Gettysburg National Military Park

Fourth of July is America's Independence Day. It was on this date in 1776, that the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, effectively cutting the colonies’ ties to Great Britain. Last year, we visited Valley Forge National Park which is well-known as the place where George Washington and his army struggled through the bitterly cold winter in 1777-1778 during the America Revolution. This year, we decided to go to Gettysburg National Military Park which is an important landmark for the American Civil War. It is about two hours drive from our place.
I'm sure those of you who know mommy well must know that it was definitely not mommy's idea to visit the park. Yes, it was Daddy who has always wanted to visit the park. Mommy finally acceded to his request yesterday since we decided to do something that is of significance to fourth of July. Anyway, it turned to be very educational trip for mommy and Sheri. In order not to miss out the details, I shall leave to my guest contributor (daddy) who is very well-versed in American history to illustrate the significance of some of the pictures that we took at the park.

The battle of Gettysburg occured from July 1st to July 3rd 1863. Although unplanned, it marked the beginning of the end for the Southern cause. The Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E Lee suffered irreplaceable losses and he had to give up his invasion of the North and retreat back to Virginia. From then on, the South was on the defensive and teethered towards inevitable defeat.

First, we visited the museum in the visitor centre.


Sheri was enchanted to the flowers that we saw along the pavement when we walked out of the visitor centre.


The park is huge. We had to drive along the designated the path to visit the various places of interest. Even though it was a very cloudy day and there were occasional thunderstorms, we still went ahead to visit the important landmarks in the park.

Little Roundtop was the place where we saw the location of the towers that were built in the battles.

Spectacular view of the battlefield from the Little Roundtop.

Sheri: I salute those who sacrificed their lives in the civil war.

Monument to the 20th Maine at Little Round Top. It is here, the 20th Maine under Col Joshua L Chamberlain held the line under repeated Southern attacks, with the climax being a bayonet counter charge at the end. Considering that Chamberlain was a professor of rheotoric at Boudoin College, Maine before the war started, he is the embodiment of the citizen soldier indeed. As a result of the failure to take Little Round Top, General Lee ordered Pickett's charge, which ended in carnage for his troops. Thus it is probably not an understatement that Chamberlain's heroic defense of Little Round Top won the Battle of Gettysburg and maybe even the war.

Sheri loves to sit on the cannon. There were lots of cannon in the park and she never failed to attempt to sit on every one of them.

These were some of the exhibits that we saw at the park.

We were at Cemetry Ridge, near the high water mark of the South. Behind Sheri is the Southern lines where General Pickett's 15,000 men made the charge from.

This was where the North held the line during Pickett's charge. Daddy was pretty amazed to find the exact spot where General Lou Armistead fell (left picture). It was recorded that he skewered his hat to his sword to urge his men on. Such is the heroism and folly of war. The center picture shows the Pennsylvania monument, which is the largest memorial at the park. The last picture was the statue of General Meade. Given the popularity of General Lee, his contributions at Gettysburg were probably underrated.

Fireworks has always been the traditional way of celebrating fourth of July. Happy Fourth of July!

A good helper!

Everybody in the foo family has a role to play in unpacking the grocery after we come back from our weekly shopping trip. For our little girl, her job is to push her diaper box to the room.

A good workout for Sheri!

Sheri had a good workout on last Sunday. It started early in the morning when daddy and mommy made her walk to the park with us. One good thing about Sheri is that she does not like to be carried around ever since from the day she knows how to walk. She will only request to go onto the stroller when she is exhausted. However, when that happens, we will usually try to make her walk a bit further before acceding to her request.

Anyway, she did walk to the park with us and she had a good time playing in the sand box while we took turns to jog in the park.

After a good workout for all of us, we made our little girl walk home with us. Even though there were times when she stopped and wanted us to push her back in the stroller, we did not give in to her. Instead, we told her that she must continue walking until we reached the road that leads us back to the entrance of our apartment complex. I hope that will not be construed as child abuse. She was completely exhausted by the time we reached the point where we promised her that she could go up onto her stroller. She fell asleep instantly the minute we put her back onto the stroller.

Later in the evening, we brought our little girl to the pool. Usually, mommy will hold onto our little girl despite the fact that she has her little floats on her arms. However, daddy decided to let her go this time.

Poor Sheri!

Sheri: Finally, I can relax myself on the surfboard.

Sheri: It's time to call it a day! Bye! Bye!

Visit to the Zoo

Summer is good time to take vacations as the daylight hours are much longer. Nowadays, it does not get dark until nine o'clock at night. We have planned for a couple of places to go in this summer. Dutch Wonderland was the first on our list and we had fun there two weeks ago. Philadelphia zoo was the next because our little girl loves animals and she enjoys reading books about animals..

We had a fun filled day at the zoo on last Saturday. Thanks to daddy for getting the discounted tickets through his company.

A nice pose with the tiger!

Our little girl did not want to leave even after mommy had finished taking the shot. I guess she really enjoyed stroking the fur of the tiger.

What was our little girl chasing?

She was running after the Mandarin duck.

Sheri's favourite place was the Children's Zoo.
That was the place where she saw the farm equipment and animals that she reads about in the books.

She was able to recognize the farm tractor and we were surprised that she could climb onto the tractor without our assistance.

She seemed to enjoy being in the driver's cab that she did not want to come down. Daddy had to bring her down personally to make way for other kids.

Sheri: This is a cow!

Sheri:Is there any milk?

She was very excited to see the farm animals.

Sheri: This is a sheep!

We were surprised that to see that she has absolutely no fear for the animals even though some of them were much bigger than her. She just ran around petting all the animals that she saw.





She was so excited in running around in the farm that we could not catch hold of her. That was when she missed her step and fell flat on her face. Her face was covered with dust and her nose bled as a result of the fall. One of the mommies was very helpful. She quickly came forward with a tissue to wipe Sheri's face.

Our little girl looked quite badly battered by the fall. We had to clean her up before we continued our journey. Her forehead was bruised, but she did not seem to be too affected by it. She still looked as bubbly as ever.

It was a very warm day. Frankly speaking, it has been quite some time since we felt so hot and sticky. I guess mommy and daddy are too pampered by the four seasons here.

Sheri was completely exhausted by the time we reached the exit. She fell asleep instantly when we put her back to her stroller on our way back to the car park. I must give credit to our little girl for walking most of the time when we were in the zoo. Good job, Sheri!

It's time to go home and a take a nice bath. Goodbye, animals!