World War II Event at Northeast Georgia History Center

One Sunday each month the history center opens up for family day from 1:00 - 4:00 in the afternoon at no charge. This month the event centered around World War II. This was perfect for us because we are right in the middle of a World War II study. As we entered we were given a ration card to take to each station and have signed after participating in activities or listening to veterans give talks. Grace was a little old for the activities but it was still an interesting field trip to give her some first hand accounts of what took place.

There were many WWII artifacts available for viewing from German, Russian and American troops.

One booth offered food that was routinely eaten during this time period. Because of the ration cards women had to be inventive with what they had to put on the table. Today's fair included spam, potatoes and franks, carrot and spinach jello salad, oatmeal cookies and peanut loaf bread. Scott tried the jello salad and really like it, Grace tried it and could hardly swallow it. I passed. Some other activities that were offered pertained to planting a victory garden, tactile maneuvering of boats and troops through board games, creating badges that would go on uniforms, and the history of the ration cards. The most interesting time we spent was talking to a World War II veteran that served on Okinawa up until the bomb was dropped on Japan. He explained to us about the island jumping that took place because planes and boats could not make the complete distance from Honolulu and Okinawa for fuel. 

After our little field trip we headed to a new place for us, Sweet Monkey. which is a frozen yogurt shop. This place was incredible. Ten different choices of ice cream, and untold numbers of candy and toppings. Now we are all home and tired. It was a busy weekend, especially for Grace and Scott who went to Momocon on Saturday (future post coming). Looking forward to a quiet day around the house tomorrow, except for school of course.

Local Electric Cooperative Field Trip

This field trip was held at our local electric cooperative, most of the kids present were alot younger than Grace but I still learned alot. One of our homeschool dads is an electrical engineer and was able to set up this field trip for the group. First we went outside to see two linemen that had thirty years experience. Demonstrations were held where a hot dog and chicken were fried. Lots of talk about safety and wires that might be on the ground.

I think the most impressive part was visiting the dispatch office and seeing a electrical outage call in action. Here he also answered alot of our questions. The cooperative sent each child home with a nice goody bag. The poster below of the squirrel had me chuckling.

Field Trip

Monday I had a half day doctor's appt so Scott and Grace headed off on a field trip. The highest point in Georgia is Brasstown Bald. There is a shuttle available for to take you to the top or a steep, paved 25 minutes walk. They choose the walk. They had alot of fun and Grace got some well needed exercise in the process.

A Trip to the Zoo

Grace and Scott went to the Atlanta Zoo on Friday and had a fabulous time. I won't bore you with alot of pictures. Grace's absolute favorite section of the zoo is hands down the aviary. Scott said they had to go twice and spend alot of time there. I told Grace she could count the two days of convention and zoo as school if she would do the zoo scavenger hunt. She readily agreed. The scavenger hunt consisted of questions for each habitat that could only be answered from reading the information and watching the videos. All in all they had a great father daughter day.

Atlanta Zoo

Atlanta Zoo and our library system has a program set up to get every family of 4 free tickets to visit the zoo. Each library in the system has a dvd available to the public to check out and keep for one week. The dvd is about the history of the Atlanta Zoo. Upon returning the dvd your family is presented with free passes to the zoo. A family can receive the free passes every year. It is somewhat hard to get the dvd. It cannot be put on hold, it is basically first come first serve. Also once you turn the dvd in you have only one week to use the passes. On a whim I called our local library to see if the dvd was in and low and behold it was. This works out great for us because we are going to the homeschool convention in Atlanta next week. Now hubby and Grace can attend the zoo for free one day while I am in a bunch of workshops and classes.

Medieval Times

Today we attended a very special field trip. One that was expensive but well worth the trip. A couple of months ago Tonya Prater from http://www.thetravelingpraters.com/ emailed me to let me know she was heading up a field trip to Medieval Times in Atlanta and wondered if we were interested in attending. For a few reasons I said definitely: I really wanted to meet Tonya (love her blog and reading about all her adventures), we really had not taken a big field trip this year and felt it was time, and we have just started reading about the Middle Ages so it seemed a perfect fit. This morning we awoke early and drove in to Gwinnett County about 1 hour and 15 minutes from our home to meet Tonya and her group. Tonya was very nice and looked just like her photo.

Photos were not so easy to take because of the dark lighting throughout the foyer of the castle and inside the stadium. Sorry for the bad quality.

The above photo is of something quite unexpected; an Eurasian Eagle Owl. I could only get a picture of the back of him. He was born in captivity and can only be found in certain parts of the world like Europe and Mongolia. He weighs 9 lbs. That is one big owl and he was quite beautiful. She also had a Falcon that performs in the show.

Grace kept repeating to me over and over during the show "This is Awesome"!

Because of the movement and lighting, some of the photos didn't turn out well.

We were seated in the blue section; therefore, we cheered for the blue knight. Unfortunately he did not win the competition.

Halfway during the show a dancing horse performed for us. Very beautiful and graceful. Such a great time we had, so glad we went.