legs and many variety of clam shells. There was one treasure that they wisely decided that they shouldn't bring back to show me...



From my research (google) it appears to be a mushroom jellyfish, and is considered a culinary delicacy by the Japanese. It is not poisonous and does not have the stinging tentacles some jellyfish do. But, I am glad that the girls respect the power of these creatures and wisely chose to leave it be. Many visitors to our beaches in the summer are hurt every year by handling dead jellyfish.

The visit to Beaufort was fairly short. We chose not to do the tour due to some time limitations. Choosing instead to give the children our own tour, which isn't too hard considering I have probably spent more time immersed in Carteret County history than many of the volunteers.

The biggest success out of the trip is that Mary has realized that history really isn't some irrelevant nonsense I make her study. In this trip I was able to introduce her to family ancestors that either came over on the Mayflower, or shortly afterwards (we don't have the family tree details we need to confirm this), later moved to the NC colony from Mass and were granted a Land Grant signed by King Charles, served on the NC Assembly in New Bern (actually meeting in Tryon Palace), were part of the Continental Congress, built Fort Macon (one of her favorite places here), was a part of President Lincoln's staff, Chinese Missionaries, American diplomat to Columbia, writers, artists, etc.

She was so interested that we spent some of the evening pouring over the genealogy book my great-great-aunt Amy wrote about this branch of our family. Then mom showed her the family tree we had put together when I was in middle school. Now I have promised her that I will start working on a family tree for her, including her father's side. This should be fun.

I knew I had her when she began complaining about why scientist haven't worked out a way to travel back in time so that we could actually see how things happened and how people really lived. My mom and I just glanced at each other, because that is one of our fantasies also.

For what I wanted this trip to be in relation to our 'school' it has been a HUGE success. I could not have asked for a better visit, and what Mary has absorbed from this trip was beyond what I really expected. I am so glad that we took the time out to come.

Peace,

Amy