June 30

Sorry I did not get back to you. Last night wasn’t the best of evenings.

This is indeed a fly catcher. Put some sweet water and some meat in the bottom and the bugs are not smart enough to find their way out.

Also, the little things on the mantle were indeed fire starters.  They are pieces of newspaper twisted into a tube.  They would also light their candles with them.

We were allowed to go upstairs on our own. They had to manhandle me to keep me from jumping the barriers and touching all the pretties. It wasn’t a pretty sight, so I will spare you…….and myself the humiliation!

This is a shot of the master bedroom and in the background you can see the nursery. This doctor and his wife had 4 children, and only 2 bedrooms. I’d be kicking the kids out of the nursery and making myself a bathroom!!!

There were fireplaces in every room, but this one had a special pot beside it. It was absolutely lovely!

Beside the fireplace to the right was this. You can see the daughter and the barrier. She is holding me back….you just can’t tell at this angle.

I want this lovely dressing table….or whatever it is! Isn’t the carving just gorgeous??? I also wanted to snatch that pair of hand knitted stockings. I wonder who knitted them? was she a good knitter, did she have arthritis? did she like that color, or did she tire of it after she made the cuff?

I just have a few shots of the other bedroom.

This is a silk wedding dress circa 1849.

This desk was beside the fireplace that was at the foot of the bed. Isn’t it lovely?

The daughter wanted me to get a shot of this nightgown. So, I did.

What do you think the pot in the master bedroom was? I will tell you tomorrow.

June 29

***sorry it is so late. WordPress was doing maintainance , so I couldn’t get on here when I wanted to.***

The next building we went into was the Doctor’s house. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my home schooling mom friends as the historian in this house. She is such a sweetie. She inspired me to have a room totally devoted to schooling.

When you go in the front door, according to the custom of the architecture of the day, you walk into the hall with a stairway and a little calling card table. There are rooms on either side of the hall.

The room to the right is the parlor.

The picture there on the wall is of the doctor’s wife that lived there. Above the settee was a picture of the doctor himself. The white cloth draped on the settee was her silk shaw. I had to manhandle the girl to keep her from jumping over the barrier and taking it for her own.

I was really interested in the tea set.

This tea set was from England. It was copied from a Chinese tea set. As you can see ther eare no handles on the tea cups, but because the tea is so hot, the English began making the saucers deep so that they could pour the tea in the saucer, let it cool, and drink from the saucer. I would be inclined to just skip the tea cup and pour it straight into the saucer. Or add handles to the cups.

On the mantle of the fire place was the doctor’s bible~~beside the candle~~and this fabulous looking clock. She told us that the picture on the clock was painted backwards. She didn’t tell us why.

Do you have any idea what is in the glass between the bible and the clock?

We then went into the dining room.

She was telling us that this box on the mantle piece was the box of tea. Tea back then cost about $6 a pound, and coffee cost about .50 a pound. So the tea was kept in that box under lock and key, and only served to important people.  I am quite sure that I would have been served….coffee.

She also told us what this interesting glass piece on the dining table was.

Do you know what it is? I will come back later tonight and tell you exactly what it is.

June 28

The first building we went into was the school house. It isn’t in the original school house.

This is the original school house, and I was very disappointed when it was sold and make into an antique type store. I don’t think they cared that I was upset.

This is the inside of the building where the school house is now. It just isn’t the same. The girl is standing up by the “recitation bench”. The historian in this building was the school “marm” and gave us a good 1/2 hour lesson similar to what it would have been like waaaaaay back then. We had to practice our writing, do a history lesson, and do math in our head. I sat way in the back with this annoying boy named Brad. He kept pulling my hair, shoving me with his knee, whacked me with his straight edge, and generally made a nuisance of himself. “I”,on the other hand, was a good girl. The teacher commended me on my hand writing, and told the boy next to me that she would separate us if he didn’t behave. He didn’t even try, and kept looking at my slate.

The building right next to this one…you can see it peeking through the window there in the school room behind the stove…

is the oldest building in Roscoe. This house~~and I use that term loosely~~was built in 1825. It was the home of a weaver named Daniel Boyd. He and his family lived in this 10×14 foot building, and the room in the back was were he put his loom. There was JUST enough room for 2 looms in the loom room.

This is his loom. It is about 200 years old. The historian in this room told us that it takes 2 ladies 2 weeks to thread this loom. All those silver thingies that are hanging…..the thread has to be threaded between the eye in each of them, then threaded between each reed~~the screen looking thing where the thread is coming out in front~~. She also said that it would take 2 days of weaving to make enough cloth to make 1 dress.  It is no wonder that people only had one to two sets of clothing.  They only had 1 weaver in town.

This is a 100 year old loom. The cloth being made in this one was stunning.

This picture does not do it justice.

Anyway, this building was small……..VERY small.

I took this picture of the girl in the doorway between the loom room and the rest of the “house” just so you could see how wide the door way was. It was about 32 inches wide. Maybe. As you can see, she is sooooo thrilled to be there. The excitement is oozing out of every pore. It was all I could do to contain the party animal!

In the living part of the house, they had a fire place, a table, a hutch, a dresser and

this bed. See the wooden thing laying on the child’s bed? That is the rope key. They would tighten the rope when it began to sag.

Have I mentioned just how much I love MY bed.

It is no wonder that these people were so small. They were so hunched up in there beds that it stunted their growth. I love, love, love my bed!!! I also wanted to call your attention to the chest at the foot of the bed. See how it is dovetailed together. Isn’t it magnificent?

We didn’t spend any more than 3 minutes in that house. I was getting claustrophobic. Visions of trying to sleep in that bed was more than I could handle.

If I had lived back then, I would have been stuck in a house this small. I just know it. Tomorrow we will look at a much nicer house. I could have lived in that house.

Could you sleep in a bed like that?

June 27

Last week, Roscoe Village had their history tour for free. I like free, so atouristing we went.

Roscoe Village was a port on the 308-mile Ohio & Erie Canal, which opened in 1832 and connected Cleveland to Portsmith. Work on the canal began in Cleveland to enable merchants to ship goods from the New York region and beyond.

The heyday of the Ohio & Erie Canal lasted only until the 1850s, when the railroads began to replace the canal in transporting goods to the eastern markets. In this short time, the canal made Ohio prosperous and, in the 1850s, the Union’s most populous state.

By 1877, much of the canal was abandoned, and the great flood of 1913 damaged such a large part of the canal that the system was abandoned. You can still see bits of the canal as you drive on SR 16, and we often go picnicking near one of the locks. I really wish that I could have lived back then to see it in all of its glory.

In the 1960s, Edward Montgomery and his wife wanted to restore Roscoe Village to its former splendor. The Montgomerys started a non-profit foundation to restore the village. The foundation purchased quite a few buildings and restored them to their nineteenth-century appearance.

If you have ever seen the mini-series Centennial, part of that movie was filmed in Roscoe.

Now that you have had your mini history lesson, lets see what I am talking about.

This is the old warehouse. It is now a restaurant. They have good food……including deep fried s’mores…. Oh my, am I am in love!

The darker house is a private home. I would really love for them to invite me in so I can see what the inside of their house looks like. Do you think they would mind if I invited myself over?

The building next to it is a book store.  It used to be a really nice one, but now it is just a tourist type book store.

Anyone in the market to move? This house is for sale.

I have no clue what this building used to be, but it is old, and it is beautiful. I like to imagine that it was a lawyer’s office, or the village butcher shop. Maybe even the sheriff’s office.

I love this building. I love the wrought iron balcony. I also love to go in these stores and hear the old floors creak and groan. I wonder who owned the store, how many people have walked in that building, and who owned them first.

This is the original school house. Sadly, do to gross mismanagement, the foundation had to sell most of the buildings to private owners. All the buildings I have shown you so far have been sold to private owners. They had to sign contracts saying that they would not change them from their original structure. My favorite store sits to the right of this building. It isn’t original to the village, but I don’t care. It is the House of G.A. Fisher…fine jewelers.

This is the chocolate chip’s favorite building. I am almost positive that it used to be an old mercantile or something….at least I like to imagine that it was.

The next few days I will be taking you on a tour of our village. It isn’t that large, maybe 3 blocks, but it is beautiful and old. I like beautiful and old.

Have you seen the mini-series Centennial ?

June 26

Let me first start off by saying, the cake was sooooo good and soooooooo moist, it made me almost like chocolate cake. I even ate my entire piece! I mean, it WAS chocolate!

I won’t bore you with many details, but we all had fun. Why?

We were eating……that is what we do best!

Every since she was little, the girl has always gnawed on bones….sucked on bones, and chewed every bit of flavor, joint and gristle off. It is so bad, dogs won’t have anything to do with the bone once she is finished with it.

All the food was delicious, and the boy was anxious to open his presents. Aren’t we all? Aren’t presents the purpose of having a birthday? If it isn’t, I refuse to have any more!

He opened all his gifties from my parents and his sister. Mine was last. I made the boy hunt for it.

When I ordered this gift, I was so excited. Then delivery day arrived. The boy had gone to work just as the UPS driver arrived. Whew! He didn’t see it. But wait, the boy was still sitting on the porch when it arrived. Crud! He saw the box. That’s ok…no…wait! KitchenAid is written on every surface of the box. He knows what he is getting.

He didn’t know what was in the box. I was wrong~~don’t faint dad~~and I have never been so happy to be wrong!!!

Yeasssss! I didn’t think his smile could get any wider.

Unless…….your Gramps is standing there with…

a .22 with a scope, cleaning kit and rounds. What more could a man ask for???

How about passing his driver’s test today.

Good times!!! Good times!!!

Dad, mom…….my birthday is in 4 months……are you saving up???

Do you have any birthday traditions?

June 25

Today, 17 years ago, I became a mom. I was so scared. I always used to look at him when he was very small and wonder what he would look like at this age. Who he would be, what he would want to do as a profession, if he would act like I do. I am very pleased with his turnout. I could not have asked for a better son! Happy Birthday, sunshine!!!

I made his birthday cake yesterday. I don’t do cakes well. I went through a period of 2 years where every birthday cake I made flopped in some way or another. One year I made a cake for the girl, and I ended up having to make it a trifle as it stuck to the pan, and disintegrated right before my eyes as I tried to ice it. It wasn’t pretty. We called it “the blob”.

So, come along with me as I make the boy’s birthday cake. Hopefully I don’t make a blob!

The ingredients are just your basic ingredients, except it calls for espresso powder. That is the only “exotic” ingredient.

Next we prepare our pans. I use something called AB’s quick lube. ~~2 c. shortening and 1 ½ c. flour, mix well~~ I use this instead of Pam or something like that for 2 reasons. 1. this doesn’t leave my pan brown and sticky even after washing, and 2. this releases so much better than a spray.

Not only do I grease it well, I put parchment in the bottom. I refuse to have another “blob” on my hands. I measure out a piece of parchment a little bit wider than my pan, fold it into 4ths, then start making it into a wedge shape…twice. I then flip my pan over, put the point of the paper in the center of the pan, and cut it at the edge of the pan.

Unfolded, it becomes a circle the size of the bottom of my pan. They make round shapes, and if I made 9″ cakes on a weekly basis, I would consider purchasing them, but since I don’t…it is much easier just to make them myself.

When you put them in the bottom of the pan, make sure that it is all adhered to the grease, and you force the edges around…..don’t want any batter seeping under the paper. That would be disaster!

Next we make the batter.

Take 2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

3/4 c. cocoa, salt, baking soda, baking powder, espresso powder, and corn starch~~no clue why it calls for corn starch~~

and whisk together. I prefer to sift the dry ingredients together, but the recipe said to do it this way.

Add 4 eggs

oil and

vanilla. I make my own vanilla. Generally I just dump some in, but since I have never made this cake before, I figured I might want to measure. Home made vanilla smells so good.

Mix till smooth.

Add water

Mixing well, and scraping down the sides.

Pour into your prepared pans, and bake for 35 ~~or so~~minutes.

Cool in pans for 15 minutes. Then comes the scary part. You have to turn them out and cool completely. Did I grease them well enough? Did it stick to the sides? Am I going to end up with another blob?

Whew! The back one was touch and go for a few minutes. Part of it didn’t want to let go of the pan….as you can see, I made it submit.

Now we need to make the filling.

Take about 12 oz of chocolate chips and 6 oz. heavy cream. Stir.

Nukerize for 1 minute, and stir. It will look clumpy…..like this. Stir. Put it back in for another minute.

After 2 minutes, stir. It will still be a bit clumpy. Continue to stir and the little bits of chocolate will melt.

See how satiny it becomes. Viola, your basic gnache.

Divide this into 3 parts.

Add whatever flavorings/liquors you would like to each. We added rum, vanilla and caramel.

Slice your layers in half. They make these little gizmo’s that will do it nice and perfectly for you, but why? an uneven layer adds character to the cake.

Put your bottom layer on your cake plate of choice, and top with first filling.

Making sure that the filling tastes good.

Add your next layer of cake and your second filling. When you spread your filling on, don’t spread it all the way to the edges. You might get overflow.

As you can see, this cake has LOTS of character. Add your last filling flavor, and spread lovingly!

Put your top layer on and pray that it doesn’t all slide off the plate.

Now we need to make our icing.

What is great about this is that the icing is almost the same as the filling….so we can reuse the same bowl…only if it hasn’t been licked. Pour it over the entire cake allowing it to dripple all down the sides.

Keep away! You don’t get any till tomorrow!!!

Now I need to make sure that the icing tastes ok.

The final product……character and all.

What is your favorite flavor of cake? Would you all not faint if I told you I don’t really care for chocolate cake???

**recipe is now in my recipe section**

June 24

A brush with greatness.

This past week, the male chocolate chip had the opportunity to go to an “Alive Fest” up in Canal Fulton, Ohio. They have all sorts of different Christian singers preforming there. The youth group went to mainly hear Jeremy Camp and David Crowder.

The boy really likes David Crowder, so when he had the chance to meet him, he was thrilled.

I was thrilled for him.

Can you not see the joy on his face? Can you not tell that he is on cloud nine?

All I can say is does the man NOT own a hair brush?

Do you have a favorite Christian singer/group?

June 23

I am ashamed to admit it, truly ashamed, but we have a bully at our house. We have for quite some time, but now he has become a tyrant. It is just shameful.

I have done many things to help him to overcome this horrible trait, but to no avail.

I have watched him chase his lovely mate off in a very ungentlemanly way. She comes silently, looking, trying to make sure that he isn’t there before quickly taking a small drink and hurrying off. So, I purchased her a feeder so that Squeaker the Greedy would allow her to feed.

But no….after I purchase the second feeder, he has begun to lie in wait for her. There he sits fluffing himself, just waiting………yes, waiting for his mate to come and feed so he can chase her off.  Shameful…very shameful!

What makes it more shameful is that I just sit back and watch.

Do you have a favorite bird?

June 22

This past weekend, our family went up to Sugarcreek. Sugarcreek has the largest population of Amish in Ohio.

You can always tell which farms are Amish and which ones are not. The neat and tidy ones are almost always Amish.

I love going up there. I miss the country. The open sky calls to me.

I miss seeing the animals,

and the beautiful stillness of it all. There are no little kids running and screaming and whining because they don’t get to get into the neighbors pool. Or splashing and squealing in said pool till after 10PM. I want to sleep!!! And even if there were, you wouldn’t be able to hear them because neighbors live VERY far apart!

My heart yearns to be back in the country, but the thing that draws me up there the strongest is

.

.

.

.

.

ice cream!

Walnut Creek Cheese makes THE BEST home made ice cream I have ever tasted. The texture is like silk, and the flavors…oh…my…goodness. I always get the Turtle Sunday. Hot fudge, caramel, toasted pecans, mini caramel cups, and home made ice cream….It really is a good thing that we don’t live closer, because I could go for some ice cream right now!!!

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

June 21**updated**

Our neighborhood has been very busy this month. In a one block radius of my house, there are/have been 8 houses that are being improved.

The house that I showed you getting roofed also got new sidewalks, drive way, and landscaping. The house behind us is getting new siding, the house beside that one got a new parking place. 2 doors down from that one, they are spending ~~I got this from a neighbor lady~~ $22,000 redoing their foundation. It wasn’t crumbling, it wasn’t bad…they just wanted a game room. $22,000 for a game room??? Another house is getting a new roof, and 2 other houses are getting new somethings. All I know is that there is large earth moving equipment in front of those houses.

I am very concerned that my house is going to feel slighted and begin to fall apart. Anyone have a backhoe, or a bobcat that they wouldn’t mind parking in front of my house for a day or 2? How about a roofing truck?? concrete mixer??? I’d even settle for a pick-up truck with some ladders and a tool box in the back. Anything to keep my house happy.

Anyone???

***I have an offer with a primitive backhoe….Thanks dad!  Your going to come park it in my front yard for a couple of days??? right???**

June 20

Tea.

I know that I have mentioned before that the girl chocolate chip loves tea. So do I.

I love the process that goes with it. I would have loved to live back in the era of having tea, having servants bring you tea when you “rang” for it. I love the whole tea cakes and tea pots and tea cups and tea spoons and tea cakes and well…..everything. It is just so elegant. I want to be elegant.

Here at the Chocolatechic house, we do our best to bring culture and elegance into our lives.

Today we had a lovely Irish Breakfast tea. Notice the disturbing lack of scones, cakes, and/or cookies. Very disturbing, and very inelegant!!!

We take our tea on the Veranda. Still no cakes, scones, cookies or the like. I think I am going to have to talk with Cook. She really needs to be taken in hand! She must be related to my old gardener.

See how cultured she is…….oop! need to work on that pinky finger.

Just like coffee, tea is good to the last drop. Unlike coffee, tea is good for you.  And it is elegant!

Did you ever play tea party when you were a little girl?

June 19

Finally, the real reason we went to the museum to begin with. To see the antique toys. I was rather disappointed. They had chess, checkers, Monopoly, and one of those pull phones that had the eyes that moved up and down. I had one when I was a kid!

I am sorry, THAT isn’t an antique.

But this one is! I wonder if my mom played with one like this.

I didn’t take a picture of an the Monopoly game, I have one downstairs in my game drawer. I really wanted to see some good old…..old……old toys.

They had 2 more that were old, and interesting.

This one was fun. But it has dashed my hopes in thinking that my sister and I invented playing “store”.

This was the only other REALLY cool looking toy that I saw. It is called a Magic Lantern.

The proto-type to the View-Master!

Beside the small toy section was a section on the Victorian era. Generally it uses up the entire space, but they made is smaller to fit in the toys. Stupid if you ask me. Victorian things are much nicer to look at…unless your a kid.

I mean, who wouldn’t love to see this lovely old piano,

and feel right at home wearing this dress?

I wonder who wore this dress. Did she enjoy wearing the corset that was required? Did she have children? I seriously doubt it. Do you see how tiny that waist is?

The last pictures I have for you are of quilts. I didn’t realize that they had a quilt exhibit. Had I known about that, I would have gone in there first!!!

Yes, this is a quilt. It makes my eyes weird out just looking at it, but I had to go up close to see just how she pieced it together.

Many of the pieces were so tiny you could have covered them with an eraser head. I have sewn many quilts, but I would NOT have wanted to sew that one!!! Way to many pieces…….way to exacting….I would get bored and have to move on to something else.

Last but not least is a picture of my peace lovin’ daughter. She asked me to take this so I did. Silly child!!!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum? No? That’s ok, because the chocolate chips and I had the best day so far this summer!

What are you doing this summer?

June 18

Yesterday, was Father’s Day. I have told you much in past blogs about him, but today I want to show you what my dad is to me.

See this smile? I love it when he smiles.

When I think of my dad, many things come to mind.

His tools…

and

and (I know that I mentioned that he has lots of tools. This is only his garage.)

and (He also has a workshop downstairs in the basement!)

and (where he has more tools)

and (I told you he didn’t need any more tools!!!~~dad, doncha’ think ya ought to take it easy on the stores??? )

His guns…( this is his 1864 Pennsylvania Long Rifle. It was my grandfathers. This is one sweet gun!  and wow!  is it heavy!!!)

I won’t bore you with the details of all of these guns. I asked the boy if he would go take a picture of his Gramps’s guns, he said “you mean myyy guns, right?”

(Amo anyone???)

(This is his quick draw gun belt….I have a story about that…..but I won’t share now. You can see his pistols laying on the shelf there at the bottom of the picture.)

His garden…

Him ridding himself of his tie at the soonest possible moment…

His beautiful love for my mom…

His love of westerns…(be it Louis L’Amour books or movies…especially Conagher. Oh…look! More tools!!! My question is why does he have his movies downstairs in the basement???)

and his ability to fix a cruise control with a bit of electrical tape. Yep! He can fix anything! I was wrong dad. Sorry!!!

He asked for 3 things for Father’s day. 1. an SUV…..bwahahahahaha~~in your dreams dad~~ 2. Lemon Iced Box Dessert~~check! the male chocolate chip made him one, and 3. cash, large bills in a paper sack.

Check! 1 paper bag with cash in it. I kept the big bills all for myself. I stuck him with the ones.

How did you celebrate your father, yesterday?

PS…..just because I can’t stop looking at her…

June 17

Today is Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy! I just want you to know that I love you. You are a great dad, and a great Grandpa. Sorry, I couldn’t find the perfect SUV for you, so you are entirely out of luck.

Now back to our lovely tour of the museum.

After the downstairs, we moved on to the Asian room. The thing in this room that is most striking to me is the carved wooden screen. It is gorgeous!! and HUGE!!

30 carved sections.

I took this so you could see just how big this thing is!!!

Can you see how it is 2 dimensional? These pictures do not do it justice.

This wood is so beautiful.

This is the top of another screen. It must have taken years and years and years to do one piece. I’d get way to bored and have to move on to something else.

Another favorite of mine in this room is the Sammauri.

This picture doesn’t do him justice either. See all the lovely vases in the background? I thought of Donna when I saw him.

Here are his feet. I wonder who wore this suit of armor. I wonder if he was a worthy warrior. Was he married? Did he have 15 children? Did those shoes make his feet stink?

Did he lop someones head off with one of these swords?

Did his wife use this crochet hook? Did she have a huge wooden screen?

Do you like history?

June 16

We interrupt this fascinating documentary on the museum I visited because I have been tagged by Donna for a MeMe on how we started homeschooling.

When the boy was to enter into Kindergarten, I knew that I didn’t want him going to public school because I knew that they wouldn’t be teaching them the same ideals that I had already been doing for the previous 5 years. So, I worked at a Christian private school to pay for his tuition to attend. During his 1st grade year, I began to panic because the daughter would be entering school, and my working there wouldn’t cover both tuitions. As I shared this with my best friend, she suggested home schooling. This excited me and frightened me just a little.  The first year that I was in college, my major was elementary education.  I love to teach others anything that I know.  So, I researched it, pre-internet, at the library and spoke with other home schooled people.  I liked what I saw, so we started in his second grade year. We have never looked back. The boy will graduate in 2008, and I am ever so proud of him.

The thing I love most about home schooling is watching the chocolate chips learn new things, and really get to know just who they are.  Kids are really interesting people.  I have not for one minuted regretted home schooling. Thank you Beverly. You have always been a great friend and inspiration to me.

Did you know any of this about me?

June 15

Still in the Pioneer room.

They had a cast iron stove. It was one of the small ones that are used as heat and cooking.

They had to see how heavy the iron was, but…

I wonder if the boy read this.

This was right next to the stove along with 2 different kinds of spinning wheels. I love the use of color. Whenever I think of the pioneers and the “old west”, I tend to think of all the clothing and quilts and every other textile thing to be brown or drab.

The boy wasn’t really interested in spinning wheels, the guns caught his eye. In the case was a Henry repeating rifle and

a really cool set of dueling pistols.

I like guns and all, but who cares about guns when you can look at

beautiful old dishes. I wanted to take this one home. I don’t think they would have missed it.

The last thing in this room that I wanted to share with you is this lovely antique typewriter. It even had different fonts. Again, forgive the blurry picture.

I didn’t want to take this home. Not when I have a PC at my disposal. Working on the husband for a lap top…….maybe for Christmas.

Did you take typing in school?

June 14

The other day we FINALLY went to the Johnson-Humrickhouse museum in Roscoe Village. We have been there before, and I love several of their rooms. They even have a room upstairs for special exhibits.

To tell you all about it, it is going to take 4 days, so if you find this boring, go find someone else’s blog to read till the 18th. If you don’t find my exceedingly unmundane life boring, then please…..read on.

The first room we went into was the American Heritage room. It is full of glass encased stones and arrow heads and more stones that look similar to an axe or knife, and baskets woven out of grass. These things don’t interest me in the least. I have plenty of stones and grass to look at every day, but the chocolate chips loved it. They pretended that they were Night at the Museum. It was a good thing that there wasn’t any statuary, because I didn’t have any gum-gum!

See….all those baskets….sigh.

The only thing that I find of interest in this room is the one case that has an Indian dress and papoose.

I wonder who it was that wore it, how long it took to make the thing, and why there are holes near the stomach area.

This is a close up of the porcupine quills that decorate the dress. This totally fascinates me!

Was it a boy or girl that was carried around so lovingly in this papoose? Did they die in an Indian raid, or did they live to be 82?

This is a close up of the bead work on the papoose. I wonder how long it took to make it. Probably about 9 months.

Needless to say, I didn’t spend much time in this room.

The next room we went into was American Pioneer room. I liked this room. You can tell this because I took 473 pictures in this room. Please forgive the quality of these pictures. They are really horrible! The lighting in this museum is cool, but not conducive to picture taking.

They have a display of what the inside of a cabin would look like.

They had a lot of interesting things sitting randomly on the floor.

Anyone want to guess what this is???

I can not imagine taking a bath in this, but this is in fact a bath tub.

We moved on to the display next to it. It had a mock-up of a cave. The sign encouraged people to climb in and experience what it must have been like to live in a cave until your cabin could be built.

I didn’t think that the daughter would actually climb in, but when I started snapping pictures,

she quickly got out.

They also had wool to card in this room.

I am really into this sort of thing, so I tried it out.

So did the chocolate chips, but my camera was only fast enough for this one. The boy threw the wool down so fast when he saw me going for my camera that I couldn’t get a picture of him.

I am thinking that the girl had just way to much fun!!! {this is my most favorite picture of the entire day!}

Have you ever carded wool?

June 13

Father’s Day is coming up, and I have been wracking my poor brain to try to figure out what to get for my dad. How can I show my dad just how special he is to me???

I thought about tools.

NOPE! The man has every    tool invented and double and even triple   of some of them.

Ohhh…how about a gun….

NOPE! Dad has at least 32,000 of them……antiques to the heavy hitters.

He also has a “comatose” chair which he regularly falls asleep in. He has every electronic gadget one could wish for~~ Portable DVD player, CB, police scanner, surround sound, radio with a 5-disc CD changer, etc….

Vacation? He just took one!

Computer, nope….has 3.

Tie? Well, he is a preacher. He has 57, and he even has a sequined red, white and blue tie that he wears on the 4th of July to be funny.

Sigh……I am out of ideas.

Dad????   What do you want?

What is everyone else giving their dad for Father’s Day?

June 12

Every year in June, the town that I live in hosts a Hot Air Balloon Festival. Basically everyone with a hot air balloon comes to our fair ground, sets up their balloons, races to a specific point, and races back.

We never watch the take off or the landing because our house sits in the flight path. It is always an astonishing sound to hear them coming over head. You can hear the lamps light as they are giving themselves lift. It sometimes is scary when you hear that at 6:30 in the morning…100 feet above your roof.

They are so close that you can wave to them. I know that I was definitely a sight for sore eyes at 7 am in my jammies and bed head!!!

This guy was really close. You can see his hand on the lamp, and read that he was flying for Stuffmart.

This was a fun one.

The boy kept trying to get a picture with their lamps lit, but the lamps are on only briefly. They were right above us, and suddenly……

They were gone.

There are 6 balloons in this picture. All of them were over our house not a minute and a half before this picture was taken. They are all heading back to the fair grounds.

I wish that each and everyone of you could have seen this. It is an inspiring sight. I know I was. I am always inspiring at 7 am.

I have always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon.  I have flown in commercial airplanes, and even in a little 3 seater, but I think that being out in the open, way up high, would be so wonderful.  I also always think of the family that escaped from Germany in a hot air balloon.  Can’t, for the life of me remember who it was though.

Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon?

June 11

The kiddos did another home ec lab. They struggled with this one.

First they had to rush around getting out all the ingredients.

Here are the ingredients for the salad.

The boy began making the candied almonds while the daughter began frying the meat.

Here is the meat and garlic. oopsie #1 Should have used a bit of oil in the pan.  My mom got me this pan for Christmas 2 years ago.  It is such a nice pan, but the Teflon is beginning to not do its thing anymore.  We use it every morning for eggs, so I wonder if it is worn out.   Not using oil in the pan doesn’t help much, either!

Yummy candied almonds for the Mandarin salad.

Mixing up the muffins. oopsie #2 To much applesauce.

Meanwhile at the other counter…

The boy is mixing up the dressing.

Readying the muffins for the microwave. oopsie # 3 Muffins are gross cooked in the microwave.

And last but not lease, oopsie #4 The daughter had the heat up to high after the sauce was added to the meat. To add insult to injury, the boy decided to take over the meat when it wasn’t going the way he thought it should. I should have never left the room.

Where was I??Most of the time in my director chair. Except for a brief few minutes at the end when I went to check my email.

The salad was delicious. It had mandarin oranges, candied almonds, romaine and a lovely vinaigrette dressing. The meat was ok….a bit caramelized, but ok. We had one bite of the muffins but they were gross.

Learn from us. Don’t cook bread stuff in the microwave… Please don’t leave the heat at medium after you add a glaze…and when you leave the room for a few minutes when your kiddos are snarking with each other…….DON’T!!! It could be disastrous!!!

How old were your kiddos when they started to cook?