Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

View in HD on Vimeo.

Here is a video clip from the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial that we took last week. Thanks to Stephen Breagy for editing this.

Scotland - Day 8

On Monday we first went to Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness. It has an incredible history, which includes the friends of Wallace, of the covenantors, of Cromwell and Bonnie Prince Charlie. When we arrived Mr. Phillips gave a speech on the Loch Ness monster, Nessie. He said that if we did find a Loch Ness monster, it would be a very serious problem for the evolutionists, because if their worldview is correct, all dinosaurs would have been dead for more than a million years. After this speech, we explored the castle. We went to this castle, and several of the other sites on our trip to Scotland two years ago. You can read our blog posts on it here.





After the castle we went to a little town about a mile away for lunch, and a Loch Ness exhibit if the families wanted to. We went to the exhibit, which is the 'original' exhibit that gives a more favorable view of Nessie's existence. We enjoyed this, as we had gone to the 'new' visitor's center on our previous trip. At the visitor center they had a couple bookcases of used books for only one pound each. ($2.17)

Our next stop was Culloden battlefield. Mr. Potter told us what happened there, Mr. Zahm sang, and we did a reenactment charge. After visiting the battlefield, we walked to the visitor center, which was updated since two years ago. One exhibit was a 360 view of the battle, and a map that showed the movements of the troops. We really enjoyed this, and could have spent more time there, but it closed.



After this we drove back to Fort William, and tried to find a place to eat, and we went to a bad Chinese restaurant, and then we back to the hotel.

Faith and Freedom Tour Day 2

On Tuesday we went on a walking tour of Plymouth. In the walking tour, first Mr. Jehle gave us a talk on providential stories at Plymouth. Then we went to the Plymouth rock memorial were Mr. Phillips gave a talk on Ebenezers.Then we went to the Pilgrim Mothers statue, where Mr. Phillips analyzed the statue. Then we went to the Bradford monument where Mr. Phillips gave a talk on William Bradford.Then we walked through the Brewster gardens. After that we went to the first burying ground monument where the Pilgrims had buried their dead in the middle of the night so the Indians would not know how few people they had. Then we went to the Massasoit statue where Mr. Jehle talked about the Pilgrim's relationship with the Indians. Then we boarded the buses for Plymouth Plantation. Plymouth Plantation is a place where actors recreate what the settlement would of looked like. Mr. Phillips gave all of the children a list of what they had to do to get a special prize. After that we ate dinner with the Pilgrims. It was a re-creation of the dinner John Robinson's church had before some of them left for the new world.
Here are some good books to learn more about Plymouth:

1. Plymouth in the Words of her Founders by Paul Jehle
   
2. Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
3. Plymouth set: Of Plymouth Plantation, Plymouth in the words of her founders, and the Thanksgiving Primer
4. Landmarks and Liberty(CD)
   

Scotland - Day 11

March 20 was our first day touring in the Highlands, which is the north of Scotland. The first place we went was a valley called Killiecrankie. This valley was a battlefield in the First Jacobite rising, which occurred in 1689. The Jacobites were Englishmen (mostly Scottish) who wanted to restore the house of Stuart to the throne of England and Scotland. The leader of this rebellion was John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount of Dundee, also called Bonnie Dundee. He raised the standard of the Stuarts on the 16th of April, with only 50 men to support him. He raised an army and fought the English army commanded by Hugh Mackay of about 3500 with his own of 2500. His men took their position on the top of the valley down which the English would march. Here is the battlefield:

The Scots were positioned on the top of the hill on the left. When the English marched down the valley, they saw the Scots, halted and opened fire with their muskets. The Scots waited until the sun had gone below the opposite side, because otherwise the sun would be in their eyes. When it had, they charged down on the English. The English were broken and the Scots won the victory, but their general Dundee had fallen. He died afterwards, and that is why the first Jacobite Rebellion failed.
This is me doing my speach.

Then we went to Glencoe, which was where a massacre of the Scots occurred. We went to the visitor center there, but we didn't take any pictures because it was all about environmentalism and evolution. Then we went to Dunstaffnage Castle, which was nearby. We got there right before it was going to close, and the lady there made us hurry through because she wanted to leave early. Here are pictures of it.
Here is the courtyard:
The castle was built mostly in the 13th century. In 1309 Robert the Bruce captured it. The gate-house is from the 1800s and not open the the public.
Then we went to Glenfinnian Memorial, which is where Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in the third Jacobite uprising. I will tell more about that later. Here is the monument:
Here is the highlander on top:
I did a speech on the landing and then we went back to the condo.

Scotland - Day 10

This day we went to St. Andrew's Castle and Cathedral and the Discovery, which is a ship that was built in Scotland and then went from there to Antarctica to explore. First we went to St. Andrew's Castle.

This is a sketch of St. Andrew's Castle.

A castle was at St. Andrew's at least in 1189, and maybe before. The castle was taken by the English in 1296, but then recaptured by the Scots in 1314. The castle was once more taken by the English in the 1330's. The English were strengthening the castle around 1336, and then Sir Andrew of Moray recaptured it after a three-week siege. The castle probably remained in ruins and deserted until Bishop Walter Trail started rebuilding it.

This is a picture of the Castle from the Cathedral.

The castle was completed about1400. Bishop Trail died there in 1401. There was a mine and counter mine built there when the castle was being sieged between 1546-7.

A picture of the mine in St. Andrew's castle.

We spent about 1 1\2 hours there and then we left and went to St. Andrew's Cathedral. St. Andrew's was first built as St. Rile's church, and was very small. The church was claimed by the Augustinians, and soon they decided it was too small for what the bishops desired. They started making it bigger and ended up building Scotland's largest cathedral. The work actually took 150 years to complete. Shortly after the cathedral was completed, half of it was blown down by a gale. When John Knox preached a sermon there the people got so angry they started destroying the furniture. Later the cathedral was destroyed by siege.

This is a sketch of what the cathedral might have looked like.

After we had been at the cathedral for 1 1/2 hours we left to go to the Discovery. The Discovery was built in Dundee in 1901. Captain Robert Falcon Scott took Wilson and Shackleton with him. They headed for Antarctica and reached it in 1902. The Discovery was frozen in ice until 2 rescue ships went out there to rescue them. We spent about 1/2 an hour there since they were about to close.

Captain Joshua trying to sail the ship

I really liked the Discovery because it was like the real ship, and because you could actually go on it. We ate dinner at a hotel on our way to the condo outside of Inverness in Aviermore in the Highlands of Scotland.

Scotland - Day 8

One more thing happened for the last day's post. At night we tried to view the videos of the speeches that Daddy and I had done. And then we found out that we got mixed up as to what as stop and what was go on the video camera (who would have thought red means "on" and green means "pause")! All we had was videos of the floors of castles. So we decided to go back to the places that we had messed up. So on the eighth day Daddy and I went back to Stirling Castle to film and Rachel, Stephen and Mommy went to a house near by, Argyl's Lodging. It was built for a nobleman and is within walking distance from the castle. We filmed and then came to meet up with the rest of them. Then we walked past the Church of the Holy Rude, where it was snowing a little bit, to the Old Town Jail. You can see some snowflakes in the picture of the church tower.
The Old Town Jail was built about 150 years ago. Here is a picture of the door to a cell:
This is Daddy in the office of the head of the prison:
There was a machine for the prisoners to use called the crank that they put sand in for the prisoners to do meaningless work. Here is Stephen using it without sand:
They gave us audio tours to listen to. They had them at most of the places we visited. Then we left and walked while Daddy went to get the car. We saw this statue of Rob Roy MacGregor:
Then we went to Bannockburn, the site of another battle. We went to the visitor center. Here are some pictures:
That is supposed to be William Wallace.
Stephen trying on a helmet.
That is the statue of Bruce on the battlefield.

This is what the statue says:

"For God and St. Andrew Robert Bruce King of Scots Planted his Standard Near this Spot When the Scottish patriots under his command vanquished the Army of Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn 24th June 1314"

The quote below is from a covenant that the Scots signed later in 1320 called the Declaration of Arbroath Abbey. It says

"For as long as a hundred of us remain, we will yield in no least way the in English dominion. We fight not for glory, nor for wealth, nor for honor, but for freedom, for that and that alone, which no honest man surrenders but with his life."

The Battle of Bannockburn occurred on June 23 and 24, 1314. It was between Robert Bruce of Scotland and Edward II of England. The Scots had about 8000 men and the English 20,000 trained soldiers. There was a small battle the first day, and then the second day they Scots moved out to attack the English, who were still in their camp.

When the Scots knelt in prayer Edward said, "They pray for mercy!" "For mercy, yes," one of his attendants replied, "But from God, not you. These men will conquer or die."
The Scots ended up destroying the English army, which resulted in Scotland claiming it's independence.

While we were video taping, the camera battery died, so we had to come back the next day.
Then we went to Castle Campbell in Dollar Glen and took a hike because the castle was closed until spring. My feet got tired because it was a very long trail. Here is a picture of Castle Campbell. We hiked up to it, and then down the stream which is in the left side of the picture, then to the bottom of the Glen, and then back up the right side.

Scotland - Day 6

On day 6 in Scotland we went to Doune Castle, Falkirk, and Dumbarton Castle. First we went to Doune Castle. Doune Castle was built by Robert Stewart Duke of Albany. The Duke made it for the King to dwell in when he left the palace. This did not happen till the Duke was dead. The Castle was made for strength and comfort. This is a picture of the outside of the Castle: We went into prison and took some pictures. Then we went up into the tower. This is a picture from the top of the tower. We took a picture of the top of the tower from the roof of the other part. After we left Doune Castle we went to Falkirk. At Falkirk there was only a memorial. There were houses around it. Joshua did a speech at Falkirk about the battle of Falkirk. The battle of Falkirk was Wallace's second major battle, and also his last. He and his men were stationed in four groups. In the above picture, they would be where the snow still is below the trees in the upper portion of the picture. King Edward, who was king of England at that time, was attacking the Scots from the direction from where the picture was taken. Edward sent his men down the valleys and commanded them (which were mostly horsemen) to attack on the Scots right and left. They move over the stream, which is in the valley, and when they reached the Scots they surrounded each group and tried to pierce the Scot's line. But the Scots had long spears, which worked well against the English horsemen, so the English horsemen fell back, and brought up some archers. The archers fired their arrows at the undefended Scots, most of whose archers had been killed by the horsemen. Finally all the groups except one fled, and the last one retreated with Wallace.

After this the English took over Scotland again, Wallace went to France to get help for the Scottish cause. When he returned he was chased for a while, and finally caught and was taken to England and executed.

It was cold and windy there. After we left Falkirk we went to Dumbarton Castle. It did not look much like a castle. Dumbarton Castle was built on Dumbarton rock, a piece of volcanic rock. It was an old stronghold, dating back to at least the fifth century AD. The vikings sieged it for 4 months before it surrendered in 870. Robert Bruce's son fled there after a defeat in 1333, and the infant Mary Queen of Scots was protected there for several months before she was taken to France in 1548. The castle declined in importance after Cromwell's death in 1658, but new structures and defences were built as it was garrisoned until WWII. It was in a strategical place, located on the James River. Here is a picture of the river from one of the towers. Here is a picture of the magazine, were they kept their ammunition. Here is a picture of Joshua, Rachel, and Stephen next to a cannon. This is a picture of the tower were William Wallace was imprisoned. This is a picture of a cannon on a tower over looking the sea. After we went to Dumbarton Castle, we went to the condo where we were staying.

Scotland - Day 5

On March 13 we got up and drove to Stirling, a town in the middle of Scotland. There was still very much snow on the ground, so there were not many people there. I enjoyed this a lot. Here is a picture of the front of the castle, from the parking lot. We took this picture when we came back later in the week when the snow had melted.
To the right, out of this picture this is a statue of Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce was one of the very famous early kings of Scotland. He was made king after William Wallace died, who I will talk about in a little bit. Here is the statue in the snow looking over the town of Stirling:

Bruce and his father were on the side of the English at the beginning of the war, but they switched when the Scots won. When he decided to finally be on the Scot's side, he was continually being beaten in the battles. He tried seven times to drive out the English and free the Scots, and seven times he was defeated. When he was in hiding in a cave, he watched a spider on the wall trying to spin a web. It tried seven times, and the eighth time is succeeded. Therefore he was encouraged to try again and he succeeded. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. It was taken a few days after the previous one:
Here are some pictures from inside the castle:
First a picture of me in front of the Forework built for King James IV in the years around 1500. This is from the first time we went there:
Some guns on the Grand Battery, which is part of the Outer Close which is one of the two main courtyards.There where statues of Kings on the wall of the palace which was built for James V and was started in 1538.
During one of the sieges of the castle, some of the statues were knocked out of place:

We video-taped (or thought we did, more on that later) one of the speeches I did to our family on Scottish history. Here are a few good scenic pictures we took at various times from there:

After spending 4 hours there, we went to Wallace Monument, a monument to the Scottish hero William Wallace. When we got there, they were not selling tickets at the bottom of the hill, because the walkway was icey and slippery, and many people were turning back before they got to the top, but the Horns pressed onward and upward.

At the tower there were three levels.
There was a room about William Wallace's history. They had Wallace's sword in a case:
There was a room of Scottish heroes, and one about building the monument. When you climbed 220 feet and 246 steps you reached the crown, or top. It was very cold and windy there since it was sleeting, snowing, and freezing rain. I got really cold when I did my speech on the battle of Stirling Bridge out there.

Stirling Bridge was Sir William Wallace's first large engagement with the English. He had fought in several small battles, one of which we visited later. The English held Stirling Castle and Wallace was on Abbey Craig, the place where the Wallace monument now stands. The English decided to attack the Scots over a narrow bridge. Here is a picture of the battleground: (the old bridge is right next to the new bridge, which is in the middle of the picture).

Wallace waited until some of the English went over the bridge, and then attacked. He drove them into the loop of the river and destroyed them. The other English which had not crossed retreated back to England. This was one of my favorite battles. I enjoyed this day of our Scotland vacation.