I don't know if it is better to have everyone sick at once or spread it out a little bit, but I do know it sure is nice to have everyone feeling good at the same time!!!! We are all feeling better; Eli and Susanna are like new kids with lots of giggles and smiles! Tim is feeling better with just a little cough. Madeline is doing great - no more sleepiness from anesthesia in her system, no more "jiggly" tummy. She says her legs are just a little tender and her lip is definitely healing!
So, now that we are all feeling well, we wanted to have a fun family Saturday. We started with breakfast at Brother Juniper's. We used to go there years ago but hadn't taken the kids yet. The building has been updated inside, and the food is still delicious!!!
Madeline is feeling so good, we are constantly reminding her not to run or jump! Two more weeks of being "slow!" Wish us luck!
The garden in front of Brother Juniper's...
Tim did a little research to find somewhere we could go just for the day... not too far.
He found "
Green Frog Village" near Jackson, TN. It was a little more than an hour away and had 100 year old buildings that had been donated to preserve daily life from that time period.
The first stop on the property was a "playground" for kids!
Having grown up in St. Louis, I was in college before I ever saw "real life" cotton fields! I remember taking a road trip with my high school friend Jen from Nashville to Alabama. We stopped along the road to pick some cotton!
Eli loves to pick cotton, too! There was a field right next to the village.
Susanna loved the big cotton picker!
We got our own golf cart to ride around the property and our own key ring with keys to all the buildings. The village is open to the public, but you may get a better tour with a school group. We did the self guided kind! Of course, the kids would have been satisfied if we had just ridden around the property for ten minutes on the golf cart and called it a day!
First stop: a real log cabin with furnishings. So fun to see how people lived in one big room.
Susanna knocking on the front door!
An old "washing machine" with a basin and a hand operated agitator and then a roller on the outside to ring the water out of each piece of clothing. The kids really enjoyed playing with this "washing" their jackets!
(You can see the modern bathroom in the background!!)
Off the back porch of the log cabin there were two barns for storage and old farm equipment.
Really pretty creek and pond.
The leaves look beautiful, too!
Of course, the out house is our favorite thing!!!
A cotton gin is inside this huge building. A gigantic machine that worked with a steam engine and later a diesel engine.
The cotton gin....
Eli with a basket of seeds removed from cotton!
An old church...
Madeline loved all the large porches. She did a little dance on each one!
Another dance on the log cabin's front porch....not sure if you can see her hips wiggling!
Inside the church was so much fun!
The old one room school house.
being the teacher...
and the students...
Susanna just loved walking all around the grass...
Nonna met us for a late lunch, and then we headed home!
Here's our crew on the way home!
Zonked out!
We had a super fun day!
