St. Wenceslas' Day and Michealmas

This week kicked off with some of favorite feast days.  Yesterday was the feast day of St. Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia.  Marc and Marky visited Prague this summer and went to the cathedral where he is buried.  Also, it's one of Marc's favorite songs and he sings it every day when he gets home from work.  So when the children hear, "Good King Wenceslas looked down...." they all know Daddy's home!  :)

We read about his life and colored a picture of him.  I said, 'we are having Bohemian Blueberry Dumpcake," but the truth is I just had leftover cake from Sunday and we had it while we read.  :)

Then today was Michaelmas, the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel.  He's also a family favorite, we we pray the prayer for his protection every day.    Every year we have put cocktail swords in devil's food cake cupcakes.  This year I was out of swords and we had a full day of activities so I just made some fruit pies that I had already had the ingredients for and wrote "Quis ut Deus?," Who is like God?

Strong like Saint Michael!

All four colored these pictures-

And we read from these books.  We are going to read the Angels book all week and finish it on Friday, which is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.

Rickwood Caverns

This morning was a usual Saturday morning of cleaning, laundry and mowing the grass.  After lunch we decided we wanted to do something fun and made a quick trip to Rickwood Caverns in Warrior, AL.  We'd always wanted to go there, but it's a one-mile walk underground with over 300 stairs and 121 steep stairs all in a row at the end.  Charlie was just now old enough to handle that! 

When we got there the children just played and played on the boulder field.  They made their own courses.  Tucker said, "my course is similar to Julia's, but I have put an additional obstacle in it!"  :)

 

  

 

  

 

 

 Then it was time for our cavern tour.  At first Juliabug was scared, but she quickly recovered.  It was fascinating to see sea shells in the cave and on the mountain.  :)

 

After the 121 stepped steep stair case we were all tired- Charlie most of all.  :)

Marc bought the children bags of sand that they could sift in the water trough for gems-


 

It's a miracle!  He was so excited!

 So glad we finally made it to the caverns.  My favorite family outings usually involve getting closer to nature!

Folklore Center

Today we went on the BEST field trip to our City's Folkore Center.  I've lived here for over 10 years and never knew it was there.  It's a small plot of land with an original home built in the 1840s with hand-hewn logs.

We began with a quick overview of the area and the time period we were entering into....

Then Ms. Pam sang Old Susanna with her wooden puppet while another lady played the dulcimer.

They broke us up into groups.  I had a group of all boys including my three.  We started at the quilting spot.  This was fascinating- these ladies taught us all about the history of quilting and the different types of quilts.  Now I know a quilt must have three layers to qualify as a quilt.  :)

Then they passed out quilting squares, needles and threads and let the children try-

Then we went to the next station where we learned all about how they got fabrics for clothes, and the long process it was.  She said it could take 100 hours to make one coat starting with shearing the sheep.

 We went upstairs in the cabin and learned about 1800s things like the rope bed and feather mattress.  She told us that "sleep tight" refers to the ropes under mattress being tight so you don't droop.  :)

We also learned about the different food they ate in the 1800s and how they stored it.

They really enjoyed learning about laundry in the 1800s.  You boiled white clothes and scubbed clothes with dye.  Monday was wash day, and if your neighbor didn't have their wash out you would check to see if everything was okay.

The last station was about 19th century toys and games.  Marc said it was his favorite.  :)

At the end we all came together and Mrs. Pam recited "The Raggedy Man" by James Whitcomb Riley.

We always take the group picture after a bunch of people have left- we had a lot more children than this.

Afterwards we went with friends to our favorite pizza place and then played it the park.