On September 10th Emma went on her first third grade field trip to 
Old Poway Park. There was a weekend long celebration about the Old West and those early settlers who established the territory. The kids got a reality check when one of the women talked about how kids were required to work right along side their parents hauling water and feeding the animals, fetching wood and churning butter! As we walked around the park they learned how to pan for gold and live in a Tee-pee. I thought it was kinda cool too but for Emma and I it was a little anti climatic. We've been (a few times) to the Mormon Battalion and the annual celebration in Old Town San Diego. It's not 
much different than what was being put on that day in the park but this wasn't church related "obviously"! It made me cherish my history even more that day just because I already knew so much about what we were seeing. The best part was the volunteers though. They really got into their roles. There was one guy who was dressed as a Native American Indian. While the kids listened to the Squaw in the Tee-pee (yes...all 24 kids fit into the tee-pee), I talked to this Indian guy outside. I think he might have been a Hippie Indian who had taken too many hits from the peace pipe! Needless to say he was pretty entertaining! Then there was the fur trapper. 
He had an antique animal trap and kept telling the kids that if they didn't behave he would put their leg in it. REAL NICE! The picture with the thing on Emma's head is supposedly real beaver hide. She put that on and I got the goose bumps everywhere! I figured that she already had it on and I might as well take a picture. I was a little disappointed that we were only there for three hours. I thought it would have been nice to find a shady spot on the grass and have a picnic lunch but that wasn't in the cards for this trip. Seeing everyone in their period clothing left me thinking on the way home about my great great grandparents who would have lived at this time. Did they have the same emotional struggles that we have today? I think that they are more like us than I have ever given them credit for. Just a different set of pleasures and dangers but the same sense of spiritual understanding and fulfillment in the end I would think!
Old Poway Park. There was a weekend long celebration about the Old West and those early settlers who established the territory. The kids got a reality check when one of the women talked about how kids were required to work right along side their parents hauling water and feeding the animals, fetching wood and churning butter! As we walked around the park they learned how to pan for gold and live in a Tee-pee. I thought it was kinda cool too but for Emma and I it was a little anti climatic. We've been (a few times) to the Mormon Battalion and the annual celebration in Old Town San Diego. It's not 
much different than what was being put on that day in the park but this wasn't church related "obviously"! It made me cherish my history even more that day just because I already knew so much about what we were seeing. The best part was the volunteers though. They really got into their roles. There was one guy who was dressed as a Native American Indian. While the kids listened to the Squaw in the Tee-pee (yes...all 24 kids fit into the tee-pee), I talked to this Indian guy outside. I think he might have been a Hippie Indian who had taken too many hits from the peace pipe! Needless to say he was pretty entertaining! Then there was the fur trapper. 
He had an antique animal trap and kept telling the kids that if they didn't behave he would put their leg in it. REAL NICE! The picture with the thing on Emma's head is supposedly real beaver hide. She put that on and I got the goose bumps everywhere! I figured that she already had it on and I might as well take a picture. I was a little disappointed that we were only there for three hours. I thought it would have been nice to find a shady spot on the grass and have a picnic lunch but that wasn't in the cards for this trip. Seeing everyone in their period clothing left me thinking on the way home about my great great grandparents who would have lived at this time. Did they have the same emotional struggles that we have today? I think that they are more like us than I have ever given them credit for. Just a different set of pleasures and dangers but the same sense of spiritual understanding and fulfillment in the end I would think!
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