Grocery Shopping - Amish style

  Every month and a half we go grocery shopping.  We do our milk and eggs weekly, but for our big baking supplies, we make a 3 hour trek to NW Missouri to Amish country.  I factor in the cost of gas to the price of groceries and it still makes it worth our while to make the trip.  Plus its super fun.  We pick up Grandma, and make a day out of it. This time we carpooled with some buddies so we could show them the route too.
  The place we go is just outside of Jamesport, Missouri.  It doesn't look like much, but inside you can buy 20 lb. bags of flour (even 50 lb. if you so desire), 10 lb. bags of oats, 10 lbs. of sugar, you get the idea.  There are some things that I can get cheaper at Sam's Club, but I try to do as much of my one stop shopping at either place to limit my trips.  They also have 6 lb. logs of cheese you can buy.  Its my guide on when we need to make the return trip north, when the cheese runs out we know its time;)
  The kids are in awe of their way of life.  Everything from the horse and buggies (the kids are jealous that Amish children get to drive a horse & buggy to school),  to the lack of electricity, to the different way they dress.  At the beginning of summer last year when we first mad our trek, Mookie wore her shorts and flip flops.  When we pulling into the parking lot I was explaining the differences we might find inside.  Mookie was horrified that she was wearing shorts instead of a dress - she didn't want them to disapprove!  I told her that their religion was Christian based and if they judged her on her clothes what kind of Christians would they be? That seemed to help.  After that discussion though, she always wears slacks or a skirt and I wear a skirt too:)  I often wonder what they do think of all of us Englishers that come and shop at their store.  The Country Store we shop at mostly is run by women. Most of them are rather quiet, but they're always quick with a smile too, and quick with a hand to help us lug our groceries to the car (we usually have a few boxes).

  Yesterday Shorty was talking about going out to see their horses and deer (they have about 20 deer in pens which we had always seen from a distance).  They told us to walk across the yard of the house by the store and go see the deer up close.  Boy that was a treat!  I expected the deer to be standoff-ish, but they came right up to the fence & licked the kids' hands:) That was so thrilling for them!

Shorty, Bubby and Mookie petting the deer

  There's a cute little fabric shop right next to the country store and I ran in there to grab some more blank tea towels.  Going in that shop is like a snapshot of clothing for the Amish.  Most of the colors are dark, with the exception of the children's clothes which can have bright colors and larger prints.  The shop carries all you would need to make your family's wardrobe and even some items that are pre-made.  I've drooled at the hand woven rugs several times - going to have to break down and snag one...
  Our next stop was the variety store.  It is 1 1/2 miles further and a couple of turns down a dirt road.  The proprietor was a kind looking gentleman in typical Amish dress.  He didn't say much at first & let us look around his wide selection of essential oils, ointments, vitamins, and even wood stoves.  When I walked close to him, he smiled and asked if I homeschooled.  It is so funny, many people can pick homeschoolers out just at a glance.  I asked him if many in the area homeschooled.  He told me that the Amish have parochial schools (we had passed one on the way to his store) much for the same reason we probably homeschooled - true.  We had the most interesting conversation with him.  It ranged from the things in his store, to what his family did for work, to the "rabbit dog" sitting on his file cabinet.  In fact, he kind of talked our leg off, but we didn't mind, it was so interesting!  It is definitely a place we are going to go back to.  He sent Grandma with her own "rabbit dog" and the story to go with it (its a carved wooden dog on one side and a rabbit dog on the other - makes a good pet!) , with instructions to practice, so she might get tested when she goes back;) 

an Amish school

Junior Rangers: Topeka

  Ever since our Rushmore trip, the kids have been itching to add to their junior ranger badges.  One that is super close to us is the Brown vs. Board of Education site in Topeka.  We wanted to do something for Black History Month, so this seemed like the week.  Mookie was dying to have her buddy, who attends public school, spend the night last night.  I almost said no.  The buddy didn't have school due to a teacher work day, but we did.  We decided to flop our week and take our buddy with us instead!  So field trip Monday it became! :)
  Since it was just me and 4 kiddos, I knew that Shorty wasn't going to fare well through all I had planned, so we went to the John Ritchie House first.  Ritchie House is the oldest structure standing in Topeka.  The Ritchies were staunch abolitionists, hanging with the likes of John Brown during the turbulent territorial era.  Their house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. When we got there, Bubby was SO excited (really he makes homeschooling easy, the kid LOVES learning!).  He leaped out of the car and shouted "The Freedom Trail!" He had learned about the house at Kansas Day and its been on his mental list to visit ever since.

The kids in the front room of Ritchie House with a pic of John Ritchie

  The tour is free, and actually only open on Mondays and Wednesdays.  There is an education center with a small exhibit detailing the era the Ritchies lived in, and then you get to tour the 1st floor of the house which is next door. The house has only sparse furnishings, and some artifacts, but the tour guide did a fantastic job of explaining the Ritchies and their role in the early Topeka time period as well as their part in the Underground Railroad.  Shorty did a wonderful job, only faltering temporarily when he grabbed a door knob on the artifact shelf and called it a hammer.  *whew*
  On to the Brown vs. Board site.  I explained the background of it on the way over.  The kids hadn't studied that yet and were fairly incredulous that segregation had happened.  I was glad to expose them to these in conjunction with each other, really makes history more easily understandable when you can merge lessons like that.

  Admission is free to this one as well, but both sites would appreciate donations.  We checked in with the Park Ranger & she started us off in the auditorium that had some artwork & video going.  The videos at Brown are so well done.  I had been several years ago and they really do a great job of detailing what led up to that decision and the effects (which is good because between chasing Shorty and trying to help kids find answers to their Ranger booklets I really didn't get to absorb anything).  When she got the intro movie up and running we moved on and watched it.  It was pretty corny, but really if you had young kids it was a good way to introduce them to why this was an important place without getting too in depth.
  The next room is my favorite, it is chalked full of why blacks were treated the way they were, the Jim Crow laws, the court cases, a timeline, and a hallway which makes you feel like you're walking in the midst of one of the race riots (it can be a little overwhelming, so keep that in mind for young kids - Shorty was unaffected though).

The riot hallway.  This pic does not do it justice.

  The whole Junior Ranger process takes on average we've found about an hour and a half.  The number of sections you need to complete varies with age, for instance, our buddy only had to complete 4 since she's 8, but our two completed 6 for ages 9+.  Which is only right since we made her do school on her day off;)  The Park Ranger swore them all in as Junior Rangers and presented them with their badge and certificate.

   Bubby is already planning our next Junior Ranger expedition to Nicodemus, KS.  I'm focusing on something closer like the National Archives in Kansas City:)

Field Trip Friday: Skating!

  We almost forgot about skating today.  Its been a really weird week.  Shorty has been sick & we had around 15 inches of snow with really cold temps so it threw us a little off.  We started out normally.  The kids had a little bit of computer time - we give them 15 minutes each day, with more occasionally.  They stretch it out a little bit by watching each other play their games:)

The boys watching Mookie play WebRangers

  While we did our devotionals for the day, Mookie worked on her dishtowel embroidery.  Papa gave her some for Christmas (and pretty much every color of the rainbow in embroidery floss) and she's been dying to start another.  She threaded her own needle this morning and she was so proud:)
  I made sure they got Math & English done and a few other side items.  This week has been a little loose.  Our buddies across the street used to be homeschooled and now that they're in public school if they're off for snow days (which they were 3x this week) we make sure the kids are available to play more readily than a regular school day.  Between that and Shorty making trips to the doctor, it cut up the week a bit, but one of the awesome things about homeschooling is being flexible!
  The timing of skating day couldn't have been better to get us out of the house!  Mookie absolutely LOVES rollerskating!  We've dropped going to the Keepers of the Faith group meetings so we can go to a monthly homeschool skate instead.  Bubby chose to stay at home with Daddy.  While we were gone, they cleaned the basement.  Its more of a cellar, so they scrubbed down the walls and chased the cobwebs away:)
  Shorty is a little too young for me to feel comfortable with him being on skates in the midst of the other skaters, so I pushed him in our umbrella stroller on the skate floor.  Mookie lapped us several times on the floor, but came by and gave us a smile every once in a while.

  Her favorite part of skate day is the limbo!  She's getting better and better, both at the limbo & skating.  There were about 100 kids doing the limbo today and she lasted until the last 25, but we didn't get any farther than that because its on a time limit.
  No trip to town is complete without running extra errands, so we grabbed some groceries and then headed to the library.  Shorty was in high gear because of a super short nap, so it was interesting at times, but its always fun:)