{Spring Break} Days One-Three - Entry, Living Room & Dining Room

Today is the (much anticipated-maybe, just by me, but that's beside the point, right?) day!

Along with going on a "tour" of each of the items in the room, the kids have added a couple of games that go(ish) with that particular room or space for us to play each day...

In each room, each child can ask 1-2 questions (or ask for more information) before we start, & at the end they have to tell me either their favorite thing about the room or something neat that they learned.

I'm planning to type up a very detailed document for each of them to have ("in all of my free time" - funny, that statement is usually a joke, but right now it's pretty true), but for the purposes of the blog, I'll keep it short & sweet, including what they asked, what they learned & what we played.

Sooo, here we go!

FIRST STOP...the Entry (how's that for some excitement?!?!?)!

We actually spent about an hour & a half in this little space that measures about 5x7...

QUESTION
B - "Tell me about the plates on the wall."

PREDICTIONS
B - "I have no idea."

L - "I don’t know. I feel like they remind you of something or represent something special."

M - "I feel like they were your relatives or Daddy’s relatives, because we have them in our room too."

QUESTION
L - "Where did we get this umbrella holder?"

PREDICTIONS
L - "I don’t know. I feel like it was from some of your relatives because it looks kind of old."

M - "I feel like it was Grandpa’s because his canes are in it."

B - "I was going to say that I think it was Grandpa’s because I remember it in his house."

QUESTION
M - "How old were we when we took those pictures?"

PREDICTIONS
M - "3."

B - "I’m actually thinking 2 or 3."

L - "I feel like it’s in the range of 2-4, but I know that they were taken in different years."

FAVORITES
When we were finished with the room, the kids were unanimous in what they thought was the neatest discovery...this antique hat form that we use for a doorstop.

The story of how we acquired it is even neater. In the early 1970s, my parents restored an old Victorian house that was built in the 1890s. In the yard, they found an old foundation, and this hat form was uncovered in the dirt around the foundation. How cool is that?!?!? And, the kids just thought of it as a doorstop...

GAMES
Guess Who? (a family favorite)
There's a Moose in the House (bought this one for our road trip to Alaska and never played it!)

NEXT STOP...the Living Room (which based on our conversations, has now been renamed the Parlor by the kids)!

We spent so much time in this room that we actually had to break for lunch!

QUESTION

B - "What is this?"

(Come on, B...you know this!)

B - "Where did we take those pictures?"

(the Governors Grounds in Columbia)

L - "Is there any family history behind this quilt thing?"

(ohhh, yes, yes, yes, there sure is!)

L - "What are those sconces?"

(nothing historical...they are new!)

M - "Why does the torchere not close all the way?"
(no idea!)

M - "What is that crest on the fireplace?"

(the family crest...ha, ha, ha, nope...no significance!)

FAVORITES

B- "My favorite item is the reading lamp, & my favorite stories are about how your grandparents (my mother's parents) met & about how Grandpa first put the torchere together upside down!"

L - "I love the stories about the marble top dresser & how Daddy was bidding on it & Grandma stopped Grandpa from bidding against him (he couldn't see what Hubby was doing!) & how your grandparents met. I also loved looking at the yearbooks & seeing how young you & Daddy looked!"

M - "My favorite thing was seeing how young you & Daddy looked in the yearbooks. I also liked your special Junior League box with all of the letters in it (from Past Presidents)."

We got to talking about how my grandparents met when we looked through THEIR college yearbooks! My grandfather was a waiter in the girls dorm & actually dropped a piece of pie in my grandmother's lap. Way to get her to notice, right??? Anyway, he felt so badly & offered to have her dress cleaned. I guess the rest is history!

GAMES

Othello (this actually belonged to my grandparents)

OTRIO (brand new quarantine game)

Pente (this was mine as a child)

NEXT STOP...the Dining Room!

QUESTIONS
B - "Where did you get that green thing from?"

(my (great, great) Uncle Harry is an institution around here, or my grandparents, actually, who bought up so many cool things of his for my parents!)

L - "What is carved on the bottom of the candelabra?"

(ha! my dad's social security number...my parents lived in a very urban, downtown Atlanta community that was changing over at the time as more and more people moved in and restored old homes, and robberies were fairly common - one time their house was robbed and the burglar took time to make some orange juice! - okay, I'm off on a tangent...)

M - "Do you still have those dresses?"

(do they even need to ask this??? of course!)

FAVORITES
B - "My favorite is learning about Grandpa's social security number on the bottom of the candelabra!"

L - "I like the fact that we have a lot of things from famous families/people. I also like the story about the mirror & Grandpa's social security number being carved on the bottom of the candelabra."

M - "My favorite things in the room are the portraits of L & me!"

GAMES
Clue (not my childhood original, but one of my favorite games growing up!)
Scrabble (this was mine as a child)

More to come...

UPDATE (Fall 2020) - We never did finish this "road trip"...

We actually got sidetracked packing up and moving DURING THE PANDEMIC!!!

What a treasure to have these responses captured in time!

Maybe we need to revisit this in our new house room by room???

We will see...