Thursday, July 24, 2008

Ahh, see! She was right. There WAS an attack in the night. Daisy's bear leapt out of bed right into the fort.

There were many casualties.




Today was a lazy day. We had pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Mmm. Nutella

There was more dress-up fun....

It was drizzling off and on outside so the kids and Mr. GT started up a game of Clue. Sunshine and I sorted out the laundry and made a trip up to the house where we could wash and dry for $2 each. Mary and Duane were both home (digging a hole) so we got a tour of the house, the Annex, the lakeside cabin, the camper and heard all about how they came to be at this place. Sunshine played in the dirt and ran amuck while we talked. We talked until the wash load wad done! I put the clothes in the dryer and we went back to the cabin for lunch. Sunshine laid down for a nap, the kids watched a movie and I did some digital scrapbooking.

Once Sunshine woke up, we all hopped in the car to explore Caledonia. We started at the Caledonia Wine Cottage. Mmm, wine! The lady who waited on us was so nice. She explained that they carry all local Missouri wines and suggested some of her favorites. We tried a sweet white, a blush, the kids tried a grape juice and we bought all three. We also tried a sweet red and a late season white which we didn’t care for as well. They also sold Amish crafts, a few antiques and had the sweetest little bed and breakfast on the third floor. It was all located in an old 3-story pre-Civil war wooden house. It was very cool. The rooms were very nice, one pastel and one more masculine looking. The pastel room had an attached bathroom (which the kids thought had such neat curtains in it) and the other room had a bathroom down the hall. For $99, you got the room, a bottle of wine, dinner for two and breakfast. We wished we hadn’t brought the kids. Ha ha.

The second place we went was the Carr House Antiques and Ice Cream (or Antique Ice Cream, as Mr. GT said) We peeked into an early 1800’s log jail they had on their property. It had iron bars in its 3 windows. The kids wondered why the prisoners couldn’t just walk out the doorway (because it would have had a door at that time) and why the prisoners couldn’t just take a coal from the wood stove and burn the walls down (because the prisoners were probably lucky to even have the wood stove) They declared they would just burn down the walls. We promised to keep that in mind when we incarcerated them.

This antique shop was more interesting. The girls were most fascinated by the linens for sale—hankies, dish towels, pillow cases, all embroidered beautifully. I was most fascinated by the old books, although I didn’t find any to buy. Mr. GT and the boys were most fascinated by the ice cream, which was very good! The 4 big kids had chocolate fudge brownie, Mr. GT had Moose Poop, Sunshine had strawberry cheesecake and I had pecan caramel praline. The proprietors were also very nice and told us all about how they ended up in this area with this place, another old, old building. They told us there are 32 buildings in Caledonia on the register of historic places (or something like that) It did look to be a very well-preserved old town. The gentleman here was at Ft. Leonard Wood in 1958.

The third place was the most interesting of all! It was an old general store, fitted out just like a general store, but with most everything for sale! It was enormous! They had bolts of cloth, jewelry (both new and antique), antiques for sale, and barrels and bins of candy! Rose Bud was overwhelmed! All the kids ran to and fro, not knowing which candy to look at first. Every old favorite from out childhood was there—circus peanuts, boston baked beans, malted milk balls (5 flavors), and flavored sticks of hard candy. Rose Bud said, “Now I know how Laura and Mary felt!” (we’ve just finished our CD of Little House in the Big Woods) They each got a stick of candy for 20 cents apiece. There was even an upstairs in this store. All around the top was a balcony with a low (very low!) railing and on the balcony were bicycles, toys, quilts and more (mostly antiques) for sale. There was a small room on either end of the store off the balcony which had clothes and furniture. There was even a small room for changing to try on clothes. This place was absolutely awesome and really made you understand what the general store had been like. And the place was well fixed up and very nice.

There was one more establishment that was open was a small diner and antique shop, The Hen’s Nest. The food was in crock pots on the counter and they had BBQ for $2.50 and coleslaw for $1.25. Fried chicken was the special. The lady here asked where we were from and when Mr. GT told her, she said, “Oh, Wesconsin!” The kids wanted to know why everyone around here says Wisconsin wrong. I said maybe we say Missouri wrong. We asked the lady and she asked how we say Wisconsin. We asked her how she says Missouri. She actually said it just the way we do. But she said some other people say “Missouruh.” Rose Bud has also noticed that people around here say “set” instead of “sit.” Now she knows why we had to study that lesson in grammar. It had baffled her at the time to have to study something she never said incorrectly.

Back at the cabin, Duane was driving behind us and followed us in to our driveway. He pointed out that our rear tire was low. Sure enough, Mr. GT found a nail. Duane offered us free air up at his place. Rose Bud wanted grilled chicken, so Mr. GT fired up the grill and I made pasta with pesto sauce while Pepper folded laundry and Daisy snapped beans. Rose Bud kept Sunshine busy. We had less than 1.5 lbs of chicken, but after everyone was full, there was still a half a piece left. Sunshine was so happy to have “Noo-noos” for supper and ate about three helpings.

After supper, we’ve been assigning chores everyday. One cleans up supper and loads the dishwasher (yeah, we’re living rough here—this is more luxurious than at home!), another sweeps the kitchen, a third straightens the shoes (13 pairs, we counted today! Rose Bud has the most, at 3 pair) and shakes out the rug. One person collects dirty laundry and puts away dry swim stuff and the 5th has a miscellaneous chore. We’ve been rotating through the chores every night and for the most part, they’ve been cooperative. Rose Bud has also taken the cat, Oreo, under her wing and makes sure she is fed every day.

The kids played some more dress-up before bed



and Banana Boy worked through some more of the math book I bought him at Target before we left. Best $1 I ever spent! He’s been fanatical about doing addition problems every night and Daisy and Pepper have been helping him. Pepper fills in for him and does the double-digit addition pages. Mr. GT was reading how to homestead—the selection of books here is great! Rose Bud read us vacation packing and housekeeping tips from an old Good Housekeeping magazine.

Best tips learned: Mr. GT—You can live easily on 2 acres
Banana Boy—You can add 0 + 1 because it’s not subtracting!
Rose Bud—Wear your chunky shoes on the plane and pack your smaller strappy sandals in your suitcase.

Daisy, Pepper and I did crosswords and got smart.