Man, it’s been crazy here for the last 2 months!

In mid May Shelly’s parents came to visit for a couple weeks or so. These kindly folks love to do stuff. I was dragged to all kinds of wonderful places. Have you ever been to the Carnton Plantation in Franklin, TN? If not, plan a trip right now! What a beautiful place. Everything about the tour was amazing… until the last room that we visited, which was upstairs. Let me back up a minute and remind you that the area surrounding the Carnton House was the site of the “five bloodiest hours of the Civil War” in the Battle of Franklin – where almost 10,000 soldiers died! The very large mansion – home of John and Carrie (The Widow of The South) McGavock – was perfectly suited to serve as a field hospital. In fact (if memory serves) there were over 300 wounded and dying men in the house at any given time. Naturally there were copious amounts of blood being spilled on the floor, and our tour guide made sure to point out all the 200+ year old stains in every room. Now, our boy doesn’t like blood. Neither does his dad, but I’m old enough to block out things that I don’t want to hear about. Well, he did well enough until the final room upstairs which houses amazing glass cases of the surgical equipment used at the time. Tools that conjured up pretty disgusting images in my mind, so I walked out of the room and into the 2nd floor landing (casually, of course) to view some nice, non-medical furniture and art. When the group came out behind me I used the opportunity to gather our two daughters and stand by Grammy & Poppy. A few moments later as I realized that my wife and son were nowhere to be seen the tour guide looked toward the room and down, and asked “Is he alright?” As I made a b-line for the room I hear my wife answer “He fainted.” The boy was out cold! Literally and figuratively. Cold as a cucumber, friends. After we got him revived and up and walking I took him outside to get some fresh air, and took the opportunity to tell my own stories about passing out in similar nasty situations. I also used that as the perfect situation to let him know that if he’s seeing and hearing things that he doesn’t like to walk out! I did. As a side note my wife loves that medical stuff.

Carnton Plantation

Another great couple of places that we visited were in Huntsville, Alabama (my family’s first time visiting that state)- The  Constitution Village and Early Works Children’s Museum. The Constitution Village is comprised of an historically and archeologically accurate reconstruction of the village as it existed in the 1820′s. All built on the original footings! A fascinating visit for a family such as ours with a great affinity for American history.

Constitution Village Gardens

After the village we walked to the Huntsville Town Square to eat at a Greek restaurant that was recommend by our tour guide. Pretty good Mediterranean food! Then it was off to the Early Works Children’s Museum, a wonderful “hands on” type of museum. Those seem to be a relatively new phenomenon. When I was a kid we weren’t even allowed to breath on things in the museum, much less touch them. This museum was right up the alley for our kids.  Completely hands-on play in a log cabin, an 1800′s general store, a entire riverboat, and much more.  A great day! Once we got back Bedford County, TN (God’s country) we stopped in at 50′s & Fiddles for my favorite Root beer Malt! Mmm-mmm. These two – no, three places also need to be placed on your immediate to-do lists.

While all these exciting adventures were taking place my dad and I had to undertake a major construction project! My In-Laws purchased the kids a serious fort/swing-set building (for lack of better words). We had been looking around at the various options, and I’ll tell you what – they aren’t giving those things away! Added to the price is, or course installation costs. My dad being the incredibly industrious person that he is convinced me that we could save hundreds of dollars by building it ourselves. I’m not too shabby with tools myself, so I agreed. We settled on the best overall set and went to work! It took us about a week with all the family site seeing trips and rain days, but it came out better than I could have hoped for! We even made some improvement modifications. This thing is rock-solid and fastened hard to the ground. Perfect for our monkeys. In fact, they may not even be able to destroy it. My Mother In-Law was convinced that the project was too much for us, and tried to talk us into hiring some folks to put it together. So, I did (admittedly) get some satisfaction from pointing out that she stopped just shy of telling us flat-out that we couldn’t do it. She denied it and we all had a good laugh. As a side note we also put up a new pool (that my wife’s folks also bought) for the Summer. Its hard enough getting the kids to leave the house for any reason; now with Disneyland in our backyard its that much harder!

Since the folks left we’ve also been involved in the Middle-Tennessee Music and Dance Camp as well as two different V.B.S.s which were all a ton of fun. We’re getting ready for church camp coming up next.  We’ll post some pictures of our fun happenings on the Community Refrigerator for you to enjoy.   Hope y’all’s Summer is going well. Feel free to leave comment below. Everyone likes that! And remember to invite your friends to join us on Homemade Homeschoolers.

For more information on the Battle of Franklin, there’s a great 2-CD set by Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family Radio Broadcast called Remembering the Battle of Franklin.

To find a living history museum near you, try America’s Living History which focuses on the period before the 1840s westward movement and features 300 of the nation’s best living history parks, historic sites and museums.

Till next time – Michael

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Well, the election is over but our family’s study of the presidents, the election process, and the government will continue a couple more weeks.  I have been roughly following The Elections Unit Study by Amanda Bennett.  The kids have been greatly enjoying it.  They can rattle off all kinds of information about past presidents and the government.  And I must say, one of the great joys of homeschooling for me is that I get to learn (or re-learn?) so much cool stuff!  I have never known as much about the founding fathers as I do now.  I love it!

We have always involved the kids when we actually go to vote.  However, this year they had a particular interest.  Although they can both vaguely remember the last presidential election, they had a fervor of interest this time.  During this election, we were deep into learning about the process of electing a president, we were following the campaign, discussing the issues important to our family, and learning the biographies of the candidates.  Knowing so much about each candidate and why we select one over the other gave them a vested interest in who would become President Elect.  Before we went to vote, I had the kids fill out a paper ballot with our selections.  We then drove to the polling place and each child was able to check the boxes, choosing their candidates, and finally push that big red button to cast their vote!  They felt great!

After voting, we drove to Grammy and Poppy’s house to have dinner and watch election coverage (we have no TV).  It felt like an election party and the kids watched with interest (as long as they could).  After dinner they made up questions to poll everyone in their own mock election.  They teamed up to count the votes from the secret ballots, tally the results, and announce the totals.  There were some very silly outcomes!  We continued to watch the coverage late into the night.

No matter the outcome, this is an election that the kids will remember.  They are anxious to learn about more presidents and about the upcoming inauguration.  Overall, it has been a wonderful current issue study.

To discuss the elections or other homeschooling topics, please visit the HMHS Discussion Forum.

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