Stepping Back in Time

We found out that there were free Mondays in June at Old World Wisconsin - a living history museum about 2 1/2 hours away from us. http://oldworldwisconsin.wisconsinhistory.org/
So we decided to meet some friends there for the day and piled into the van about 8am. After two potty breaks and accidently turning the wrong way once, we got there just in time to eat our picnic lunch.

The girls had so much fun and Terran was such a great helper. They got to experience a taste of some of the things people did back in the early days of our state of Wisconsin. One of the first areas we stopped in had children's games for them to try. Here they are trying stilts, which are apparently not as easy as they look.


Amanda trying the hoop rolling. The girls enjoyed the hoops so much that I bought two of them for them to have races here at home.

Elisabeth and her friend, Adrienne played Graces - a game where you hold two sticks through the little hoop. As you gracefully open your arms, the sticks send the hoop flying - and the other person is supposed to catch the hoop on her sticks.

There was a little school in the Norwegian area, where the girls got to sit at the desks which were actually original to the building. The interpreter told us about schools a hundred fifty years ago. He asked the children, "Who here has the same teacher for music AND art AND math AND reading." He was surprised to see most of the classroom raise their hands! We weren't the only homeschoolers there. :)

The blacksmith shop was Terran's favorite place. He has been interested for a long time in learning blacksmithing and building his own forge.

I'm sure this would have been my favorite place 150 years ago! The shelves and shelves of fabric in the general store.

There was a place in the town where the girls got to wash clothes the old fashioned way. A scrub board and a bar of soap in the first tub - a metal plunger type thing in the second - then squeeze them out and hang them on the line.

Lissa's favorite part of Old World Wisconsin - seeing and petting the horses. We saw maybe a quarter of all there was to see, there was just so much!

Tired after a long but wonderful day, Amanda and Emilie sit on the porch step.

It was beautiful - a taste of a simpler life in a simpler time. You would not believe the number of times we were asked if we were volunteers there. I guess we looked like we fit right in. I know I felt like we could fit right in too. How I'd love to cultivate that simple life here and now - in more than just the little bits here and there that we already do.