Cinderella field trip

We had tickets to see Cinderella at the Shakespeare Festival on Friday  morning.  We decided to spend Thursday night at BB and Poppy's house because it's on the way, and Marc was out of town.  Poppy just added a rail to his dock and we were excited to see it. 

I love to see BB reading the same books  to baby Charlie that she read to baby Marky.  :)

 

BB and Poppy have several extra bedrooms, but the children all beg to sleep in the same room, and Charlie and Tucker insist on sleeping on the floor.  They think it's a treat! 

 

This morning we woke up and drove to Montgomery to enjoy the Shakespeare Festival.  

The play was wonderful!  It was definitely worth the drive!

Julia and her friends sat on the front row!

They did a little question and answer with some of the cast afterwards.  When Cinderella's fairy Godmother changed her into a beautiful gown, Cinderella just spun around and around in place and her dress flipped down and into a gorgeous, white gown.  It was truly magical!

 I decided to take the children to Country's afterwards because it was one of my favorite places in college!

After lunch I was excited to go to the archives building and see the new addition to the museum. 

When I walked in I said, "isn't the mural of the Vine and Olive Colony down this hallway?"  And the guard said, "uh....vine and olive?  You just gotta look around."  :)  We are turning into history nerds.  I felt like Dwight Schrute:

 
And yes, I did find it.  Marky was excited to find George Washington Carver.  We love him and recently went on a field trip to the botanical gardens and learned about his findings.

There is a whole new section called Alabama Voices and we LOVED it!  We watched several short movies, and saw many unique historical objects.  The children told me several times after we left how much they liked it.  

Poor Charliebear wore himself out.  As an aside, we listened to "D'Aulares' Book of Greek Myths" on the way there and back.   We learned so much.  We learned the origin of words like "pandora's box", "fury", "echo", "narcissm," "panic", "hygiene", panacea, and many more.  Tucker loved learning what all his astronomy things were named after, and I loved the story of why we give laurels to accomplished artists.  Truly an insightful day!

When we got home everyone was so excited to see a big box on the front porch.   Julia especially loves these little "Best in Children's Books" series.  For one thing, they are just a good size- easy to take in the car or to restaurants.  I wanted to get some more, but as they are out of print they are hard to find.  I found a book lot on ebay for 45 of them and got it!  They were all thrilled!

 Tucker said, "Oh!  I can use this box to make a simple eclipse viewer.  All I need are scissors, tape and two pieces of cardboard."  :)  Mr. Crafty strikes again.  

 

 Some of the titles are singles.  The rest have several stories and poems inside. 

And here's where I remind you to look at ebay if you want a set of something.  When Marky was a baby I bought a big lot of picture books- I think they were all Caldecott winners.  Then when he was older I bought a huge lot of Great Illustrated Classics.   Sometimes it's easier than hunting things down (and cheaper).

We had another box on the porch when we got home.  Our neighbors sent us a Mardis Gras King Cake!

And Charlie got the piece with the baby in it!  (No Mommy didn't rig it- he won fair and square!)

After dinner I read the "real" Cinderella story to them from the Blue Fairy Book.

Then we watched Cinderella for movie night.  Daddy flew in just in time to see it.  I mean, is this not one of the best Disney movies ever?!  I LOVE IT!

Happy Weekend Everyone!