Ahoy Matey!

It was so nice to have all of us together for an extra day this weekend. The boys - all three - had the day off of work and school. Alan and I wanted to go to Boone, but with the forecast for rain, we shifted gears and directions and headed to Raleigh instead. Alan had just finished reading "Treasure Island" (an abridged version, of course) with the boys, and Thursday night they went to eat at a restaurant called "Pirates Landing" (I was busy having a girl date with my friend Amy. Hi Amy!). When we found out that the NC Museum of History was having a special exhibit called "Knights of the Black Flag," it seemed a natural choice for our family adventure destination.

Michael is branching out from his dinosaur obsession to interests in cowboys and pirates, as well. He was a pirate for Halloween this past year. Matthew has loved pirate stuff for a while. The museum had a cross-section of a pirate ship set up for kids to play with. As you can see, the boys were on the lookout for enemy ships. Or mothers. We did, by the way, see what they believe to be Blackbeard's skull. Evidently, Blackbeard was beheaded by a man named Robert Maynard. Bob tied Blackbeard's head to his ship and set sail for Virginia. You know what they say. Virginia is for lovers.
I loved that the museum had a section with benches and a bookshelf of children's pirate books. To tell the truth, we had already read several of them due to our frequent library trips (Side Note: isn't it an incredible thing that we can go get books, movies, etc. for FREE anytime we want from the library??? I think libraries are incredible, and we go at least once a week). Matthew has really gotten into the "I Spy" books. Wendy's was giving "I Spy" cd-rom games in their Kid's Meals not too long ago and Michael happened to get one on one of his weekly lunches with his Nana (hi Janice!). Matthew has loved it. This book that he and Alan are looking at has the same pictures (plus some more) from the game.

There was a neat interactive cannon shooting game where you could attack a ship. I have to say, I would have made an excellent pirate (similar to Anne Bonny) if speech pathology hadn't beckoned. I didn't miss a ship.

What a fierce little buccaneer my Michael makes. This is his fiercest look. Please note that he has a pirate treasure map shirt on. Not only fierce, but prepared.