Plantation Days

We look forward to Plantation Days every year.  There is so much to do out at Middleton Place!

Such a pretty place!

Flowers still blooming in November

The fall colors on the Ashley

Lon thought this view was so pretty. He asked me to take a picture of it for the blog. So I did.

This could have been centuries ago. A spinner and Arthur. We are getting to know the cats.

Arthur let Lon pet him.

Telling us stories about Indigo Dye. How it is made and what it is used for. The pot next to him is full of wool yarn, being dyed.

Mashing apples for the apple press. They will be making hard cider from these apples

The interpreter had Lon smash an apple with a mallet to put into the mash. Lon had fun doing that.

Pulling out the wool from the vat, it turned blue as it hit the air.  In the foreground, winding up some white wool yarn.

Lon found Henry in the barn. Henry let himself be petted too.

This lady is the archaeologist for Middleton Place.  The big rains we had earlier in October broke one of the dams, and water rushed out into the Ashley River. This was a wonderful thing. She found over 40 bottle parts in the muck before the damn was repaired and the water levels came back up to normal in the ponds

Music and Dancing! The song she warmed up with was one of the songs I recognized from the movie Last of the Mohicans.
The caller taught everyone the dance steps and called the dance. It was fun to watch.

Lon was freezing when we arrived, but by this time the sun had warmed him up so much that he was getting hot!

We remember this pig as a baby piglet!
He has gotten much bigger!!

The Colonial games table.
Lon had to try the stilts. He did not take many steps, but he tried, and had fun with it

Graces. This game was fun. Lon played this at the lighthouse at Yaquina, Oregon.

They played till Lon caught two.

The second catch

Hoops. Lon loved playing hoops and he would love to get one for the back yard.

We went over to see what they were doing.
They are pressing sugar cane to get the cane juice.
From there they poured it into a huge kettle over a wood fire to make cane syrup.

Trying sugar cane.  Not his favorite treat

But he tried it

The water buffalo sticking his nose toward the fire and the cane syrup. He likes sweet stuff.

Petting Jane, she is a diva horse. She knows she is magnificent!  She is glad to let you know that too.

Pounding the husk off the rice.

They made these rice mortars at Middleton, along with the pounding sticks

Peek a boo

Learning how to separate the chaff from the rice

He was pretty good at it. Rice stayed in the basket, he was not feeding the chickens and the chaff flew away

He had fun doing this but it was lots of work. He did not do it for long.

Helping the cooper but a barrel together.

We did, of course, go over to see the cashmere goats, but they were sleeping. The girls did not want to wake up. It was nice sleeping in the afternoon sun.

It was time to go, even though we did not see everything, we had some more things to do !!

Volunteer Thank You Dinner

I had not planned on going to the volunteer thank you dinner at St. Theresa's.  However when I dropped off the thanksgiving in a bag on Thursday I was asked to come, so Lon and I did.

Lon had ham and rolls.
They had turkey, cornbread dressing, home made cranberry sauce, green beans (ham in the beans), sweet potatoes, squash and rolls.

The cornbread dressing was really good. I think I will try to find a recipe and make that once or twice.

The kids lined up first for cake.

Yes, that is Elvis. It was a hoot!   He was great!

while Mom was talking to other adults, Lon was talking Lego with another boy.

It was a nice dinner. We had a good time.

Cake

Friday was a half day at school.  Lon wanted to bring a friend home to play. What a wonderful idea, I needed to get a cake finished and Lon would have some fun.

There was some leftover cake and I had some left over frosting. The boys had a blast decorating the cake bits. They did share the frosting and making their own creations.

The cake preview. All ready for Saturday!

Veteran's Day 2015

Lon had a Veteran's Day assembly today. It was a lot like last years.  The weather was perfect. 

The kids filing into the stadium.  The stadium is across the street. Even though the high school moved, they still use this field. 

I found out I could go sit with Lon's class, so I did. I sat in the row in front of Lon. He seemed very happy about that. 

The Veterans lined up on the field by service.  When they took their seats in the stands, we noticed the Marines still marched the best.  

They played the song of each branch of service. 

Getting ready to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Lon did raise his hand to over his heart right after I snapped this picture. 

Our guest speaker was Staff Sargent Kingdom.  The sound system was not the best but we did hear him.  His message was to be thankful and to do your very best. 

The end of the program, we sang a song the kids practiced. I did not know it, so I stayed silent. Lon sang for the both of us.  

It was a very nice program.  We silently left the stadium, the kids did great with that.  Once we were out of the stadium,  I did a mini history lesson with Lon and and one of his friends. About the Marine's anthem. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.    Lon has yet to start rolling his eyes when I do that. He actually seemed interested. Both of them did. 

The program got over 16 minutes before school let out, and Lon's teacher let me take him home then instead of trying to get into car rider line.  Whew!  Next year we will see what middle school does for Veteran's Day. 

Scouts

Tuesday is now our scout day.  They made a collage of things that appealed to them.  I will scan Lon's in soon. He  used complete thought to tell the rest of the scouts about his collage.  He did very well.
Since Lon missed the workshop last weekend, he got to work on his shirt for the campout.

This year's theme for the Webloree is the Zomboree. They will have zombie themed events all weekend. Lon's shirt is hanging up to dry now. I will add a photo of it when it is all dry.
He had fun with it.

Boeing Family Day

Saturday was Boeing Family Day. An event that happens every two years.  It is a wonderful event for the families.  There were roughly 11 thousand people this year.  We saw planes, and a rescue helicopter and the Coast Guard. The canine units were there too. Lon had a ton of fun with the dogs. Some we could pet and some we could not.
There was some confusion on if we could take pictures or not.  We chose to err on the side of caution and not even take the camera onto Boeing property.
The State museum was there too and we won free passes to go up and see the new Roman exhibit.  That will be fun!
The only big downside of family day was they tried food trucks for the food this year. On paper it sounded great!  However, in practice they were not prepared for almost 11 thousand hungry people. The Vietnamese truck had a tiny portable grill, that I am sure worked great for the lunch crowd, but not so much for the long lines on a hot day.   The lines were slow, so when people got to the food, the tended to take 4 or 5 samples. Bringing them to friends in other lines. That slowed the lines down too.  The trucks were great, but we were hot and hungry.  We had seen what we wanted to see at family day.

We went to CHOP. Charleston House of Pizza. They are getting to know us there.
We like the pizza there, and I can get a gyro.

Family day was fun, looking forward to seeing what they have year after next!

November Swim

Yes, it is November. It was 84 degrees today.  We got invited over to the pool at Auntie Michelle's.

Even though it was warm, the pool was not heated so it was a little chilly

The boys were getting used to the water

Lon brought a boat to play with

The deep end of this pool is 4 1/2 feet. Lon can walk on his toes have his head out of water.

After all that play, he needs to relax

I just thought he looked gorgeous up there as the sun was starting to set.

Uncle Chong treated us to pizza after the pool.
Lon was so tired.

It was a fun day!
Thank you for the invite!

Disaster and Plan B

I entered a gingerbread house contest, put on by Summerville Dream. A local booster club. Who knew the humidity would wreck havoc on my creation.

It started off well enough, I was even playing with making bolts of fabric and quilts with gingerbread and royal icing.

I had high hopes

Starting to get some decorations on.
It was going to be fantastic!

Then the first problems appeared.  The sugar syrup to hold the house together would not come together properly. It would seize up into some kind of granulated mush, and then become one solid lump in the bottom of the pan.

The candies were starting to slide off, and the gingerbread was no longer nice and crisp.  It was becoming soft enough that my finger prints would leave indentations.

The house was coming apart at the seams.
 and more candies were coming off. The stained glass window started to run,

The colors started to run together. The royal icing should have set in 4 to 6 minutes, after 6 hours it was still not hardened.  It was making me sad and crazy.

At this point, I decided to stop.  No sense in going on, trying to fight the weather.

Time to think up Plan B

A friend of mine mentioned that the creations just had to be edible. They never said it HAD to be gingerbread.   Coco Krispie treats it is! Mold them into something adorable and Christmas like.

A side view.

Full frontal bear.
 I did try to make bows from fondant, and no. they were too soft to look good.

In the window.  The bear is sporting a bow because he started to split at the seams. Stupid humidity.

They Are No Longer Kittens

The kittens are now cats. They are both one now.

Ranger is now full grown.
We think he is about 13 pounds now.

Scout is beautiful.