Adventures

 My spiritual reading book on St. Claire was missing, it's a wonderful book I had to get for the shelf after I borrowed it from someone else's shelf. What a gem!   After a very thorough search and a bribe Frodo found it in a box that had come in the mail.  Now aren't those little ice cream containers adorable?  Great bribe prizes.  I wonder what the thoughts of my children will be when they look back at all these pictures whose backgrounds are all scaffolding.

 The conversation went like this:
Poppy:  Kiy go ow-side?
Mom:  Um... no.
Poppy:  Kiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyyy go owwwwwwwwwwww-siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide?
Mom:  You dont' have any clothes on.
Poppy:  Kiy get my jacket on?
You can see by the picture how much she appreciated our laughter.

 I took a portion of my children to the Governor's Mansion.  I hadn't been to a mansion since I was in college and we went to the Mansions in Rhode Island. 

 It was obviously a lovely setting.  It doesn't look like my house.

 Definitely not our bathroom.

 We got the biggest kick out of a table of this size which had only 10 chairs around it. I think we would have stuffed 20 around this one.

 The painted walls were absolutely lovely.  I tried to get a picture of this little red cardinal but I couldn't.... I wanted one.

 We counted 6 Christmas Trees.... yes, our Govenor says *Christmas* Tree. 

 That Christmas tree was decorated with Angels of different kinds for War Veterans (or something like that)

 The drawing room

 THis was my favorite room the Civil war room.

 In this room I had an interesting conversation with a woman....
At some point into the conversation the tour guide said, "You are homeschooling all 5?" I said that actually I had 11. After completely looking me up and down from head to toe and back again... twice... she began to shake and try to find somewhere in the recesses of her mind anyone she knew that had even some semblance of a large family. She mentioned someone she knew who homeschooled 6 and that it was alot of work. I agreed and said it takes sacrifice. (She may never recover) She stuttered and sputtered and... well.... she made a herioic effort to regain her human dignity. She asked where we lived. And when I said where we lived, she said, "Oh out on a farm? That's a good place to put all those children."  

When we got into the car and the children asked what she meant. I told them that some people aren't happy that we have 11 children. Frodo replied, "Oh, they want 11 children too?"

 Mug shots.  (good grief... really, they liked the tour.... really they weren't forced to go against their will..... When I saw this shot I envisioned my children in the local penetentiary in striped pajamas.

 I have a *thing* for certain things,  one is gazebos. Another is funky socks.  But that's a post for another time.