Minnesota Historical Society

Thanks to Groupon and my sister-in-law I was able to get a great deal on a membership to the Minnesota Historical Society.  One of the benefits of the membership is being able to visit the Minnesota History Museum.  It’s hand’s on museum right in Down Town St. Paul.

This was in the weather room, it’s a reenactment of a famous and destructive tornado that struck not too far from our home many years ago.  See the piano in the bathroom?

The children are sitting in the basement listening to the event being retold by a family who lived through it.  It was very realistic with sound effects and lighting.  I couldn’t stay in there with Marshmallow on my back…too scary!

The children climbing through a grain elevator.  This was their favorite room for sure!

Hmmm….I don’t think he’s tall enough to play in there without supervision!

Off to market…

        

I forget what this room was called but it was all around the time period of World War 2.  I think it was called The Greatest Generation.  We loved the soda fountain, just look at those prices!

Why don’t ingredient lists look like this anymore?

There’s something almost artistic about television’s from that time period.  Chocolate Taffy thought the commercials were much more tasteful back then too.

Can you read that?  $65 to deliver a baby? Fantastic!

We toured a house exhibit that showed the different occupants over the years.  The first family that lived there had this cool Sears Catalog.  The boy’s found the page for guns first! 

Our lovely capital building…

We had a really nice time and I’m really excited to go visit some other places in Minnesota that we’ve never been too before, like Fort Snelling and the Oliver Kelly  Farm.

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Weekly Wrap-Up~6

Another successful week behind us!  We actually had a field trip this week too!

Tiny Tot School- 5 months old

Having some organic sweet potatoes!  Yum!

This is what Marshmallow does during school time.  It keeps her busy for long enough to get through 1 subject!  I love it how she’s getting used to the camera.

Preschool~3 years old

Nothing too out of the ordinary for Laffy Taffy.  He felt like playing with Monster Trucks and Little People more than anything.  This child knows so much Latin.  He listens to his Song School Latin CD at nap time and bedtime.  It’s a crack up listening to him singing them!  I’ve also recently purchased the CD from Steve Green-Hide 'em in Your Heart Vol. 1.  To say he loves it would be an understatement!

1st Grade~6 years old

One of her major accomplishments of this week was completing her second knitted hat.  She made it will a loom under the tutelage of her big sister.  Bubble Gum was so happy to be able to give it to Marshmallow!

3rd Grade~8 years old

Blue-Raspberry had a great week.  He had to double up one day of schoolwork so we could go to the zoo.  For being such an active squirmy boy he sure enjoys school!  In this picture he’s working on his copy work for Latin.

9th Grade~13 Years Old

The highlight of Strawberry’s week was the Kari Jobe worship conference we went to on Friday night.  It was an amazing time for our whole family!  I haven’t been to a worship service like that in years.  I could have LIVED there!  She also seems to have turned a corner in her personal appearance.  That’s a weird way to say it, but you know how it is with young teens, it’s like they have to reach a certain point and then all of a sudden they start doing things like fixing their hair and wearing cute clothes without prompting.  That happened to Strawberry this week.  She’s never been resistant to getting dressed up or fixed up, she just wasn’t confident in her own ability to do it “correctly.”  I wish I would have gotten a picture of how lovely she looked last night at fellowship.  Such a lovely young lady.

11th Grade/PSEO~15 & 16 Years Old

I’m just combining them together, nothing really new happened this week.  They had their traditional Wednesday night freak-out, after getting all their assignments from school, but I’m happy to report that they are mastering their time and managing to get everything done consistently.  They even came with us to the zoo!  I didn’t expect them to come, but was so glad they did!

Field Trip~Como Zoo

Don’t you love it when public school starts back up and you practically get the whole zoo to yourself?  The weather was perfect too: cool and crisp and sunny!

Lord’s blessings on another great week of homeschooling!!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

I’m linking up to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Fall Harvest Orchard

Another glorious fall day in Minnesota!  This weekend our destination was the apple orchard/farm. 

Feeding the goats.

Baby chicks.

Strawberries favorite:  The Kids.

Something new this year, three little calves. 

Fluffy fancy chickens.

Feeding the cows rotten apples.  Slimy fun at it’s best!

Picking apples.  We don’t normally get to pick apples because by the time we go the U-Pick is usually closed for the season.  They opened the U-Pick up just for the weekend at .75 a pound.   I don’t even know how many we picked, but we ended up with three grocery bags full of Honey Gold apples. 

Banana Taffy didn’t see what the big deal was about picking apples, until he tasted one!  Fresh picked apples are so incredibly different than apples bought from the grocery store:  juicy, crunchy, sweet and delicious!

Blue-Raspberry ate 3 before we got home and was begging for more!  They couldn’t get enough and even as I’m typing this blog post they are sitting next to me munching on apples!

I also bought about 20 acorn squash at .35 a pound.  We bought 3 pie pumpkins for $1.00 each, one mega sized butternut squash and all those apples!  We didn’t go on the hay ride this year because we didn’t have much time and since it was Saturday it was very, very busy.  We still had a great time, the sun was shining and the weather was cool, we can’t wait to go again next year!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

The MN Zoo

So, just to warn you, there are an excessive amount of pictures here. I took so many at the zoo and if you are my friend on Facebook you can see the majority of them there. I’m just going to stick to my favorite pictures here, but there are a lot. It was such a gorgeous day, a little on the warm side, but the sun was shining and the fall colors were glorious! We actually ended up buying a membership to this nice zoo, since one outing for our family is about the same price as a yearly membership! I’m so excited to be able to take the kids back.

This is a leafy dragon water horse…or something like that. I thought it was so beautiful!

On the tram.

Grizzly bear habitat, from the Tram.

Momma and Bubble Gum.

This sea otter played with her for a good long time. He showed her his oyster shell and swirled around in front of her doing all kinds tricks, it was so cool!

This was a neat thing, the log is actually sticking out into the animal habitat, see the fancy monkey sleeping on top of the log?

Shuttle service back to the truck!

I think I took over a hundred pictures, so this really is a small sampling. Hope you all are enjoying your fall too!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Underwater Adventure

Wednesday we went to Underwater Adventure at the Mall of America during their homeschool days.  We got a great deal going during this time, tickets were discounted more than half!  And it was a good thing too, because I might have been VERY upset if I had paid full price!  Don’t get me wrong, it was wonderful, God’s creation is always a joy to look at, but it was over with FAST!  We were done in less than an hour.   I have a few pictures, they either turned out really good or really bad—it was pretty dark in there, so forgive the bad ones and enjoy the good ones!

 

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy