National Homeschool Day

What did you do on National Homeschool Day?

This is what we did: On Friday morning, September 26, after dropping Kenan off at Kim's, we went to a museum called Cantigny somewhere up by Chicago. When we arrived, the first thing we did was eat lunch. It was 10:45. 

some girls

some boys

some of the moms

After lunch we walked around the pretty gardens some. This is the gravestone of the man and his wife who owned all this property- Mr. McCormick, who fought in the first world war and won a great battle at Cantigny, France, then he worked for the Chicago Tribune (his grandfathers business) and started WGN radio and television in Chicago. He was very successful and very rich.

Here is his house, which was very big. It had many things we don't have today- or at least at my house! There was a button in almost every room that he could push to call the servants. He had his own little airport on the property and he would fly to work in downtown Chicago every day. It was a sea plane so it could land on the river down there where he worked. The whole flight took about 15 minutes. His house had a lot of rooms and 13 bathrooms. It had elevators to bring up wood and presents and food. These were different elevators. 

There were many beautiful gardens that Mom tried out her camera on. 

 can you see the smiley jack-o-lantern made from pansies?

it was a special treat to have Haylie along with us!

Also at this place was the War Museum that showed things about the First Division (which was what Mr. McCormick fought in) in every war since WWI. It showed what it looked like in Cantigny France when the town there was bombed out- it was very real. It was great- you should go there. I liked the movies. 

I like war machinery and I like to pretend I am a soldier, but I really don't like war- its too bloody and dreadful. 

It was a great day but the best part was actually the very grumpy tour guide. She was very flustered with our group because she thought it was too big, but the truth is, we were a very well-behaved group, which can be expected from homeschoolers, right??! As we were filing into the house for our tour, she snapped, "is this National Homeschool Day or what? There have been so many homeschool groups today!" (actually the reason why she thought our group was so big was because some other homeschoolers had gotten separated from their group and just decided to join ours.) After she dismissed them, as she was studying our group standing there waiting, she demanded to know why we weren't separated by grades. From the the other end of our group, we could hear this nice but firm female voice (whom will remain anonymous) saying very loudly, "OH, we don't DO grades." Those of us in the front wondered who it was, but by this time this dear friend of ours was up behind us and then we could hear her mutter, "I just couldn't resist- I mean what grade would I be??" There's no way to make it as funny here as it was there... seriously, it made the day! (especially since we know who it was!)

Then our guide got the tour under way very quickly because we were apparently already 15 minutes behind schedule and the people at the war museum get "very grumpy" when tours are late!! We all about burst out laughing when she said that! (ironically, the war museum doesn't even have tours and so there was no time to follow anyway.)

Well, we got home pretty late, and got Kyle home even later, and we both had to be back at Fairview Haven in a very short time.

 I really think you should go to Cantigny sometime soon- and be sure to know what grade you're in!

And by the way, when you homeschool, isn't every day National Homeschool Day??
                                                                                                   -(Jared, with some help from Mom)