Deogratias

A Museum of History

Last week we visited the Kennesaw Civl War Museum with one of our homeschooling groups, and we had a wonderful and very productive time.  When we arrived home, Lee asked the boys if he learned about the "Great Train Chase" and Nicholas said "No, it's called the Great Locomotive Chase!"

And yes, we learned all about it.  Of course we had already learned about this event last year when we took two field trips to local history museums where the information was presented., but this trip just solidified the knowledge into our brains.  We saw a movie about the event, which occurred April 12, 1962, and we saw the train named The General which was the stolen train which was being chased. 

We don't buy too many toys around here, but whenever we visit a museum, I try to pick something up which will encourage imaginative play.  Here are some examples.

The civil war army men especially came in handy when we went to Jacob's physical therapy appointment later that day.  The three younger boys entertained themselves for over an hour in the doctor's office by creating imaginitive Civil War battles. 

The above picture of the army men does not show the Union army which was facing these Confederates on Alex's mattress.  They were placed on a chess board next to a Lincoln Log cabin.

A Hike to Remember

As promised, here is the post about our recent field trip. We returned a week ago, but it has taken us that long to recover. 

It began last Thursay with a drive to Amicolola Fall State Park in Dawsonville, Georgia.  We checked in at the Visitor's Center, had lunch near the top of the falls, and began our 5 MILE TREK to the Len Foote Hike-Inn.  All 6 of us hiked 5 miles in about 3 1/2 hours to the inn at the top of the mountain.  Here are some photos of the hike in:

We were just beginning the trail here.

This is our first break to sit on a hollow log.  We had hiked about .9 mile by this time, and the temperatures were in the 90's.

And this is at the top!

Here is pretty much the only nature observation I made on the way up.  It was pretty exhausting.  Lee spent his time nursing Jacob's sore feet.  I spent the way up  trying to get Nicholas to stop yelling and scaring away the wildlife.

Nicholas was Mr. Energetic on the way up, and didn't want to stop for breaks.  He stayed WAY ahead of everyone else, but in order to be secure in the knowledge that I was not too far behind, he kept yelling "MOM!!"

Those hiking ahead of us with a naturalist guide asked the naturalist what the origin of that sound was.  She put her finger to her head appearing to ponder and stated - "A small human."

When Nicholas wasn't far ahead of us all, he was with Alex, Andrew and I.  We stopped on occasion to look at the map and determine how far we had to go (boots off for this hiker). 

Jacob has some sore knees and required some mole skin on his feet due to poor fitting boots, so for a while they were far behind.  Finally, as we were about to leave them a drink on the trail, they caught up with us.

I have much more to say in a later post about our stay there and the hike down.  Needless to say, it was much fun for all.  We all learned much about nature, each other and ourselves.