Pioneer Days

First of all, I cannot believe I am soooo behind with blogging.  If I ever get caught up, I hope I can stay that way!  So the next several posts will be from over the last several months! 

I'll start with Pioneer Days at Fort Toulouse.  This was a field trip that we took that because Ella is studying early America.  We were very excited that Charles was able to take off and go with us.  I thought everything was very interesting, but it was so very crowded it made enjoying it a little difficult for me.  It was set up so that you could go from one area to another on your own (no real timed events) so we tried to stay opposite of the large school groups.  I know this will sound bad, but being around those large groups of mostly unruly kids made me so thankful that my kids weren't caught up in that mix.  I am so very grateful for the opportunity to homeschool!!  You will see in the pictures that all of the people were dressed up according to the era and that was fun to see.

Here are a few pictures from our day....

This is a lady demonstrating the cooking process and how they utilized hooks to hang the pots over the fire.

The girls behind the actual fort.

I can't remember exactly what this man was talking about but Charles seems to think it was about guns.

This was a representation of a temporary camp.  It was impressive, though, how well they were set up.  Some of the tents had two rooms, a kitchen area and a bedroom.  I was impressed by how much room there really was in there.

The girls getting to pet a bunny rabbit.  It was so very soft.

A couple of other things we learned was how to make bullets and how to start a fire with no matches.  We ended the day with a nice picnic.

One thing that studying early America has done for me is to give me a fresh appreciation of how very blessed we are with all of our modern conveniences.  Life was so hard back then.  The people had to work long and hard just to survive.  I know I am guilty of taking so much for granted.  This was a good reminder not to do that.