oink oink

to finish out a unit on local history,
olivia's class had their first field trip of the year...
they walked a whole 3 blocks to the Blanchard house.

the kids loved the house!
most had never been in this type of house before.
we had a great host who explained lots of history to the kids
and did a great job keeping their attention.

one of the kids favorite things was the purpose of a parlour.
in a parlour you host guests and just relax
BUT
they relaxed very differently back then.
the kids saw that the furniture wasn't comfy,
but rather required you to sit up very straight
and it was definitely not made for jumping on!
in addition, they kids learned that while sitting in the non-relaxing furniture
there was NO TV, NO IPODS, NO RADIO -
oh and they couldn't call their friends on the phone either.
the horror!
they also got to try out a sword chair.it's a chair with just at arm rest on only one side.why?well so your sword could hang down on the other side.obviously!

and now perhaps the coolest bit of history we learned...

when mr. blanchard wanted to marry his wife he went to ask her family's permission.
at the time, mr. blanchard was a poor farm hand.
his soon-to-be-wife's family thought pretty highly of themselves
as they were direct descendents of the mayflower bunch.
they were pretty upset at their daughter's choice of a husband,
and said he was so poor she'd end up living in a pig sty.

fast forward...
they get married and mr. blanchard becomes a successful businessman.
when they built this house, he handpicked the sandstone from his own quarry!
and to show his sense of humor,
he found 2 pieces of sandstone that {if you looked closely} had the outline of a pig on them. HA HA
if you look closely in picture below,
you'll see our host's husband with a long pole.
he was showing out group the "pig stones" :)

all in all, a very fun {and easy!} field trip.
the kids learned some cool stuff, and so did i :)
plus i got to show olivia where i once had a piano recital.
yup, back in my glory days of doing duets with my brother - good times!