Monday, July 30, 2007

The Merkley's go to Williamsburg

Brendon's parents came to visit this weekend from Utah. We love having visitors! They graciously helped me get another item checked off my "things to do this summer" list. Saturday afternoon we drove to Williamsburg, VA. We found the hotel Brendon reserved for us and he was so proud of himself because the hotel was ADORABLE and a bargain price. Check out the cute toile wallpaper - how much more authentic could it be?!

Saturday night after we got settled we went over to Colonial Williamsburg to Bruton Parish church and listened to/participated in a choir hymn sing-a-long. It was very cool.

Sunday morning we took the shuttle into Colonial Williamsburg again and experienced life in the 18th century. One of my favorite places was the apothecary. The woman (actress) behind the counter told me how she had been treating a lot of whooping cough that week, and she didn't have any clue how to fix Brendon's allergies but she thought maybe he had the whooping cough himself. We saw the tools they used to do surgery back then - scary! Also a favorite was the wig shop. We watched them make a wig and string individual hairs onto a net. She said the net stayed on by sheer luck, and they used to shave their heads to make the fit more proper (even the women). Wigs ran anywhere from a day's worth of pay to two months salary. My absolute favorite place was the tailor/dressmaker. Can you imagine sewing all those elegants gowns and uniforms by hand?! Even just the button holes would take hours to stitch by hand. Amazing.
Brendon caused a ruckus in the tavern and we got locked up in the town square. :)
Later in the afternoon we left Colonial Williamsburg and went to Jamestown island where we saw the statues of Pocahontas and John Smith, lots of artifacts that have been recovered from archeological digs, and the site where 400 years ago the settlers landed in America. It was really cool.

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