Sunday, November 01, 2009

Of Carriages and Queens

The Highlight of our adventures last week was our downtown jaunt that began with a wish, was drawn by a horse and finished with a queen!  Deborah and I took Lauryn, Sage, Ryan and Grace to the Surrey Ride stand (after overcoming the parking obstacle) to hire ourselves our very first carriage!  It was an interesting experience just arranging the ride with a great deal of unknowing and vaguery.  Where do we stand?  Who's taking us? How much is it?  Just wait here.  A white horse is coming.  Find out the price from the driver.  15 minutes and a few new interesting-to-me-but-not-the-kids facts later - cha-ching! - 35 bucks!  But with those smiles, it was totally worth it!  They really loved being in a horse drawn carriage.  Even Ryan liked it (which is shocking considering the fact that it didn't involve home, computer use, or playing with his favorite pal, "Little Willy"). Afterwards we dragged them through town (woe is them) for some interesting sights and sounds.  We saw 'baby' lawyers celebrating their new lives as white wig and black robe wearing legal counsel.  We visited the Nassau Public Library (formerly known as the Nassau Gaol some one hundred years ago) and got a wonderful view from the top.  We counted out the eight sides of the octagonal building and, satisfied that they were right, we headed back down to earth from the towering three storey high edifice.  After that we even popped in for a visit with Grandma Sawyer at her place of work where the kids got to be the source of Gramma's Glowing Pride and Joy! After much adieu we made our way back toward our car but not without stopping by for a photo op with Queen Victoria who abolished (what does abolished mean, mom?) slavery in 1891.  (I didn't talk about slavery with her/them as they didn't ask and I wasn't ready to go there with them.)  But the picture with the queen who did away with something bad - that was cool!  (For our friends in foreign lands, the pink building in the background is the house of parliament where our elected officials do whatever it is they do - which doesn't seem to be too much.) All in all, with the visit to the Humane Society, Pool days, fun at Mr. Pretzel's, the Downtown Day Out and Halloween Pumpkin Carving and candy fun, it was a great week!  What'd we learn?  A thousand and one nameless things and much, Much more.

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