Saturday, April 09, 2011

Some Week

It has been some week here.  Really.

We took the kids bowling on Tuesday afternoon.  A family at our church who own a bowling alley invited all the kids up for a treat.  We kind of thought it would be a nice "good-bye" outing for our little foster kids.  They had a great time, and ever since, J. has been asking at frequent intervals when we will go bowling again.  Turned out, though, that we were wrong about the "good-bye" part of it.

The hearing was Thursday, and Ed thought he remembered the social worker saying their case would be heard at 9:00.  We got all their laundry done and their toys gathered and waited for the call.  And waited.  Finally, at 4:45, the social worker returned our calls and told us that the judge had heard a couple hours testimony on the matter and would hear the rest on the 27th of the month, but that she was quite sure we could expect to have the children with us for a long time to come.  So I had to figure out dinner for six on short notice (I realize a sensible person would have planned for six, but I really thought the judge would send them home.).  Since we will have them for a while longer, I am rechristening them Sticky (toddler) and Speedy (preschooler) for blogging purposes. 

And, for my mom, here are pictures of Katie in her new dress.  It will be a great Easter dress!
Isn't she pretty?
 and playing action hero...

 Travis has found that Sticky is a fearsome swordswoman.  Since he is armed only with a paper scabbard and she is ruthless, he always loses, much to her joy.


Yesterday, Travis, Katie, and I went to Fort Dobbs.  They were having a greatly discounted student day, and, since we've been studing colonial history/American Revolution, seeing all the reenactments of life in the 1760s was really fascinating!
Here, an indian woman explains how she makes all the things her family needs, including clothing, medicine, and food.
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This fellow talked about indian warriors capturing prisoners and bring them back to the indian communities to either be killed, adopted, or made servants.  He demonstrated the method for restraining prisoners thought to be flight risks.
 And here we learned about pictograph stories of hunting expeditions.


And then we left the indian area and learned about colonial life.  This craftsman explained out how he makes chairs.  He had some beautiful chairs.
And this man makes various things from horns.  Apparently rum flasks were very popular.
   He also told us about his Plott Hound, which was resting in the back of the tent.  The Plott Hound is the state dog of North Carolina.


This lady explained all about making linen out of flax, and also spinning wool.  It really was very interesting.  Katie found carding wool to be harder than she expected.


We saw blocks of indigo, but I was busy watching the linen demonstration & missed the explanation of exactly how it is made.

Travis got to practice making sparks with flint and steel. 

They got to make powder rolls, though Travis was very disappointed to find out, after they finished, that the "gunpowder" was charcoal and the "musket ball" was a marble.  He had had some ideas of what he might do with that gunpowder after he got home!


They saw musket balls being made...

And greatly admired the "tea and cocoa wagon" donkeys (English donkeys -- they bray with an accent).



This man had a cart full of 18th century musical instruments.  We stayed at his station for quite a while -- he was very entertaining and talented.



And the kids got to join in a cricket match.  They both managed hits but we didn't really understand the rules.

It was a lovely day.

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