MonsterFool

at 6 1/4 years old.

I wanted to post a picture of the back of Sam’s skirt after her long play with friends at the park today, but she didn’t want anyone else to see it. Suffice to say that after the recent ice, snow and rain, today’s weather featured mud.

Sam and Lydia learned to play Loto today, aka French bingo.

We are fully immersed in Ancient Greece these days and today Sam staged Bearlandic Olympic games for her bears. Molly Bear, ever the favorite, won the olive wreath after competing in Sam’s version of the pentathlon: foot race, high jump, discus throw, ski slide down the ladder back chair, and trampoline.

I suspect that the judge cheated a little in Molly’s favor, but don’t tell Sam.

To celebrate his birthday, Pop-Pop wanted to visit the Smithsonian American History Museum and put his hand on the locomotive that his grandfather, Charles Field Capehart, helped build. So we took the train to Washington, DC and walked over to the National Mall.

This was Sam’s first trip to DC and in addition to the American History museum, we toured the sculpture gardens and saw the Egypt exhibit at the Natural History museum.

But the main focus was locomotive 1401. Built in 1926, this was the flagship locomotive of Southern Railway from the mid 1920s to the 1950s. It ran primarily in North Carolina, and in 1945 pulled FDR’s funeral train part of the way to DC.

Charles Field Capehart was a pipe-fitter. Goodness knows how many pipes he fit on it, because this machine is huge. Just to get the front of it in the picture I had to stand so far away that you can hardly see the three generations of Capeharts standing next to their grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather’s work. We tried to impress upon Sam how cool it is that she can visit a national museum and touch something that her great-great grandfather worked on. Too many greats for her to grasp, although she did notice that the wheels of 1401 are about two feet taller than she is. Now, that made an impression!

Benjamin and Sam, and several other children at the park, spent hours building this hut. And knocking it down. And building it, and… you get the idea.

AC and his mom left today for a trip to mountains, solitude, and mostly likely snow at The Shack.

Sam’s first time on the ice (and it felt like my first time too, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve skated). Parents got to free skate while kids learned the basics at our local rink’s Homeschool Academy. It won’t be long before she’s speeding past me graceful as a swan. My skating style is more … elephantine.