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Prairie Adventure: toys and tents and eagles. and the Mississippi River.
It hasn’t even been very long yet and my days are already blending together. That’s how travel goes I think. Off schedule and out of routine in a haphazard, purposely random fantastic kind of out of control way. There was a toy store today. A giant family-owned toy store with a cute bird name. Lark. We had given the kids a specific allotment of money prior to this trip. Each kid received the same dollar amount with instructions to spend it however they wanted but when it was gone, it was gone. (Very parental phrase to utter.) Surprisingly, not every kid made a toy store purchase. Piper Finn fulfilled a…
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Prairie Adventure: it takes a long time to get out there
Are you wondering when we are ever going to actually get to the prairie? When will we ever step foot on Laura’s soil? Yeah. Me too. It takes a long time to get from the south to the mid-west. I told the kids as we were riding along, “Guys. We will change time zones in a few minutes. It’s like we will go backwards in time.” To which Hawkeye responds, “You mean I get to be a baby again?” This road trip is full of funny responses and one-liners. It’s a regular comedy routine. We left Ohio pretty early and tried to make some quick road trip time to West…
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Prairie Adventures: at the beginning
You know every trip actually begins before you get in the car, right? This trip had a rocky start Friday night at the car rental location. It wasn’t pretty. It started with Hertz and ended with Budget. It started with a way I thought things should go and ended with Kevin and I standing in the car rental parking lot, me on the receiving end of a well-spoken and true pep talk of how our attitudes as parents absolutely affect the attitudes of our children. It started with a plan to drive off in a Suburban and ended with us driving off in a Tahoe. But Saturday morning arrived regardless…
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What The Road Will Look Like From Here.
Because I like a plan. Because I’m a faithful fan of expressed expectations. Because I just really feel like it …. I want to tell you my basic idea for this blog space whilst our family is on the road during the next two weeks. Tomorrow we hit the pavement for our much-anticipated-by-our-own-family Prairie Adventure. We’re certainly not traveling to excessively remote locations. I imagine internet connection will be accessible everywhere our roads lead us. However. I am only bringing my cellular device to serve as my “computer”. Which means I do have the ability to type a blog post on its tiny keyboard. Which I will. I will type simple…
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Prairie Journey – Guess What’s Waiting For Us in DeSmet?
Prairie days are getting closer on the calendar. Last year this adventure seemed so far away as I was hatching it and hoping it would work out. Actually, this trip has been nearly a decade in the making. Yeah – life is moving quickly like that. As we were taking this same basic journey with a bonnet-clad fifth-grader Riley, I knew then we’d do this journey again some day if time and circumstance were on our side. And, so far, it seems they both are. The order of travel is The Big Woods, Walnut Grove, Plum Creek and then Silver Lake in DeSmet, South Dakota. For a large portion of…
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Walnut Grove. Plum Creek. Oh, the Places We’ll See.
Every time we’ve finished another one of the nine Little House books this year I’ve wanted to weep a bit. (Now that I’ve confessed that I’m a crier, why try to disguise it anymore?) For, you know, a myriad of reasons. I. Love. These. Books. I love them for what they are – a treasure of memories from a girl whose life might not have seemed to matter at the time she was living it but whose life, when viewed collectively, is a history and a recollection of an era and a family and a lifestyle fading into our country’s past. I love them for what they have brought to our…
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Farmer Boy – You May Change Us Yet
We’ve just started to read Farmer Boy in our Little House on the Prairie Year. Farmer Boy covers the life of Almanzo, Laura’s husband, and his growing up years on a farm in Malone, New York. In the official series it actually appears as about book three I think, but our Prairie Primer suggests reading it at this juncture – right after These Happy Golden Years about Laura and Almanzo’s courtship. It helps with the flow of following Laura’s life first, plus Laura probably heard most of the Almanzo-grows-up stories during their long courtship and marriage. I’ve been infatuated with Laura Ingalls and her life and her words for decades…
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On the Road: Gettysburg
You could easily spend an entire day there. But we just had an hour or two. And it was snowing. And 30 degrees. But the national park and museum were literally only minutes from the highway and we’ve been studying the Civil War in history this year along with our Prairie Primer so it just seemed irresponsible to not stop for a glimpse. We entered the wide hall area at the museum where you have to decide whether you want to buy tickets, arrange a bus tour, donate blood, watch a movie, take a guided auto tour, purchase museum tickets, adopt a dog. Okay, two of those weren’t real choices…
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Happy Birthday Laura Ingalls
Somehow, despite our entire school year’s focus on Laura Ingalls Wilder, her birthday surprised us this year. Last week, the girls were at a birthday party for their friend when I realized that it wasn’t just our sweet friend Kate’s birthday – but it was Laura’s birthday too! Of course, it was too late that day to celebrate our pioneer girl. A few days after that I gathered my class, also known as my children, into a huddle of sorts at the kitchen table. (Actually – we often form a huddle of sorts when we gather.) I told them the plan. Each child had two tasks to celebrate Laura Ingalls.…
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This Is What I Did Yesterday.
Yesterday I: Consumed three helpings of snow cream. (If it’s an addiction – it is certainly a limited one, as I can only indulge in this particular addiction on one or two days a year. Thus, I will forgive myself for my excessive behavior.) Noticed that my hands look like the hands of a geriatric woman. Is it the cold? The dry winter weather? Is my rapid aging problem pertaining to my appendages only? Booked two nights at a campground in Pepin, Wisconsin for this summer. The Prairie Journey officially begins where Laura’s life began – in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Prepared salmon cakes for the first time. (Second…
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Prairie Primer: The Long Winter
Finishing Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter the same week as our state’s only snow fall was fortuitous. (Yes, I looked up both the spelling and the definition – just to be certain.) When we finish each of the books we celebrate in some Laura Ingalls-ish manner. (Gold Rush party. Venison dinner. Native American Festival.) Last night we had an Ingalls evening here at the house. We kept our heat turned on (who wants to be that hardcore this winter?). We brought all kinds of hand crafts into the living room. Turned off the lights. Sat by the fake flickering flame of our electric “wood” stove and the glow of…
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Field Trip: Native American Festival
Last weekend we attended a Native American Festival at a nearby historic mill. It was a great experience for us to connect a few of the things we’ve been reading about in our Little House series The kids had read that Laura and Mary had received horehound candy as a treat once so when we saw horehound sticks for sale for a quarter we figured it was the perfect opportunity to try this old-fashioned candy. They liked it so much that Bergen spent another quarter of his own money to buy a stick for later. We munched on traditional fry bread, watched dancing and listened to drums playing. We walked…
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Prairie Primer: Laura’s Lunch
I cannot believe how quickly it seems we are flying through these lovely Little House novels. I’m pretty much in love with that part of every school day. The illustrations by Garth Williams are classic and perfectly simple. They fit my image of Laura Ingalls somehow. I love the sky blue books themselves, the very same copies my momma and daddy read at night to us at our house in Gloucester, sitting on that wooden This End Up style furniture with its hard edges and scrunchy but practical striped sofa cushions. My heart about bursts as the kids draw in their breaths wondering if Pa will make it home through…
