{All In a Day} North Carolina State Capitol + President Andrew Johnson's Birthplace - Raleigh, NC

After spending the morning exploring the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, since we were already in Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina, we decided to walk the short distance over to the state capitol building.  In addition to learning about the U.S. Presidents and visiting sites related to them, B has gotten very interested visiting state capitol buildings and (in his words) "running up the steps to the top", so being literally just steps away, we walked over and took some pictures on the grounds...





 

 

before visiting a couple of markers related to the birthsite of President Andrew Johnson...

  

 

Lastly, on the way out of town, we stopped by the actual building where Andrew Johnson was born, which now stands in Mordecai Historic Park...

 

{All In a Day} Groundhog Day FUN at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences - Raleigh, NC

I've always loved a good holiday, and it's always been on my "Bucket List" to attend one of the actual groundhog ceremonies on Groundhog Day - yes, probably a weird thing to have on a "Bucket List", but it's there!  I guess that can be traced back to my kindergarten-teaching days where we celebrated Groundhog Day every year and did a coordinating unit on shadows...

So, since Groundhog Day happened to fall on a weekend this year (and Hubby was coincidently drilling), I decided on a whim to take the kids to visit a real groundhog.  So, General Beauregard Lee is still on my list, but today we headed up to Raleigh to visit Sir Walter Wally at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

First of all, WOW, what a wonderful museum!  Admission was free and there were at least 4 floors of fun to explore.  The littles had a GREAT time.

We ended up getting there about 10 minutes after the ceremony had ended (bummer), but we did get to see Sir Walter Wally up close after learning that he DID indeed see his shadow...

We had sooo much fun exploring the museum and taking advantage of all of the groundhog-themed activities and crafts...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{All In a Day} President Woodrow Wilson Boyhood Home - Augusta, GA

With Hubby drilling this weekend, I'm always up for a little mini-adventure with the littles here and there.  Continuing to work on our big goal of visiting various Presidential sites, we headed down to Augusta, GA this afternoon to visit the boyhood home of President #28, Woodrow Wilson...

 

I was happily surprised with how thorough this tour was...

Though it was nearly impossible to capture a photo of it, the docent showed us where President Wilson made his mark on this house as a child, carving his called name (or the beginnings of it, maybe he got caught?), "Tommy", in the window pane...

We learned that he formed a neighborhood baseball club, The Lightfoot Baseball Club to be exact, and here above this barn is where they would meet...

Overall, this turned out to be one of our favorite Presidential spots to visit...