Museum Crawl & the Tabernacle

  Daddy has been gone a bunch lately, so we've been savoring our time with him when we can.  Last week he was based out of St. Joseph, MO again, so guess what we fit in to our schedule - museum crawl! Now the actual museum crawl is over, but we're still using it as a guide.  This time we visited the St. Joseph Museum which housed 3 stops on the museum crawl: the Black Archives, Native American museum and the Glore Psychiatric Museum.  The Glore was the biggest part of the museum, but I figured it would be more of an adult subject matter so we skipped it (much to Bubby's dismay, he's made us promise to go back with Ducky and Gigi so he can take it in).  The other exhibits were great!

Mookie loved the doll exhibit

Bubby hard at work on the Museum Crawl questions

  One of the great parts of the museum was the Black Archives.  While a little broad in its scope it was great to see a timeline of black history in front of us.  Something that struck Bubby was the "white" water fountain and the "colored" water bucket side by side.  One of his best buddies is of African descent and it bothered him that they would not have been treated equally.

    Our next day included a trip to Platte City.  We fit in a detour to the Platte County Museum.  It is a house that was built around the time of the Civil War and furnished for the time period.  The kids were really good, even Shorty who was a little bit of a handful the day before (you notice I left that story out...). 

Shorty's favorite exhibit - the trains!

The kids on the back porch and their picture

The house really reminded me of the Amelia Earhart birthplace in Atchison. I think I would be content to live in either one;) The kids were thrilled that our tour guide gave us a picture of the house.
    After our tour it was on to the Tabernacle Experience.  It is a traveling exhibit that was hosted by the First Baptist Church of Platte City. All I can say is - wow! I can't regale you with pictures because cameras weren't allowed in the tabernacle area, but I would highly suggest it if you are interested in the ancient Jewish temple practices. Each person gets an Ipod for an audio tour (either a child or adult version).  You walk through in pairs at spaced intervals.  Mookie & Bubby went first, Shorty and I next and then Ducky and Gigi.  Its very hands on, essentially taking you thru each step that the priest would do (you get to throw wood on the altar, wash hands in the laver, light candles, etc...).  I am so glad Shorty and I were in the middle!  He did get kind of bored, so I would let him bebop forward or backward to the others in our group and do the activity in advance of our learning about it, or redo it.  It worked pretty well.
  Something I thought was cool was that when we were in the Holy of Holies, there was a hole in the tent that cast a sunbeam directly down on the Ark of the Covenant, kind of reminded me of a movie I saw once...  We did make it out of there without succeeding in burning the Ark down with our incense stick (just a brief flick of a spark, but with Shorty, you never know).  The kids were totally thrilled to see parts of those Old Testament books right in front of them.  You can't beat hands on, touch it and feel it stuff:) 

Field Trip Thursday: Museum Crawl pt. 2

  Daddy had to travel to NW Missouri again for work today, so we got to tag along - yay!  Field trip!  This is one of the reasons we considered homeschooling in the first place, being able to be together more as a family when Daddy travels alot.  So today this meant visiting more stops on the Museum Crawl in St. Joseph! 
  We started out at Missouri Western State University where they have a Walter Cronkite memorial. 

The Missouri Western mascot

  We were a little early and walked the campus while we waited for the memorial to open.  The kids smiled and greeted the college students - yes homeschoolers are so unsocialized;) 

  The kids had no idea who Walter Cronkite was prior to our visit today, and to tell you the truth without the Museum Crawl, we might never have visited the memorial, but I'm glad it was a good prompt to do so.  The Crawl has certain questions you need to fill out at each stop. Both kids set out to work trying to find the answers while I chased a rambunctious Shorty (he did not tolerate Walter very well and we spent alot of time pushing buttons and riding the elevator and climbing the stairs).  When their questions were finished you could so see the learning styles of the kids come out.  Bubby is a sponge - he wanted to read & watch everything.  Mookie was content to learn a little, but when she accomplished her goal, her interest started to wane without much as far as interactive displays.  We gave Bubby 45 minutes and then had to drag him away. 
  On to the Remington Nature Center.  The kids had been dying to see this one last time and we had to skip it.  I am so glad we were able to give it a good chunk of time today - well worth it! 

  In addition to the questions we needed to complete for the Crawl booklet, the Nature Center gave us a scavenger hunt to complete.  There were 12 miniature plastic apples hidden all over the Center for us to find.  It took us a while, but we found them (with a little help on a couple).

You can see the red apple in the rattlesnake's mouth

  The displays here were great.  They had dioramas, bees, a water cycle and the favorite - animal tracks.  The tracks would appear and disappear on the sand when the narrator talked about them.

animal tracks

Water cycle - you can see the Missouri River in the background

  One of the other favorites was the trail of St. Joesph history.  They started you out in a cave with the Native Americans and worked you through European settlement to modern day.  Lots of hands on things and videos for all kinds of learners.
  This is what I saw most of the time...

I lost track of how many times Shorty and I looped through the history trail (stopping in the saloon with the cool doors each time to get a pretend drink) and back to the animal tracks and then back to the history trail...   I am so glad the other two are independent learners because I didn't do much except keep the short one busy:) 
  We would have preferred to walk the trails outside too but we needed to meet up with Daddy.  The meeting place was actually at the town of New Market, MO which is where my gg-grandpa Oscar Mauzey was born in 1859.  The kids played at the playground while we waited for Daddy to arrive.  It was neat to look around and wonder what structures might have been there when Oscar was alive. 

Resting on account of "stage 4 hiccups" (2 hiccups every 4 seconds)

We had a pretty cheap day today, Walter's memorial was free & Remington cost us $5 for all of us.  The favorite was the Nature Center, but they enjoyed all of it.  I see another trip to St. Joe for museums in our future.  The kids are hooked!

Museum Crawl

  Field Trip Friday resumed today.  We were able to narrow our field of choices because we were going to pick up Daddy from the Kansas City Airport in the afternoon.  I found out that St. Joseph, MO had a "museum crawl" in August through mid-September so since we were looking at making a couple of trips in the near future to that part of the world we decided to join in!
  Our FTF companions Ducky and Gigi joined in the fun.  Boy am I glad that my folks are both retired and can come along!  It sure makes for twice the fun!  For the Crawl, you need complete 10 stops and answer 2 questions at each stop and you earn a small prize.  Our first choice was the Pony Express National Museum.  It was wonderful!  They gave us our Crawl booklets and a little magnifying glass.  Since we said we were homeschooling, she also told us to make sure and pick up a teacher packet at the end.  The museum starts with a 14 minute video on the Pony Express.  Shorty sat for a little of it and then waited expectantly to "go see the horses".

They weave you through the history of the Express and the trails in general.  Excellent displays with extra sensory things thrown in like lightning and heat and sounds.  Our favorite part was the well.  It was one that they had found while excavating the land prior to the museum building.  There was a display showing what artifacts they had found, but the big thing was there was a hand pump attached to the well and it worked!  The kids could pump water and look through a window in the floor to see down the well.  We had to circle back to this area a couple of times;)

the well

  As children of an archaeologist they also enjoyed the area that showed the ground beneath our feet from the excavations.  Bubby had a ball finding all the artifacts left in situ.

  The museum was just chalked full of wonderful kid interactive things.  The play area was great!  Mookie & Shorty stayed there for quite a while.

  This museum was top notch!  I would go back in a heartbeat.  It wasn't that big, but it was so interesting and well laid out!
   We took a lunch break and there are two things of note: 1) do not go to the NE side of St. Joe and expect to easily get to the NW side - not happening.  2) the Chick Fil-A there is the friendliest and most helpful fast food place I have ever been to.  Everything was answered with a "its my pleasure" and I didn't even have to carry the high chair for Shorty or get our own straws.  They waited on us hand and foot!
  Since we couldn't get to our planned stop easily (the nature center, it looks fabulous btw), we went to the NW Missouri Genealogical Society which was also on the Crawl.  Free to get in and well, we could look up family stuff while were were there too!  This was a big kid stop for sure, Bubby & Mookie worked on their research skills by looking up items for the questions in their booklet, Gigi looked up one of my scandalous ggg-grandpa George's marriages (more on him later), and Shorty looked up at Ducky and told him he wanted to go outside and they went for a walk.

  It didn't take long before Mookie (my more active learner) went and joined them, while Bubby took joy in finding more historical gems in the collections at the library.
  Pretty soon we had to take off to grab Daddy, so we climbed in the car for another new adventure - the airport!  We were able to watch the planes come and go for a while and then jumped around excitedly when Daddy walked through the gates (I won't tell you how much of a spectacle we made of ourselves;) ).  The real thrill was the luggage carousel.  I think Shorty was waiting for one of the Toy Story characters to come up the chute.

  Who knows where next week will lead us.  The kids are campaigning heavily to go back to St. Joe.  The really sweet thing was that one of the stops gave us our "prize" for completion of the Crawl a little early since we didn't know if we'd get to do them all in time.  I've been to St. Joe numerous times for family history research and loved it each time, but this time it won my heart as a tourist:) <3 br="">

Guess Who?: St. Joseph & Unknowns

If you see anyone you know, drop me a note! :)

J. T. Needles, St. Joseph, MO - photographer

Uhlman, St. Joseph, MO - photographer

Probably Albert Isaacs (son of Amos & Ally),
taken by H. S. Stovall, Weatherby, MO

The following pics are totally unmarked:(

postcard picture

Guess Who?: St. Joe & Atchison

These are a series of other unknowns.  Some I think I have figured out, and I can narrow down the family branch on the St. Joeseph ones, but I need to know who they are! Let me know if you can help:)

no photographer's mark,
but he looks very similar to a picture
I have of the sons of
Amos and Ally Isaacs of St. Joseph, MO

Memorial photograph.
I'm thinking this is Samuel Isaacs,
 son of Amos and Ally Isaacs

Thinking this is Ally Jane (Judah) Isaacs,
the resemblance to Ally's daughter Addie is striking

J. S. Saurman, St. Joseph - photographer

Speculating that this is either Levi or Samuel Judah,
brothers of Ally Jane (Judah) Isaacs

The only one in this post from Atchison,
he has similar features, so I included him

J. W. Souder, St. Joseph, MO - photographer

W. J. Rea, St. Joseph, MO - photographer