Book Review: Spiritually Stronger in 40 Days by Serge Roux-Levrat

Spiritually Stronger in 40 Days by Serge Roux-Levrat challenges you to spend the next 40 days focusing on your spiritual growth. For each day, there is a short devotional thought, followed by that day's "homework."

I was excited to have the chance to review this book. Growing spiritually stronger is something many of us strive toward, and the description of this book really spoke to me.

One thing I found frustrating (not the book's fault) was that the review period for this book was only 3 weeks. The introduction to the book clearly stated that, to get maximum benefit from this book, a person should not "double up" or read ahead. So, I had to make a decision to use the book as intended, but write my review after only reading half of the book, or to ignore the author's intent and read the book straight through. I opted to follow the author's instructions and now I'm writing a review after reading only half of the book, was it the right decision? I don't know. . . 

There is something about this book that makes me uncomfortable and I can't completely put my finger on it. Perhaps the things confusing me will all fall together as the book wraps up. If that happens I will certainly post an updated review. One thing that bothers me, many of the devotional thoughts have little, if any actual scripture. Often the author simply tells me what God wants, without providing references. With so many false or conflicting teachings floating around in Christianity, I am always hesitant about anything that doesn't back beliefs with scripture.

The other thing I am really struggling with is the "homework". As far as I can tell, it doesn't build on itself, and some days are VERY involved. For example, one day was to determine your spiritual gifts by asking several trusted friends what they are, develop a plan to use those gifts going forward and implement tha plan. That is ONE day, needless to say, I can't drop everything for a day to do this. Not all days are this involved but still, it all feels extremely time intensive to me. 

At this season of my life I need spiritual resources that point me strongly to God and the Bible, and can be adapted to the time constraints inherent in the life God has blessed me with. This book doesn't meet those criteria. I encourage you to read other reviews to get other perspectives before deciding whether or not to choose this book.

Disclosure:  I received a free copy of this ebooktto review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations. I am part of The CWA Review Crew.

Crew Review: Music Together

When the older girls were toddlers, we took a mommy/toddler class that included lots of fun action songs. The girls loved it and we were sad when it ended. I've thought about looking for something similar for Little Bit, but we travel so much now, that it hasn't seemed practical. We would miss too many classes with our traveling.

So when we got the chance to review Music Together I figured that would be the best of both! We received the Music Together Family Favorites CD and the Family Favorites Songbook for Teachers. The songbook is so much more than just a songbook, it is a manual for teaching a toddler/preschool music class. Before each song it gives basic suggestions for how to introduce and use that song. After each song there are a couple more pages with suggestions for using the song with different ages (infant, preschool, etc.), special needs children, etc.

Even though Sassy and MiniMe are older, we included them in our fun.  I had good intentions of getting pictures of the girls enjoying the action songs but I never wanted to interrupt what we were doing to take the picture, so I'll just tell you about what we did.

We all sat in a circle on the floor, or, on some of the gorgeous, not too hot days recently, on a blanket in the yard. We started with the welcome song, then did 3 to 6 other songs, a mix of ones we had done before and new ones. Some of the songs are action songs, others use instruments. We already had some instruments, maracas and shaking eggs and some little toy drums. When we needed things we didn't have, we looked around the house. Wooden spoons make great rhythm sticks, an empty oatmeal container makes a good drum, if you can handle the loudness, so does a kettle. . . So we didn't have to buy anything extra to go with this. If we hadn't had maracas, dry beans in small Tupperware containers work well.  However, the site does sell instruments if you prefer.

So, what do we think? Little Bit thought it was great fun, the older girls, while obviously not the target audience, participated willingly and didn't complain, which says a lot LOL. I think the CD would make a fun CD just to listen to whenever, the songs are fun & catchy, it would also be a nice "supplement" to have if your child is taking a Music Together class. For an actual class, like the songbook lays out, an actual pianist would be ideal. If MiniMe had been taking piano lessons longer I would have made that her job. Since we didn't have a pianist, I wish we had an accompaniment type cd without singing, or that the CD included accompaniment only tracks as well. Often the book suggested letting the children make up words, or otherwise modifying the songs, which was hard to do with the cd having words. Alternately, you could memorize the songs well enough to sing without accompaniment but my singing isn't good enough for that LOL.

This would be a great product for a family with several little ones (the classes are listed as being from babies through age 7, so anywhere in that range would work well, older siblings may enjoy joining in too, like my 9 yr olds did), or for the younger kids at a homeschool coop. Alternately, anyone with young kids, looking for a cd of fun kid songs could just get the cd. Music Together also offers classes, you can check here for classes in your area.

You can purchase the cd for $14.95, or an mp3 download of the album for $9.99 and the songbook for $29.95, or you can get the CD and songbook together for $39.95, you can find the combo on this page.  AND You can use coupon code "Schoolhouse" for $2 off your purchase.

Be sure to check the crew blog to see how other reviewers used this product.

Disclaimer: I received one or more of the above mentioned product at no charge as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

Weekly Wrap-up September 23

 We finished off last week with the 150th anniversary of the battle of Antietam. While we were there, the girls started working on their Junior Ranger for the Maryland Campaign in the Civil War. They got the Antietam piece signed off on, but to complete the Junior Ranger they had to visit several other sites connected to the Maryland Campaign, so that was our entertainment for the next couple of days.

We stopped at Washington Monument State Park, and the South Mountain Inn across the street, and read the historic markers there for one requirement. Little Bit was right in there in the middle of things :)

Another stop we didn't get a picture of was the Frederick Historic Society, where we learned more about Barbara Fritchie. A couple weeks  ago we read Whittier's poem about Barbara Fritchie, so it was fun to see more about it. As a fun sidenote, while we were at the Historic society, they also had a display about Cunningham Falls, including a big "life size" picture of the part of the falls that my friends and I often visited on Sabbath afternoons when I was a teenager. The girls thought it was pretty cool that I could point out the exact rock that Daddy & I sat on and watched people on our very first date :)

The most exciting stop was to go to Monocacy Battlefield to see Special Order 191. I have absolutely NO recollection of ever learning about Special Order 191 in school, despite taking an entire semester of Civil War History from a truly excellent history teacher. BUT now that I know about it, it's definitely a highlight of the Maryland campaign, and the war in general. In a nutshell, Lee's entire battle plan was left behind when the army moved to a new camp and a few days later the Union army ended up camping the same place & found the copy of the battle plan and delivered it to McClellan. Normally the original is kept at the Library of Congress but in honor of the 150th anniversary, it's been loaned to Monocacy Battlefield. Unfortunately, they didn't allow pictures around the actual document, but while we were there, we had some fun dressing up in the confederate uniform they have there. The fun thing about this particular "dress-up area" is that the pack is "weighted" to be the weight of the packs soldiers actually carried, it was rather amusing to watch MiniMe helping Sassy get the pack on, it was HEAVY!!!

Little Bit decided she'd just stand next to the "soldier" for her picture :)

We also got the C&O canal signature, but we got there just as they were closing, so just got it signed real quick, and the girls did the activity for that one at home.

Our other adventure was to start geocaching, as I mentioned here.

Since we were all fighting colds, we mostly just hung out at Mama & Papa's house the next day. The girls helped mama harvest squash from the garden (that picture ended up on Papa's camera and I forgot to get copies of his pictures), and all 3 girls had fun playing in the playhouse. They've moved the play kitchen from the basement out to the playhouse so Little Bit has great fun "cooking" in their house. And we did some of the geocaching talked about above.



Tuesday was rainy, but we had chosen to wait until then to go to our final stop for the Maryland Campaign Junior Ranger. Newcomer House is at Antietam Battlefield, one of the only original farm houses that is open to the public, but was a separate stop on the Junior Ranger, and we figured it would be easier to get to if we waited until AFTER all the 150th stuff at Antietam was over. So, since the actual battle anniversary was Monday (the 17th), we headed over to Newcomer House on Tuesday.

When we got there the girls noticed right away that HERE there were UNION uniforms to dress up in AND they had the boots too! Sassy had to try them out, and then, when we showed the ranger, he pulled out his own fife and showed the girls how to play it. You can be glad these are SILENT pictures, the girls made quite a racket trying out the fife.

And of course, MiniMe had to try on the whole get-up too. This pack was empty, so it was much easier to try on than the weighted one LOL.

The ranger at Newcomer house was very friendly and we spent quite awhile there talking to him about the civil war medical equipment that was there, and the Lee statue that is nearby, and not accurate for the battlefield it's on. It shows Lee riding his horse, holding the reigns with one hand and looking through a spy glass with the other hand, however right before Antietam he had fallen from his horse and injured his hands/wrists, so wouldn't have had full use of his hands at this battle. (see all the fun trivia we get to learn).

Once we finished at Newcomer house we headed back over to the main Antietam Visitor Center to get their badges and certificates for the Maryland Campaign Junior Ranger. A lady who was there while the girls were getting their certificates, suggested that we take a picture of the girls with the ranger who gave it to them, so we did, but the lighting wasn't real good, and by then Little Bit (who had stayed in the car with Mama) was WAY past naptime so I didn't want to take very long.

Wednesday we headed home.

Friday was gorgeous weather, so we ended up spending time at one playground with friends in the morning, but then couldn't resist stopping by another playground later in the afternoon too. We had the place to ourselves.

The girls had fun swinging, and playing on the monkey bars.












And climbing on the dragon:

While they were all having fun on the playground I decided to check for geocaches in the area, so on our way home we had to check out a nearby geocache. We're still getting the feel for things and I was wanting to see if we could find the necessary coordinates using my car's GPS and/or the free app I currently have on my phone. What I discovered was that my car GPS, even when set in pedestrian mode, just isn't "exact" enough for geocaching. It assumes I'm looking for a building, so once I'm close enough that I'd be able to easily find the building, it tells me that I'm "at my destination", it won't lead me to specific latitude & longitude coordinates. The app I have on my phone would, I think, work fine for a simple cache. It will take the coordinates off the website and lead you to them. However, this particular cache involved finding information and then using it to determine the final coordinates of the cache, I couldn't figure out a way to enter my own coordinates into this app, so we got close, but couldn't find the cache. 

Additionally, the area we determined it to be also had some fallen trees, so it might have been recent storms had further "hidden" this particular cache. Still, the girls had fun looking for it, and climbing around on said fallen trees to try to find it LOL.

Sabbath we had our typical church, and potluck, then came home to relax for a couple hours before we headed off for more fun.

A local area church had arranged for a free Jaime Jorge concert Saturday evening, so the big girls and I went to that. I'd first heard Jaime Jorge 20+ years ago and have always enjoyed his violin music. Since Sassy is wanting to learn violin she was very excited to go to a violin concert and sat completely engrossed through the whole concert. Since piano is MiniMe's instrument of choice she was slightly less into it all, but still enjoyed it, and the stories and antecdotes he shared between pieces.

Since we figured Little Bit wouldn't do so well sitting through an evening concert, she and Daddy had their own date to Chuck E Cheese. Rodney said it was PACKED, so not as much fun as sometimes, but she still enjoyed herself. Of course, the thing that made the biggest impression was going for ice cream afterwards LOL.

So that was our busy week. Believe it or not we DID fit some school into the cracks, LOL.

And now I need to get off the computer and join my children outside to continue enjoying the lovely weather we're having!!!

Crew Review: Knights and Nobles! Once-a-Week Unit Study

Much as we LOVE history around here, I have to admit, when Homeschool Legacy's Once-a-Week Unit Studies came up as an option to review, my first thought was "No more history!" not because we don't LOVE it, not because I didn't think the girls would enjoy it, but because we seriously are NEVER going to finish American History if we don't keep with it! And I just felt like we needed to not sidetrack from Civil War stuff. So, as I went through the EXTENSIVE list of options to review, I listed several fun sounding SCIENCE units for the girls to choose between, but then I saw Knights and Nobles. And I just couldn't not at least include it in the list, it just sounded TOO fun! So, I sat down with the girls and gave them the option of things like birds, trees, weather, but also Knights and Nobles.And wouldn't you know it, while they thought they ALL sounded fun, the first choice was Knights & Nobles (with birds being a close second, I have to admit, I'm anxiously waiting to read the reviews about birds, it might just go on our wish list!).  And so, into our already history-laden days, came a whole different time period, and country. And the girls have LOVED LOVED LOVED it!!!

So what exactly is this? The Once-a-Week Unit Studies are designed, as the name suggests, to be used once a week. The thought being, this can be a way to add a little "spice" to homeschooling. Once a week, you take a break from all your normal curriculum and instead use these fun, educational, unit studies.

Knights and Nobles is, a four week study on Medieval times. These unit studies are advertised as being "no prep work", as is generally the case with no prep work unit studies, you DO need to reserve the books from the library ahead of time, and pull together a few needed supplies so that you have everything ready to go. This study does a very good job of listing the necessary books and supplies, making it as close to "no prep" as is possible. The one complaint I had about the supply lists was that the book lists didn't always include authors. They DID include call numbers which, if you live near a large library, would add a nice element of teaching children to find books by call number, however, we live near a very small library, BUT I can go online and reserve books from any library in the county, and have them delivered to our small library. Our online system doesn't allow for searching by call numbers though, so without the authors, in some cases I had to guess at which book (when the title was general enough to have multiple books by that title) we needed.

The book lists were extensive including a wide selection of books for the children to read on their own throughout the week, as well as a suggested read aloud for each week (the independent reading and read aloud are intended to be used all week, in addition to your normal curriculum, everything else is intended to be done on the day you choose to be "Knights and Nobles day".

On the day chosen for the unit study, there is a devotional, and then a variety of activities ranging from learning about the art of the time to, building a castle out of legos, etc. Each week has a specific topic related to Medieval life (castles, knights, etc).

We actually have used this almost exactly as intended (shocking isn't it? I'm not sure I've ever said that in a review before LOL). The one "change" we made, other than substituting a couple books that weren't available at our library, is that I decided we needed to spread this out over more than 4 weeks. I found the amount of read-aloud time to be too much for us considering that we do quite abit of read aloud and discussion time with our normal schoolwork. Little Bit can only self-entertain for SO long each day. So, much as I was hoping to have completed the study before the review was due, I decided it was better for all of us to slow down, we are working on finishing up the week 3 read aloud (would be done if I hadn't caught a cold which has meant I've chosen not to expend voice and breath on any read alouds the last 2 days) and then we will start on our final week's read aloud, independent reading, and choose a day, probably next week, for our final week's study.

What did we think? We all loved it! The girls really got into it all. I had to laugh, after they had read several books about how castles were built, and laid out, it came time to build a lego castle. Conveniently I had a lego castle from when I was a kid, that I had kept separate from the general mass of legos that live at my parents' house, so I got it out for them to use for this project. They started out following the directions, but then when they looked at the pictures of the "finished project" they objected, it simply was NOT authentic, thankyouverymuch! So they designed their own castle, and declared it much better, hee hee. (I thought I took a picture of their finished creation, but I'm not finding it, so I must have just thought about taking the picture, sigh . . .)

The "final project" for this unit study is to plan and host a Medieval feast, they have been planning this feast since we started the study. Because of our travel schedule, the feast won't happen for a couple more weeks, but they are anxiously looking forward to it.  We also plan to spend a day at the Renaissance Faire now that the weather is cooling off (I much prefer attending Renaissance Faires in late Sept or early Oct. rather than in August when it's still hot!).

The one caution I would mention is our current read aloud, a book about King Arthur, has abit more references to extra marital affairs than I would prefer, and I would have appreciated being warned of that. The references are quite vague in language, nothing explicit, but since children result in some instances, it is obvious what is going on, and I wouldn't want to field the questions that would arise if my girls were a year or two younger. The unit study is listed as being for grades 2-12, and while we generally say they are in 3rd grade this year, Sassy and MiniMe are currently 9 1/2, making them more in line, age-wise with most 4th graders.

Speaking of age ranges, I think this one is pretty accurate, however I love that some picture books are included to use with younger children. Even Little Bit, at age 3, has enjoyed having her sisters read her some of the "youngest" picture books that were on the list, and she likes being a part of our "school" days. This truly is a study that can be used with the whole family, even including some "stump Dad" trivia so the children can draw Dad into the fun in the evening when he's home.

I should also mention that if you have children in Boy Scouts, there is information included throughout the unit study so that he can earn a boy scout badge for the study as well (I'm sure some of the other reviewers who have children in scouts will go into more detail on this, that's all I know LOL).

So who do I recommend this to? I really can't think of any homeschoolers I wouldn't recommend it to. If you're like us and eclectic, leaning toward unschooling, this is so hands-on that it fits in wonderfully with our normal way of doing school. If you're a more structured homeschooler, be it classical homeschooling, or Charlotte Mason or . . . whatever it might be, because of the "once a week" nature of this it can be used alongside any curriculum and simply provide a fun change of pace for a month or so. Even if you're not homeschooling, this might be a fun summer or weekend activity for your family to enjoy learning about together.

The Knights and Nobles unit study is available for $15.95. You can see the complete list of available unit studies here.  Also don't forget to check out out the Schoolhouse Crew blog, because we were given so many choices to review, you'll be able to see what crew members thought of most, if not all), of the available studies.

Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received the above mentioned product in exchange for writing an honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are those of myself or my children, as stated.

C is for Cache

I first heard of geocaching when Sassy & MiniMe were toddlers, I filed it away in my mental file of "things to look into when they're older" and kind of forgot about it. A few times since then, something has brought it forward in my mind and I've thought "I should look into that" and that's as far as I got. Last spring I was talking to a friend who mentioned that her children, about the same age as MiniMe and Sassy, enjoy it, so that moved it up some on my mental "someday" list. At that point I actually got as far as googling it, and getting on the email list at geocaching.com. That meant I started getting "reminders" every couple weeks in the form of emails from geocaching.com.

Fast forward to earlier this week . . . we're visiting my parents, busy doing lots of fun field trips and such, but then I happened to get an e-mail from geocaching.com Sunday morning, and seeing it, led to me checking, just for fun, to see if there were any caches near my parents' house. And one was not only near my parents' house, but at a tiny little civil war marker that I had been thinking we should include in our Civil War studies, but kept not thinking about it when we had time. So, I mentioned it to my dad, with MiniMe and Sassy within earshot. And they wanted to know what geocaching is, so we explained it and they were ready to go RIGHT.THIS.MINUTE!!!!

We didn't even actually USE a gps for that first one, we knew where it was, it was such a small location, so we just went and read about the skirmish that happened right there, literally in the "middle of the road" now . . . and hunted around the fence and rocks and trees and finally found what we were looking for.

If you're not familiar with geocaching, you can read all about it on the site I mentioned, but in a nutshell, people hide "caches" (small  boxes/containers) various places, then post to the geocaching website giving the latitude & longitude coordinates of the location along with some clues. They also indicate how difficult the terrain is (if you have to hike 50 miles through the wilderness or just stop by the side of the road LOL), how hard it is to find (I'm not sure if the HIDER determines this or people who've found it, seems like that could be a pretty different perspective LOL), and how big a container you're looking for.  INSIDE the container is (supposed to be), at minimum, some sheets of paper or a small notebook so that each person who finds it can sign saying they found it. If the cache is big enough, it often also includes "tradeables", the person who hid the cache puts some type of "prize" in for whoever finds it first. That person, in turn, takes the prize and leaves something of equal or greater value, and so on . . . anyone who finds it has the option to "trade" or to just leave the item for the next person. When you get back to your computer (or, right away if you have the app on your smart phone) you also log your find on the website.

So, back to our first hunt . . . we finally found it, and there WAS a cute toy in it (rubber ducky) but since I was still figuring out how it all worked, we didn't have anything to trade, I'd pre-warned the girls of all this, so they were ok with it). There was NOT a log book in it, sigh . . . so we just re-hid it and continued with our day. I logged our find online when we got back to my parents' house that evening (I do have a smart phone, but want to make sure we're in this for the long-haul before I spend $10 on an app, I'm cheap that way LOL).

As we were driving away, the girls were asking "are there more around here?", "when can we find another one?" so it was a hit, even without getting to keep the "treasure".

That evening dad & I both looked at some other caches nearby and the next day we headed out again, leaving Mama and Little Bit at home so Little Bit could nap. The girls are SOO into it! Even not being able to find one didn't phase them, although we may stop by and take another go at that one before we head home this afternoon. The ones we found the second day were too small to have tradeables in them, but the girls didn't mind that either, though they are looking forward to finding more with "treasures" in them (I ordered some little toys from Oriental Trading to have for trading, though when we went hunting on Monday I'd told them that if we DID find any tradeables, we could go into the Walmart that was nearby and buy some type of do-dad to trade).

This is a great way to learn about geography, map skills, latitude/longitude, and get some good exercise and fun family time! After "helping" Papa, out in the yard, figure out how his GPS would work for this, Sassy came in and asked me "do YOU know how many degrees are in a circle?" she was rather disappointed to learn that I did LOL.

To see what other bloggers think of when they think of the letter C, visit Ben and Me!

Crew Review: A Cry From Egypt by Hope Auer

I have to admit, when I first saw that one of the vendors being reviewed was Raising Real Men, I assumed it wasn't anything we could use. Afterall, I'm not raising men, I'm raising 3 women. But, when the information about this review came out, it specified that it wasn't just for parents of boys, so I read about it afterall. And I'm SO glad I did! One of the options to review was A Cry From Egypt by Hope Auer.

I love books. I've been a bookworm since I learned to read. I had a teacher who used to tell me I HAD to play at recess, I couldn't just sit under a tree and read a book every day, he wasn't my favorite teacher LOL.

These days I don't find alot of time to read "for fun", but one genre that I still make time to read once in awhile is Biblical fiction. I love it when an author does a good job of taking a well-known Bible story, and does the research about the time period and such, and "fleshes" the story out. And that is what this book is. Hope Auer, a recent homeschool graduate, wrote this book about a young Hebrew slave girl in Egypt during the plagues.

We used this as our bedtime read aloud, and my girls and I LOVED it! In fact, we are waiting impatiently for the sequel to come out!!! (I fear we may have to wait awhile, since I KNOW books like this don't write themselves overnight, and A Cry from Egypt is still available in limited quantities as advanced reader copies, sigh).

It is so easy to read about the plagues of Egypt and not really think about the PEOPLE involved, both Egyptian and Hebrew! Obviously we don't know alot about how the people felt, but I feel this book did an excellent job of "guessing", and bringing these people, with all their trials and joys, to life! I especially liked that the author didn't portray all Egyptians as evil, as we approached the Passover in the story, my girls started being so sad, "Oh no! So and so is going to die!" (or so and so's son, or so and so's brother . . .), we hurt along with some of the Egyptians who were victims of their Pharoah's cruelty in a different way.

I seriously can't think of anyone I DON'T recommend this to! The recommended age for this book is 8+, I think for younger children (and probably even for some 8-10 yr olds), use your judgement. Consider what the basic story here is, there is violence, bad things happen to people, it wouldn't be realistic if it weren't that way. If you have a very sensitive child you might want to wait until they are abit older, if your child won't be disturbed by the violence, then I would think a couple years younger would be able to follow, and enjoy, the story if it were used as a read aloud. If your kids are too young, get it anyway, you can read and enjoy it now, and share it with them when they're ready! My one complaint, and I know I noticed it more because I was reading it out loud, was there were several small typos, a missing the, or a word typed twice, little things like that (which I'm sure are quite prevalent in my blog, but then, if I took time to proof read and double proof read every blog post, I'd NEVER get anything posted), it's a small thing really, but since I know that some of my friends are as picky, or picker than me about such things, I did want to mention it, so you can mentally prepare yourself to overlook that when reading it.

You can purchase a pre-release copy of the book from the publisher for $12.50, including shipping.

Also be sure to look around Raising Real Men to see all the other great products they have (that are NOT all just for those raising boys!). You can also find them on facebook.

Some of my fellow crewmates reviewed this book along with me, others reviewed a parenting book about children in church, you can read reviews of both these books on the crew blog, here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received the above mentioned product in exchange for writing an honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are those of myself or my children, as stated.

Weekly wrap up September 17

Another busy week. The first few days were extra hectic because, not only were we getting ready for a trip, but MiniMe still wasn't really walking on her foot. Thankfully by Tues she was walking relatively well, and by Wed, the blister had popped and she was fine, whew!! 

Thursday she had her piano lesson and then we headed to Mama and Papa's house. After HORRIFIC traffic, we finally got there. As always, one of the first things is to check on the playhouse. Much to their delight, they discovered a new addition, a TIRE SWING!!!  Last spring Papa had added the arm to put a swing of some sort on but up until now it had just been a rope with a loop in the end to stand in. Still fun, but this is better. Little Bit isn't too sure about it yet, but the big girls are loving it, as long as Sassy doesn't push MiniMe TOO high so that she gets too close to the end posts LOL.

Friday we went to a life size model of the wilderness Sanctuary. The girls would have much preferred a self-guided tour where they could examine things and ask questions at their own pace, and not quite so much "lecturing" much of which was basic enough that they weren't learning much. But it was still interesting to get a better idea of the size (not very big, really) of things. 

And then we get to the reason for this trip, Antietam's 150th anniversary celebration. Today (the 17th) is actually the anniversary of the battle, but the schedule was set up so that the "fun stuff" for kids anyway) was all on the weekend, today they were just having lots of lectures and some guided tours and such. This weekend was wonderful though! The weather couldn't have been more perfect, sunny, breezy, not too hot, wonderful!!! 

The "family tent" was one of our main destinations. It included supplies to make their own commemorative ribbons (crafts are always good!). They also had an activity where you found out information about one member of the 125th Pennsylvania (for the union, they could have chosen a confederate instead but they're all about winning LOL), then answer questions about the 125th Pennsylvania, around the battlefield, and finally come back to the family tent & find out the "fate" of their soldier. I had to laugh when we found out that the soldier that Sassy "was", had broken his jaw. I told her that to be authentic she would need to not talk the rest of the day, but she didn't buy it LOL.

We also went to a living history program where we heard from "Clara Barton" about her experiences at Antietam and during the war in general, and also a free black soldier who was awarded for picking up the flag and carrying it when the color bearer was shot.

Later we heard cannons shooting and the big girls said "cool, let's get closer!!!" and took off. Little Bit said "no, let's go back to Mama & Papa's house!" no matter how many times and how many different ways I tried to explain that the guns weren't going to hurt anybody, they were showing how they worked, she wasn't convinced, and kept saying she hoped sissies were ok, and refusing to go closer. 

The big girls enjoyed seeing the muskets & cannons shot, and then after that, the gunman from one of the cannons did a "kid's artillery demonstration" where he brought the kids up right around the cannon and explained how all the parts worked and such. Great fun!

There were also "camps" set up so the girls spent quite awhile talking to one of the soldiers in the confederate camp asking about all the different things he'd brought with him and anything else they could think of to ask him. 

Both Pennsylvania and Virginia had brought their mobile exhibits as well, the 2 exhibits were very different but both were interesting and added a different perspective on things related to the war. 

So, a busy day but lots of fun, and lots of learning :)