Recap: Massachusetts vacation part 5

Aloha friends!
On May 29th we left Massachusetts again, and traveled to another state to have some new adventures. The state of choice? Rhode Island. Newport, Rhode Island to be exact.
                                           This is a bridge we had to pay $4.00 to cross.

I thought this was a cute little car that was being advertised at the Welcome Center. I saw a few of these being driven around the town. We took a long sailboat ride, and saw many interesting things. 

This self- sustained house is sitting on a huge rock in the middle of the water.

This is the boat we sailed on.

After the sailboat ride, we visited some mansions. The first stop was the Elms.

After we toured the mansion, I walked back out front to get a picture of the outside, and I saw this bunny eating grass next to the sign. He didn't seem to be afraid of people, as I got close to him, and he didn't hop away.

After the Elms we visited the Breakers, and lastly the Marble House. I took these two pictures from the balcony of one of the houses.

 After we rushed through the Marble House, (our 2nd cousin was coming over for supper that evening, and we had a long way to drive to get back home) we stopped and walked along the Cliff Walk. We could view God's amazing beautiful creation (the ocean) on one side and man's extravagant mansions (which don't even measure up to the loving and perfect Master Builder's works,) on the other side.The clear, inviting water was absolutely beautiful. A scuba diver was swimming around, catching fish, and a man standing on a paddle board was silently gliding through the water.

 

 

 

As we were leaving R.I. I tried to take a picture of this lighthouse that was in the middle of the water. The railing on the bridge was blocking it, but you can still see the lonely lighthouse. :) Looking at that lighthouse reminds me of how Christians are supposed to be lighthouses, shining brightly in this world of darkness, and pointing people to the Rock which can save them from the perilous waters of sin. That rock is Jesus Christ.  

Day 11~March 31st, 2015

Our cousin took us shopping on the last day. We visited the grocery store called Wegmans. It's as big as a BJ's, but it's a grocery store. It has it's own little restaurant in it, and a coffee shop. I saw this saying in a store near the books. ;)

  I am reminded that even though friends may come and go, Jesus is always there for you, and always willing and ready to listen to your problems. I just thought of a Bible verse. Isaiah 55:6-11. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."  

I was reminded of that first verse (vs. 6), but as I was reading the rest of the verses, I decided to add them in there.

March 31st, 2015

 We were very sad to leave our cousin's house. We hopped on the plane, and flew home. It was such a wonderful vacation, and some people in our family wish they could move up to Mass. :)  One thing we did on this vacation that we never did on any other one, was eat lots and lots of ice cream! We had dessert every single night, and visited a few ice cream shops. :D  We are so blessed and thankful that our cousin allowed us to stay with her for 11 days. We had such a blast!!!!!!!!!

 

                                        
I'm going to end with a Bible verse I'm memorizing this week. I decided to finish memorizing Colossians chapter 3. :)
Colossians 3:5-9  "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked sometime, when ye lived in them. But now you also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

Hope you're having a fabulous week!
Love,
Ashley

Recap: Massachusetts vacation part 4

Hi ya'll.
May 25th was the 6th day, and also Memorial Day! Our family arrived at Old Sturbridge Village that glorious morning.

Old Sturbridge Village re-creates life in rural New England during the 1790's through 1830's. It is the largest living museum in New England, covering more than 200 acres. The Village includes 59 antique buildings, three water-powered mills, and a working farm. All the workers are dressed up with clothing that would have been worn during that time period.

                                      The first thing we did was watch a man shear a sheep.

This is the pile of wool the shearer cut off. Some ladies would then take this wool, wash it, card it, which is like brushing it out, and then they dyed the wool to make it into yarn.

Here are some more sheep in the barn. 

 After the sheep shearing was finished, we walked over to a field to watch a sheep herding demonstration.

 

 This was the wood shop. They had a pottery shop, blacksmith shop, a kiln, and other shops in the village where you could walk in and watch the men working.

 These are bedrooms that were in one of the houses. In another house, some ladies were cooking pig and baking mashed potato and herb pies.

 

 

 As I started to take a walk through the forest, I captured this picture which shows the barn and field where the sheep were grazing. We spent the whole day at the village, which was very educational. 

Day 7

We visited our cousin's daughter on May 26th, and after spending a little time with her and her horses, my cousin took our family out on their boat. The best part about it all was that....well, I have two favorite parts: 1 is that we stopped at a little ice cream shop. ;) 2. I had the opportunity to drive the boat!

Day 8- Wed. May. 27. 2015
 This day was packed full! We have some friends that live in Quincy, Mass. so we drove over to meet up with them. They took us to Boston where we walked along the freedom trail. So much History was talked about, and we saw sooooo many sights.

 I know you can't see it, but in the far left corner of the pond is a little fenced enclosure where a swan family lives. We walked through a graveyard and saw some famous people's tombs.

 This is John Hancock's grave.

 The 5 victims of the Boston Massacre were not buried in the graveyard we walked through above. Just thought I'd clarify that in case anyone was wondering.

SCHOOL STREET BOSTON : SITE OF THE OLDEST PUBLIC SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES FOUNDED 1635.

The 4 following pictures were signs in the Old State House.

 OLD STATE HOUSE. BUILT 1713; 106 FEET TALL.

 This is the Paul Revere House. We had an opportunity to tour it, even though it was under construction.

 John Hancock Tower (Hancock Place) Built 1976, 790 ft. tall.

At 60 stories, the Hancock Tower is Boston's tallest skyscraper.

 This is the old State House Key. It still works in the Council Chamber door.

This is the site of the Boston Massacre.

Here's the Paul Revere statue.

 Toward the end of the day, all of us hopped on a ferry. The tall monument in the background is Bunker Hill, which sadly, we didn't get to go in. I think it would've been cool to walk the 290 + steps to the top, but some people did not like that idea.  ;)

We had a wonderful time fellowshiping with our friends, but were all so tired after walking around Boston all day!  Okay, I'm going to fit one more day into this post, so just keep reading. :D 

Day 9- Thursday

Lexington and Concord-here we come!!!!!!!! Let me just start off by saying that as soon as we reached the welcome center, I was frantically searching for my camera. At last I came to the dreadful conclusion: I had left my camera at our cousin's house. :(  But thankfully, my mommy did not forget her camera, and I was able to take some pictures with it.  Whew!!

So, the first activity we started with was the  Liberty Ride. The tour guide took us through Lexington and Concord, showed us different houses, and talked about all the History that took place there. 

This is our guide talking about this grave of the British soldiers.

 

 The words in this picture were engraved at the bottom of the monument above. This is what it reads:

BY THE RUDE BRIDGE THAT ARCHED THE FLOOD,

THEIR FLAG TO APRIL'S BREEZE UNFURLED, 

HERE ONCE THE EMBATTLED FARMERS STOOD, 

AND FIRED THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD.

 This (and the picture below) was taken on the "rude bridge" that was mentioned above.

 

After the tour on the Liberty bus was over, we toured the Hancock-Clarke house. Here are some pictures from inside.

Oh, real quick, this is the outside of the house.

This is the dining room......

And here's the fireplace. See the little pictures along the top and sides? Those represented stories from the Bible. When the minister came visiting, he would pick a picture and tell a Bible story that goes along with the picture. The fireplace in Paul Revere's house had those pictures lining his too. Hmm. I just remember that. 

Here's another fireplace they had which was used for cooking. There was a little herb garden outside the house, and I saw a hyssop plant. It reminded me of when Jesus was hanging on the cross, and they gave Him vinegar and put it on hyssop for him to drink.

After all the touring and sightseeing was done, we walked over to this little ice cream shop that sold homemade ice cream. It was so delicious. And the flowers were so pretty outside that I just had to take a picture of them.

And this is some random flower I thought was beautiful, so I took a photo.

Okay! So I think that's all for now. This is a long post, but we covered 4 days, so hey, that's good! Now I only have 3 more days to write about. Hope you enjoyed reading this lengthy post. 

Hope you're having a marvelous weekend!

~ASH

Ps. We were reading Psalms 98 last night, and my daddy noticed something new. 

Psalms 89: 12-13

Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice 

13.) Before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.

Do you notice anything now? There is no period after rejoice. So really verse 12 and 13 is one whole sentence, but separated. If they were together, it would be read like this. "...then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, ..." See it now? It's just a small thing, but we thought it was cool because we've never noticed it before.