Friday: Fort Montgomery

PR has this weird schedule where he ends up working on weekends, and then gets a weekday off...so Friday was his day off, and we decided to embrace the Hudson Valley history and visit Fort Montgomery. The Fort remains lay in a scenic hillside grassland, near Bear Mountain. You actually walk along a gravel path where the excavated Fort foundation lies. On October 6, 1777 the Fort was attacked and, because General Clinton and his soldiers were vastly outnumbered 7 to 1, completely devastated. The relics found are quite amazing, though. The most remarkable are a pair of buttons with "Liberty" inscribed.



The views from the grounds are amazing, especially now with the vibrant colors of fall. There is a nice little hike to a small pedestrian bridge as well. The Fort has a museum of artifacts and the staff performed a musket demonstration (Owen was a big fan of this....little boy, loud noises and guns...what could be better?)

If anyone is in the area, this Saturday, September 27th there will be a big event at Fort Montgomery, 11am to 6pm. Reenactments and more. Check it out if you have the opportunity!

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?siteId=36


We spent the latter part of the afternoon at West Point. PR had a doctor's appointment, so the kids enjoyed some time at the playground. I was AMAZED at Owen's compassion towards Caroline. He asked if she wanted to join him on the slide, and she climbed into his lap, he wrapped his arms around her, and they zoomed down- probably 15 times before she decided she was ready for a new feat. There could be hope for the jealous big brother after all!!

This week in retrospect (Part II) Welcome to the PTO!

Again, we're pretending (okay, I'm pretending) that I had enough energy to write this on the same day as the events occurred. It's now Wednesday, and tonight I have my first PTO meeting. Yes, my child is only in preschool, so it's more than likely that the bulk of the information in the meeting has absolutely no bearing on my life. But my child just started school two weeks ago, and I still have the fighting chance of being an "on the ball" mommy, so of course I'm going to the meeting tonight.

I was surprised, after all the teachers gave their little introductions in the school auditorium, the principal instructed the parents of preschoolers to go to the preschool classroom for a presentation. Woo hoo! I will get super important information tonight! As we file down the hallway, I notice the most adorable self portraits. I recognize a few names of his classmates, so of course I have to find Owen's picture. Upon discovery, I'm gazing at the art and actually pretty impressed. The eyes are perfect little blue circles, and the matching nose (also blue) is placed just between and below his eyes...the mouth is an upturned smile- and red! His hair is one thick yellow swipe from the brush, and his head a a near perfect oval. What a genius! All the pictures are darling, only one or two Picassos and even those are cute. Already the night is a success in my book.

The rest of the night we get a packet of more papers (the kid brings home about 20 sheets of paper a day), however one has a list of the daily activities. Wow! I actually get to see what my child does during his brief 2 1/2 hour stay. I say this because rarely does Owen divulge one morsel of information about his day at school. Though the rest of the meeting is really just reading off papers, I'm very happy with the evening. And, to top it off, I also got a rock start parking spot!! Can't ask for much more. Ug, I thought of one. Why didn't I take a picture of the portrait? I only hope it makes it home in one piece, because I will sooooo treasure that forever!!!