Finding Fall: In a Litte House

My lovies in a big chair at the Frontier Village.

A few weeks ago we headed out on a big road trip to North Dakota for our friends wedding. An 8 hour trip in a car with two little people might seem daunting, but for me it was an eight glorious hours of conversation, book reading, joke telling and snack eating. And it was a beautiful weekend, the leaves were changing color. It was chilly and I wore a wool sweater most of the weekend. Could the weekend have been more perfect?

Um, Yes, it could.

Especially if your like me and you take every moment possible moment to indoctrinate your children on the books you loved growing up. Ha! I pumped up and hyped up Little House in the Big Woods and it did not disappoint the backseat peanut gallery. So many things to learn!

We read it for almost the whole trip.

And since I had planned on reading this book, we took a detour through De Smet, South Dakota to the Ingalls' Homestead-- hoping to get a good look at the house they lived in during the book By the Shores of Silver Lake.

The 'little house' and the later built homestead.

We took sometime to explore the visitors center and drive around to see all the buildings, taking a tour was just not in our budget this time. But both kids picked up corn cob dolls- just like Laura.

Frontier Village Log Cabin

On our way home we started reading Farmer Boy and we stopped by a Frontier Village which we could explore all we wanted. We were excited to see that it was in a similar time to the Little House books.

We even wrote a family report about our experiences-- hey the car trip was getting a bit long! Most of it was dictated by them.

I am so glad we took these little side trips, it made for such an adventure. And the midwest has such a rich history of exploration and settlement, I want the kids to experience that too.

And how could we not stop to see the World's Largest Buffalo?

Would you like to see our report? I've added it below! (:



We found fall on our adventure. Where are you finding beauty this autumn?

"This weekend we went to visit Laura Ingalls' homestead [in De Smet, South Dakota]. There was a covered wagon, there was a school house, a country church and now a gift shop. The houses and buildings were set on a prairie. on the homestead they had a barn for animals.

In the car we read a book called "Little House in the Big Woods." Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura and baby Carrie life in a log cabin. They make a lot of their own food like stewed pumpkins, bread and butter. Pa hunted animals for meat, they smoked the meat. They made their own cheese.

For fun the girls played under the trees in nice weather. Laura had a corn cob for a doll she named it Susan. For Christmas she got a rag doll and named it Charlotte.

On Sunday, we went to a little frontier town. It had two goats named Ted and Fred. And we saw a HUGE buffalo. In the town it had a log cabin with a wood stove just like Laura's! There was an old quilt on the bed.

On the way to North Dakota we saw lots of different kinds of farms. We saw lots of crops: corn, beans, sunflowers and potatoes.

On the way home we started reading Farmer Boy. The little boy Almonzo attended a one room school just like at Laura's homestead and like at the frontier village."