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Wildwood Halls of Ivy: Let The School Year Commence
Hello school year. It has arrived. This will be the year I teach five children at our home. That’s a lot of one-room school house learning. (I’m sure there are homeschool moms who teach more.) On our first day we did a little pantomiming with friends. And there were costumes worn to class because, uh, homeschool. Last year, of course,…
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and speaking of …
Somehow I still feel like I’m catching up to myself after our trip this summer. Which wasn’t like two months long or anything so you’d think I should be just fine and all caught up. I still haven’t even taken the time to write a post about my second favorite stop on our trip – Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Mansfield home,…
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Summertime Blues
I don’t have my act together. School begins this week and I’m basically prepared for that. But all the rest – you know, regular life details – I’m just not really on top of lately. Maybe it’s the return from such a happy, busy summer adventure. Maybe the lack of structure has me feeling plain lazy. Maybe I just don’t…
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Prairie Adventure: Prairie House Manor Bed and Breakfast
I didn’t actually count how many nights in a row we slept outside. Kevin might have. I do know that in the first town we drove through that featured a large store of any variety, Kevin pulled the Tahoe over and went inside with cash and came back out with one self-inflating sleeping pad. (Yes. One. I guess after…
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mid-week smattering
One week from today the Wildwood Halls of Ivy opens their doors again. This summer has been speedy. (Like they all are.) Sometimes our kids ask to paint their faces for no reason. Sometimes I say yes. This week we have a family portrait session scheduled with our lovely friend Jane. I wonder what level of mayhem will ignite. I…
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happy anniversary.
Nineteen. If you’re talking about grains of rice or hairs on your head, that’s a little number. But I’m not talking about food or hair. I’m talking years. Years. And suddenly, nineteen is kind of a giant number. Nineteen. A number that sort of takes my breath away. Today marks nineteen years since I traded my last name for his…
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Prairie Adventure: These Happy Golden Years, a DeSmet Pageant
If it is a July weekend in the town of DeSmet, there’s probably a crowd of people gathered on benches in a wide open field in view of Pa’s Cottonwood trees waiting for the sun to set a little lower and the prairie play to begin. Nine nights each summer a cast of all-local, primarily high school students performs scenes…
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Prairie Adventure: The Ingalls Homestead in DeSmet
I think I might be about to set some new record for photos on one blog post. (It’s not a record I care to take the time to actually validate, but I think I’m right anyway.) On our westward journey each stop had its own treasures and surprises to discover. You can’t exactly compare one location to another –…
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Prairie Adventure: The Wilder Pageant at Walnut Grove
Walnut Grove had lots to offer the Laura Ingalls fan. I’ve already told you about the museum and the sweet campground and the Laura Look Alike contest and, of course, one of my personal favorite stops – Plum Creek. But what I did not tell you about yet was the summer’s big evening event – The Wilder Pageant. The pageant…
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home.
You might think, from my sudden silence here, that I have fallen in the prairie grasses and am wandering aimlessly on some South Dakota dirt road. I am not. We made the trek home – we’ve been home all week actually. And it’s probably taken about that long to reclaim our days – we’ve been trying to catch up on…
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Prairie Adventure: and other DeSmet offerings
There’s more. More DeSmet. I’ll try to keep this one simple. Just out of town is the tree claim Almanzo and Laura tried in vain to homestead. There’s just this simple marker to represent years of hope and heartache and hardship. Two babies born here. One baby died here. The highs and lows of love and loss on this speck…
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Prairie Adventure: The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society in DeSmet, South Dakota
DeSmet. South Dakota. In regular life, DeSmet is this one street, not much to talk about kind of town. In Laura Ingalls terms, DeSmet is a big deal. Like a mecca. I don’t even know where to start or how to wade through the two hundred and fifty four pictures I took while we were there. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote…
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Prairie Adventure: running on the prairie
Would it be okay if I just share a handful of sweet pictures of my girls running on the prairie? Okay. Great. Thank you.
