Southeastren Cowboy Festival

We choose to home school year round here in our home.  We do this for many reasons.  One is so we can take any days off needed for doctors appointments.  Also so we could take a week off here or there for unexpected hospital stays and for surgeries when needed.  But another reason why is so we can take days off to do fun things when the weather is especially nice.

Many of my children because of their special needs, do not handle the heat well at all.  So schooling during summer, in the air conditioning, when it is to hot for them to go out side, except to swim in the after noons, works well for us.  Also many of them do not handle the cold air well.  Elizabeth and Antonio both have lung disease.  So home schooling during the cold winter months in the warm house works well too.  It is in the  spring and fall that we take many days off to work out side on the farm or go places to enjoy ourselves, in the comfortable weather.

Last week while Tim and Zeke were out of town we tried to do something fun every day.  On one of those days, I took the children to the Gordon County Antique Engine and Tractor Show.  If you wish to see the many interesting tractors and engines we saw, you can see them here on the farm blog.   Praise God Tim and Zeke are home safely from their trip and we are back into a good routine once again.
 

On Thursday last week, at the Booth Western Art Museum, They had their once a year Southeastern Cowboy Festival.

It was very educational so we counted it as a school day field trip!  Also many of my children learn very well hands on and visually.  So this was an added benefit.  The weather was just beautiful and we all had a very good time.

The children watched a presentation on how the Native Americans lived, cooked, traveled and survived and how that all changed after the American colonies started the move west,  populating the areas they lived in.

There were many exhibits set up depicting life as it was in those earlier days.

    Funny scary bear.

Scarier Alligator hide. 

Outside the trading post.

Each person at each exhibit was dressed in period attire and stayed in character telling stories how it was to live back then.  We saw what the legal process was like in those days as well.

There was a rope tricks show.

And many people there showing how they made and fixed things back then.  Like a blacksmith.

Caning chairs.

Spinning wool.

Making pottery.

Making arrow heads.

We also learned about indian trade beads and the art of weaving beads.

We got to see how they cooked on open fires and tried some of the food.  That went over really well! I love the way the girls are holding hands in this picture.  The children really are all best friends as well as siblings.

William tried his hand at archery.  We would have ate pig that night!  Good shot William!

The children had such a great time!

 It was such a wonderful break away from our normal day to day life.  Almost like a mini vacation.  I am grateful to God to be able to take them out to do these type things.  It blesses my heart to see them enjoy themselves.

Lamentations 3:22-23  It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

 

I pray you are having a wonderful fall!

 

Blessings, 

susan  

The Garden

On Friday, I cleaned the house really well in the morning, so it would be in order for when Tim and Zeke came home on Saturday afternoon.  I wanted to be able to rest and spend time with Tim the whole time he was home the rest of the weekend without worrying about the house.  It was "Fun Friday" so the kids played educational games while I was cleaning.  At noon, I decided we all needed a break.  The children were fidgety and Antonio was repeating over and over again, every five minutes, that Dad and Zeke come back tomorrow and how much he was missing them.  I told the kids to load up, I was taking them on a surprise fun outing.  On our way to the outing I stopped and picked up a five dollar pizza, wings for William (he has to have protein when he eats or has a sugar crash) and drinks.

We pulled up to the "The Garden" for a fun time of eating and relaxing.  "The Garden", is a garden that was built largely by the self employed artist, DeWitt Boyd.  He is the project's architect who came up with the idea.  The Garden has been a beautiful work in project for the last six years and is located behind  the Calhoun Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the North Georgia Mountains.  It is open to the public from dawn till dusk free of charge.  It is beautiful and peaceful there.  There is a lot of places to sit and just enjoy the scenery and also has a couple of picnic tables.

My youngest, Elizabeth, was out of sorts.  She misbehaved badly all morning and therefore could not enjoy the afternoon with the rest of the children.  She came with us and ate food I brought from home. But is not in many pictures for the day, as she had to sit out.  :(  I gave her three chances to do better and she would not.   I pray she does better next time so she can enjoy the family activities we do. 

Bless her heart.

Julie, I think you are going to like this post with your hobby in miniatures!!

When you pull up to the parking area, there is this entrance arbor at the beginning of the pathways...it has a cross on it.

To the left of this arbor is a small beautiful field you saw with the picnic tables.  But walk thru the arbor and down the pathways and you see a place... a place where very talented people take this...

and mortar, wire, shells and imaginative vision and do this with it...

Above is a work under construction...but it turns out something like this!

Yes, that is a miniature replica of Notre Dame in Paris, France!  Completely decorated inside with handmade miniature people.

The pathways are to small to get Antonio's wheel chair thru.  But we can push him on the grass around the garden so he can see almost all of it from different angles.  He loved just being out side seeing it all.

The small pathways wind around bringing you up to houses

and towns

and bridges with castles

It is said that there are over 50 miniature buildings in all

There are plaques and verses hidden all through out the garden.

 We spent a long time there just enjoying the beautiful day.

We had such a wonderful time at The Garden.  It is a wonderful place to go to spend quiet time.  To wander about looking at the detail of all the castles and houses.  A quiet beautiful place for a picnic.  Even a nice place just to go sit on one of the many benches to think or pray.  Even Elizabeth enjoyed the sunny day and just being out amongst it all.

Isaiah 58:11  And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

To top our afternoon off...shortly after we got back home an unexpected car came driving down our long drive way and it was Tim and Zeke!!! Home a day early to surprise us all!!  I can not tell you how surprised and happy it made me.

I am so glad they are safely home.  I am so pleased that Zeke had a good time and did so well.  He does not show much emotion unless I ask him to.  But he was almost skipping around the house from room to room when he got home.  I could tell he was happy to be home.

You have seen the pictures over time I have posted of my husband.  Tim is always neat as a pin and well groomed.  That is just Tim.  He usually looks like this almost every day.  Every hair in place and a dress shirt and tie on for work.  He knows I like a short beard on him.  So he never shaves when he is off from work, just for me.  Usually it is just a day or so he might have off and then back to my clean shaven man.

But this was a week!!!  Look at my lumber jack!!

I love it!!!  I will miss it when he has to shave and go back to work Monday morning.  I love you so much Tim and am so glad you and Zeke are safely home again!

Psalm 91:11  For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

 

Blessings,
susan