Today we went to the Hiwan homestead museum in Evergreen for a tour. We had never been there before, so we were excited to see it. We ate a picnic lunch with our HS group and then broke into 2 groups for the tour. We got to go to the general store first. We went through the servants quarters (actually the whole house was theirs, but Jeffco turned part of it into a small general store circa 1895) and walked into the shop. Our guide gave everyone a penny and told us we’d get to spend it at the end.

First he asked us to find things that were different than what we’d find in a store today. Well, the eggs were lying out in a crate, the cheese was under glass, there was a post office in one corner, seeds, flour mills, coffee mills and a fruit grinder. Then he asked us to find things that were the same. There was a teapot, tea, vegetables, a scale, yarn. Next he gave everyone a list of things they had to buy; we walked around and found the items (like Hannah had a cowbell, 2 apples, and a teapot.) Then he asked them how they were going to pay for it. Since we all had a penny (and the items were more than a penny) he made each child sign their name in the ledger and wrote the amount next to it. (Well, Hannah can’t write her name, so she just made an ‘o’; that’s what she is when we play tic-tac-toe.)

Hannah owed $1.24, Grace owed $2.38!

Then we got to trade in our penny for 2 jelly beans, a pencil or a foot of ribbon. Grace and Hannah threw up their hands when the guide asked who wanted jellybeans. Bethany bought a blue ribbon with her penny. Stamps were 2 cents, ahhh……that would be nice for Tea Tuesday, 2 cent stamps!! We went back and listened to our guide tell us about the servants quarters. At first the servants lived in tents on the grounds, I think that sounds kind of harsh.

After a hard blizzard in 1913 their servants said build us a house or else! So they got this little 2 room cabin. (I think they should have asked sooner!)

We had a few minute to kill before the inside tour so we headed over to the wood shop. It smelled like fire and old wood, nice.

Here are some tools, Hannah liked the vise grip.

There was a printing shop on the other side. Grace was turning the roller for inking the paper.

We’ve been here enough that we know all about printing machines.

Next stop was the house itself.

Once a one room chinked cabin, it was added onto over the years and is now 17 rooms, 7 fireplaces and a chapel.

The lady who came here in the late 1800’s, Josepha Williams, was one of the first mountain doctors in the area, the first woman doctor that is. She married an Episcopalian priest, Charles Douglas, and they had 1 son Eric Douglas. We almost assume that Douglas County is named after them. Eric was one of the first curators for the American Indian wing of the Denver Art museum. All over the house we found examples of Indian tribes from around the US. There were moccasins, papoose boards, drawings, tiles, art, baskets, games, and blankets that were from Native Americans. Eric was an artist too and he painted several Anaszi like figures on the dining room walls. The Canon Douglas had a chapel built at the top of the house; most of the main rooms in the house are octagonal like the chapel.

The views out of the dining room were so nice.

Here is the sewing/music room…hey I have a drop spindle like that!

The Douglas family loved nature so much that they asked the builder to build around some of the trees on the property. The architect’s influence is seen throughout the house with 200 stair step references in the walls, doors, and windows. It would be neat to hunt for all 200. The kitchen was updated in what looked like the 1940-50’s. There was an ice box in the wall with a back entrance for the ice man to deliver the ice. The glass in almost all of the windows is original so it has waves in it when you look through. The pine beams inside and out gave the whole house the air of fitting in amongst the trees.

On the way out we played at the stone house, here is Hannah singing a song (in case you can’t understand her: “There ain’t no bugs on me betuz, ain’t no bugs on me betuz they’re on Bethany” I think it’s a commercial for flea formula for dogs or something.)

We saw this covered wagon and thought it a fitting end to the tour.

Just how old is travel bunny anyway??

It was pretty hot out so on the way home we stopped at O’Fallon park and waded in the water.

We saw lots of tiny fish (darn I had just taken the net out of the car the other day) which the girls tried to catch.

It was a nice respite to dip our feet in the water (which was cool, but not frigid!)

We were just about to go when Hannah fell in and got soaking wet. I had just said ‘Be careful that you don’t get soaking wet.’ Oh well, we had a towel in the car, but it was pretty funny.

Tomorrow we have a tour of the B-25 H bomber (again), but this time with friends.

Here are those bomber pics from Sunday:

F-18 and bomber:

Canyon:

Or as Hannah says, ‘Ewitch’. Well, it would have cost us $125 to get into Elitch, but thanks to our library – it was free. Good thing too, I would never pay $125 to get into Elitch. We had a friend meet us there so we had somebody else to ride rides with.

We rode the carousel and the Ferris wheel and then split up.

Joel and Bethany went to the big rides, Grace, Hannah and R went to the kids section. They rode the train, around the world in 80 seconds, airplanes, boats and bumper cars.

We played in the ball pit and Joel met up with us. He was using the map of Elitch to work on ground team skills. He drew an arrow and marked his location with the time he arrived and left each place. I thought that was good map training skills and pretty creative.

We ate lunch and headed over to the water park. I think it was about 97 degrees outside, but that water never gets above 60. It might have even been colder than that. We went to the wave pool and it was just too frigid, so we tried the lazy river. I made Hannah get out when her lips were turning blue.

Then we went over to the pirate ship and I think everyone went down the slide twice and then decided to huddle in their towels.

After waiting for them to warm up I decided that we’d go back to the park to ride some more rides, no use sitting around at the water park in a towel because you are too cold to swim.

We hit the observation tower and got a 250ft view of the city, pretty cool.

Then we saw a show, imaginique (like Cirque de soleil.) This guy was on a tightrope, except it wasn’t tight, it was slack. He came up and whirled around and started walking the rope, he did handstands, cartwheels and rolls on the rope. He twirled around and did a one handed hand stand, he was really good! They had 2 roller skaters and a lady that did tricks in a hula hoop ring. The other show we saw was the hot diggity dog show. We saw dogs catch Frisbees, jump hurdles and go through poles.

All the kids said we could teach Maisy to do that (they even tried when we got home; she can catch a Frisbee…..when it lands on the floor!)

Joel was ready to leave at 6, which surprised me; he had wanted to stay until 9. He said he was bored riding the same 2 rides (because he didn’t want to ride the roller coasters.) You have a park full of rides, why is it my fault you only want to ride 2 of them?! Hannah could have stayed longer and ridden more kiddie rides, but we rode 1 more ride and then headed out. Thanks to the library we have 1 more free day at Elitch (and I think that’s all we need.)

FREE DAYS!

Aurora History Museum - Free every Tues-Sun. Right now they have a Presidential campaign exhibit.

Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield - Aug 1st, nice swings and shady creek.

Colorado History Museum - Free day Aug 1st, celebrating Denver’s 100th birthday (10-5)
Also: kids 12 and under free every Sat. (prgs: 2nd Colorado homes, 9th historical home remedies, 16th Colorado homes, 23rd trains, 30th cowboys/roping.)

Denver Art Museum - Aug 2nd, they have backpacks to check out and gameboys that reveal more about the art.

Dinosaur ridge - Aug 2nd (10-2:30) View tracks, bones and other ex. of geology and palentology with guides.

Denver Firefighter Museum - Aug 2nd (10-2) Try your hand with a fire hose, escape a smoky room, ride on a fire truck, try on gear.

Plains Conserv. Center - Aug 2nd (10-2.) Peek into the past on an 1800’s farm. Homestead, schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, garden and chicken feeding.

Boulder History Museum - August 3rd, free sundaes too!

Denver Museum of Dolls and Miniatures - Aug 3rd

Children’s Museum - August 5th (4-8pm) New exhibit ‘jobs’ has lots of hands on stuff.

Denver Museum of Nature and Sci. - Aug. 13th, take a guide and find all the gnomes hidden in the dioramas.

Observatory tours - Aug 16th (11 and 2 pm.) Pine valley ranch park. 1/2 mile hike up to observ.

Golden Pioneer Museum - Aug 16, Come and enjoy free admission all day at the Golden Pioneer Museum. (10:00am - 4:30 pm.)

Clear Creek History Park - Aug 16-17th Free Days in the Golden Fine Arts Festival. See demonstrations like lace making, spinning, blacksmithing, and more. Taste what’s cooking on the woodstove and say hello to the chickens. The Clear Creek History Park showcases the artisans of yesteryear. (10:00am to 4:30pm.)

Our internet is off and on; I can’t get my pics off Bethany’s computer, so I thought I’d do a quick update for now.

Sunday

We went and saw the B-25 H Mitchell bomber at Centennial airport. If you’re in Denver, it will be here until September. They have free tours Fri-Sun and flights those days too ($325 a pop!) This B-25 H is the ONLY flying one around. Remember when we saw the B-17; it was 1 of 10 still flying. Well, this one, the Barbie 3, is the last B-25 H flying. This particular one flew stateside during the war and was then used for experimental landing gear. One of the cool things about seeing these old planes up close is talking to the pilots and crew. They are in their 80’s and they have stories to tell. The crew chief told us that the B-25 H was the plane involved in the Dolittle raid after Pearl Harbor. He said they took off from carriers, we said they can take off from carriers? He said, no, but they did! My pics are on Bethany’s computer so until James fixes it I can’t put up the pics of the plane. But you can go here to see an ad for it. It’s smaller than the B-17, the white stripes on the fuselage make it easy to spot in the air. While we were looking it over 2 F-18’s landed and passed by on the runway. I got one pic of the F-18 passing in front of the B-25, the old fighter and the new!

Later that day we were bored so we drove to Castlewood canyon. We didn’t actually go in, but we walked around the outside of the park gates and looked down into the canyon. It’s not that far from us and we need to go back and hike in there one day, it looked neat.

Monday

We did school and then used up some of our new paint supplies on the driveway.

The new people are moving in next door, no kids, just 3 guys.

After we painted we washed off (it was finger-paint, but that stuff still sticks) and went to our pool. The first summer we lived up here we went to this pool every afternoon, this year we’ve been twice. We’re just busy with other stuff, so by the time we are ready to go swimming at night the outdoor pool is closed. This is the whale pool; there is a small whale to climb on and a whale slide.

I wonder if this is where Grace got her love of whales from?

We played around for a few hours and then went home. James had to run by wal-mart to get the rest of his uniform, but it still wasn’t right. Off to Buckley tomorrow to get what he needs before our trip.

Tuesday

We were supposed to have a co-op this morning, but it got cancelled. Maybe she’ll resch. for Fri. morning. Today we’re plugging away at school, Joel is writing his next instrument paper and reading over the Garmin notes. Hannah is busy with her ABC puppets and doodle pad.

They all want to go swimming again this aft., so I guess after we write our Tea Tuesday letters we’ll go. Tomorrow we’re off to Elitch for the whole day, Thurs. we have a co-op and Fri. maybe a co-op/girl scouts/hike and Sat. we leave for Florida!

This is going on 7/26-7/27, Denver, CO.

Race start.

Even.

Winning!

We went to the dragon boat fest today. The kids colored dragon masks and fans.

We found free chopsticks and tons of giveaways. There was a dancing dragon to see up close.

Here’s the baby dragon.

There was a magician, who was very good at cups and balls!

We got characters on our hands and faces, mine is ‘dragon’, Grace has ‘princess’, Hannah has ‘happy’ and Bethany has ‘flower’.

Teams race against each other, the race is over very quickly (for us anyway.)

After the races they had a small parade out of the tent and the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ was sung beautifully.

We wandered around some more and bought an umbrella, hat and puppet.

Then it was back to the bus to ride to the parking area

US Toy had a teacher’s night and I won this:

It’s a bin full of art stuff, paints, brushes, stamps, clay, cups…..cool! I also bought Hannah an ABC fingerpuppet/flannel set and a new wooden toy.

I also got a word game for Grace and some stuff for my co-op in August. Oh, and a new Mr. Otter, he’s very cute and cuddly. Pics of him and bunny in their Florida shirts to come!

Tiny pinecones.

At the hot dog stand.

Giant cookie.

We went to the antique store and Hannah got a turtle puppet.

Joel has been wanting a typewriter forever and guess what he found!

Bethany got 2 bags of necklaces.

Which means we’ll be going up to Pine Junction today and Bailey to the hot dog stand. School? We’ll grab our books to read and do some math by the river. I got the 411 on Joel’s SAREX tomorrow, I love the way CAP puts everything in letters! See if you can decode: ATTN: The SAREX will be at DJC on Sat. 0800. GTL and GTM will be doing missions all day. Your POC is Lt. Beer, bring your SQTR and disregard change notice on IAPP. UOD is BDU’s. The only things I need to know: meet at the Denver jet center at 0800 on Saturday morning with Joel in battle dress uniform and with his squad training paper in hand. What’s really funny is that James has a flight lesson at 1100, so Joel may be the one bringing in his plane or telling it where to go when they land. They are rotating positions again so Joel will be tracking planes, handling planes, guiding planes on the runway and other stuff. This is his second favorite thing to do in CAP (first would be ground team search and rescue, which this is a part of.)

Also I’m trying to figure out how to teach negative numbers without confusing Bethany. Right now I tell her that you can’t take 7 away from 4, but Joel is doing problems like x-7 = -3, so x must be 4. I guess I’ll just let her in on the secret that you can have negative numbers (like if you bounce a check in your account, suddenly you realize there are a lot of numbers under 0!) I think the best way to teach neg. numbers is translating it to real life, a checking account or digits under 0 relating to temperature. I know I have fake money around here and a blank check book somewhere, I’ll let them play bank and even if they are on the ball – I’ll throw in some bank fees that make their balance go under $0 (and then the real fun begins!) I like kinesthetic stuff too, I already drew a huge number line on the sidewalk, but Joel erased it. I’ll draw that again and have them hop the numbers as they do problems….I’ll have to make it a little bigger this time. You can get a lot of school done with 1 stick of chalk!

We also just got in the dance schedule for September and everyone’s excited. Grace will dance first hour, then Bethany has 1 hour of ballet. Then Hannah and Bethany have dance and then ……me. Yes, I signed up too, I will be dancing with them at recital in December. Now if Bethany tells me how hard her song is I can say, ‘See mine? It’s hard too!’ Hannah thinks every time I put her hair in a bun she’s going to dance, and this is her first session! She would try to sneak into Grace’s class last semester and stay there so she could join in, now she’ll have her own class. So, in a few weeks I’ll be buying new shoes, tights and leotards for almost everyone. Yeah for dance!

Been playing around…..

Joel is doing math on the sidewalk, Hannah is playing Buzzy the knowledge bug and sorting rice, Grace is doing letters in cornmeal and Bethany is reading ‘Series of unfortunate events’ books.

James made this site where you can practice your phonetic alphabet (for flying, not for reading!)
It’s very Charlie, Oscar, Oscar, Lima!

I am trying to make up a logo for our Homeschool groups new name: Common Ground Homeschoolers. I wanted something for myself that was big enough to put on a tote bag, not too girly and not too wordy, I think this is pretty good for now.

Joel has a SAREX this weekend so he’ll be gone all day Sat. on a mission (what mission? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…..blah, blah, blah, just kidding.) We have about a week until we go to Florida so I’ve been printing maps and getting days organized. Throw in school and the fact that Joel is supposed to be doing reports on the Garmin G1000 and instruments and it’s been an interesting week so far.