Gettin' our 1887 on...

One of the favorite traditions at the kids' school is the 3rd grade field trip to the Bernhard Museum.

The kids prepare long and hard for this time travel to 1887, 

such as reading books and watching "Little House on the Prairie". ;)

(Note: Gwen couldn't believe it, when I told her I watched that show when it was originally broadcasted)

But, the families were also required to do a little prep.

Like rent our costumes from a local seamstress.

And go to KFC to get chicken and biscuits that we could put in our fridge so they could serve as 

"leftovers from the night before".

Which is how we learned that the Garate kids aren't big fans of the Colonel.

In fact, all 3 kids didn't like the "crunchy skin".

What?!?

And apparently we don't frequent it much, as Gwen told our fellow carpool driver the next day,

"Yeah, my mom got chicken from KFP-CPK-FPP. I don't know, something like that." 

But in the end, our basket lunch was packed with wax paper wrapped delicacies 

(authentic to 1887, of course),

aprons and bonnets were donned,

and we were ready to go. :)

                   Gwen loved her costume.                       While Ben loved to make fun of me in mine.

                                                                   You're welcome for the laughs and ego boost. ;)

The kids all looked sooo cute!

Kids this cute...

 deserve a close up. :)

The setting, costumes, activities, made you want to take pics of everything.

Like even the basket lunches awaiting our little worker bees.

Now this was a field trip that needed lots of parents.

And at our school, we took that to heart.

As in, for our 64 kids, we had 60 parent volunteers.

I guess no one wanted to miss out on the fun. :)

Here are a few of them.

Women doing, what women do. ;)

Just me a and a couple of my friends, hanging out.

If this doesn't show the love of a mother... ;)

 Then it was time to work.

There were 6 stations:

Baking, Laundry, Woodworking, Leather, Arts and Crafts and a tour of the museum.

  Needless to say, our girl loved it all.

 Maybe I should let her "love" doing the laundry at home. ;)

And after all their hard work, they got to enjoy all their authentic 1887 lunches,

complete w/ root beer (in glass bottles! Gwen's fav ;) from their teachers.

And some chocolate chip cookies that Gwen's cute little friend, Clay, passed out to all his classmates.

What a great day.

Only 730 more days until Kennedy's turn! :)