Eli Whitney Museum

We spent a Saturday morning checking out the Eli Whitney Museum.  Eli Whitney built a factory, bunk houses, and school and the site is still functioning as an place of creation and apprenticeship today.  They have two large workshops that are used to build toys and kits for other kids to make creations of their own.  We walked around and then were directed to an amazing marble run built on a wall in the workshop.  The kids spent a long time playing there.  The man that showed us the marble run reminded Emily of Godfather Drosselmeyer from the Nutcracker, and we thought she was spot on.

When we were done wandering around the workshop we explored outside and found some outbuildings.  We then went on a little hike.  Nathan was worried about falling down and when we asked him the worst thing that could happen he said, “I would fall down and break my leg.”  But he mustered up great courage and settled into the hiking experience.

Laura would have been thrilled to sit in one place and play with rocks and leaves.  In fact she did that a lot.  We would catch up to the group and then she would sit down and play until Andrew and the kids got so far ahead we relocated again.

It was a great little adventure and we felt very accomplished to have gone on a hike with three kids who have very very very different speeds and expectations for how to time spent outside.