Portsmouth–HMS Victory

Charlie and Jeff were in HEAVEN on the day that we decided to take off after church and head to see Portsmouth.  The rest of us also really enjoyed the day.  I’m not super into old boats, but the HMS Victory was quite a beauty.  We had a great time touring it – that’s the part I always like…to see how people actually lived on these things.  And Jeff is always an awesome guide, he knows so much about ships from all his Patrick O’Brian reading (the series of 18ish books that he reads every few years that usually puts a wrench in our relationship since he doesn’t pay much attention to me for a few weeks while working through them ).

The kids loved to see how the cannons worked, where the gun powder was stored, where Lord Nelson died in the Battle of Trafalgar and they even got to lay down in one of the shipman's hammocks.  Why didn’t I take more pictures of the inside?  It was pretty cool.The big kids each wanted a picture of themselves in front of the boat to frame and put in their rooms…..they really like that ship.After touring the Victory we went on a harbor cruse (included in our tickets) and checked out the rest of Portsmouth from the water.  The kids were thrilled to go into the “Action Center” (I’m pretty sure it was all geared to recruiting kids to join the national army).  There was a really cheesy helicopter simulator ride that made us all a bit queasy and places where Charlie could practice shooting with fake guns.  The real hit though was the climbing wall.  Hazel is a natural climber and decided that she wants rock climbing to be her sport.  I’d love to live that vicariously through her, I LOVED rock climbing while in high school.  She does have the positive ape index for it!  Charlie did pretty well too.

We ended the day with an awesome Sunday dinner at Wagamama.  I love that place, it’s cheap and fresh they give you kid friendly learning chopsticks and our kids eat up ever single little morsel.  Plus, Peter slept through dinner, which is always nice.