Mount Vernon, Virginia

Today didn't start at 5:00am like yesterday, but instead we hit the road around 10:00am for Mount Vernon, Virginia. The home of George and Martha Washington! The Horches live less than an hour's drive from the mansion. What a neat place to visit. It is the most visited home in America. Nearly 1,000,000 people take the tour of the home and grounds every year. This year they opened up a really neat museum and visitor center with all kinds of videos and interactive displays. They also have a bunch of artifacts that belonged to the Washingtons, including the sword that George used during the French and Indian War. We all had a great time, and would visit again during our next visit. Check out some of the pictures.


Here is a shot of the kids with life-sized statues of George and Martha with two of their grandkids. I didn't know that George was 6'-2". I think that was pretty tall for those times.


The Lane family in front of the mansion. See, even George has a better lawn than the Obama's!

While waiting for the tour of the home, we stood under a tree that was full of spiders! In fact, one of the spiders landed on Joanna during her last visit here. She wouldn't stand under the tree, choosing to stand in the hot sun instead! I saw lots of cobwebs but no spiders (thank goodness)!

Here is a shot of the kitchen used to cook meals for family and guests.

Here is a shot of the front of the house. The kitchen is the small building on the right and the slave's of guests stayed in the building on the left.

This is the stables and the carriage house.

Here is the tomb of George and Martha (George is on the right). The metal door in the back is home to 25 other family ancestors. Yes, George and Martha are actually in those stone sarcophagus.

The girls take a break to cool off in the boat house out on the Potomac River.

Here is where the estate's property backs up to the Potomac River.

Here is a shot of the famous round barn that George designed for threshing wheat using horses, and also the pens where the goats and sheep are held.

The kids pet the sheep. The whole area is an actual working plantation. You can see the corn crop in the backgound.

Hailey and Jack pet the horse that just performed a threshing demonstration in the barn.

Jack and Hailey pose as the young Washington children. I didn't know that these kids were from Martha's first husband, who died when the children were very young. George never had any biological kids of his own!

A group shot of our biological kids as we left Mount Vernon. Let's go eat dinner (Jack says)!