Sinkland Farms & Pumpkin Patch

One of my favorite things about Autumn is hayrides and pumpkin patches!











Today we visited Sinkland Farms for the first time, which is located just outside of Christansburg in the glorious mountains of Virginia. The weather had been fantastic these past few days, and the blue sky made me happy! :)

I was really excited about the pumpkin toss. It's like this huuugeee sling shot where you try and shoot the pumpkins into baskets.

Neither Joshua nor I got the pumpkins in the baskets, but it was still a lot of fun! We stopped and ate kettle corn & ice cream while listening to live blue grass music :) It was a nice afternoon.

Sumo Wrestling & Tuesday Classes

The homeschool group in Virginia has classes every Tuesday - first is History, then we have a lunch break, second class is Film making, and third is Sign Language class.

our teachers - ginger and julie,
demonstrating how 'sumo' is done

History class is usually pretty fun! We read a few chapters out of our history book, and then our Teacher Julie quizzes us about it. Afterwards we do a craft or play a game related to what we just learned. This week in particular we learned about Samuri, so it was only natural to have our own sumo match! We learned all about the process the sumo will go through, how they have to drink water to purify themselves, and so on.


Film Making class was broke into two groups. Group A wrote and filmed a Wizard of Odd movie, based of the wizard of oz. Group B wrote and filmed a zombie movie. Each group got to work hands-on with deciding on props, special effects, editing the movie and even picking out the soundtrack. I ended up being on the Zombie making team!

Sam getting excited

Sign Language is a class I have mentioned before here.

Today for Sumo wresting we all brought pillows and just strapped on to our fronts and the other to our backs :) It was a lot of fun and it was nice to see all of the kids learning and even enjoying themselves!

Me and Jessie!

Weekly Fieldtrip - Wilderness Road Regional Museum

I woke up suuuppeerr early at Meghann's house, needless to say I was pretty exhausted! We made sure to pack a lunch and we caught a ride to the community college with her older sisters, and from there we got picked up by Ginger, who surprisingly took us out to eat that morning, it was nice :) 







A whole group of us homeschoolers met at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum for our weekly fieldtrip! There was at least 30 of us in total, if not more, it was a huge group! 


"Located in an 1800's era house;  owned and operated by The New River Historical Society and contains local area books, records and exhibits." is just a brief description of where we went. 





The enormous old house is filled with tons and tons of artifacts that were from this area. We learned all about the people who lived in this area of Virginia, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, how they lived their lives. 

accurate representation of our relationship

some of the kids making butter!

After our several hour long interactive fun fieldtrip, we headed over to the park for lunch :) It made me really happy to spend time with friends! We all ran around and hung out for awhile. Meg, Austin (my boyfriend), Jess, and I went for a walk in the woods before Meggie had to leave :( 
Later on we played a game of catch and hung out at the playground before it was time to go home for the day.

homeschool train

Riverfest

Here in the New River Valley of Virginia they had a small local festival, with many vendors, craft tables, games, live music and food all throughout the day.

The Radford Library had a table set up with crafts and an area with games, so my friend Meghann and I decided to volunteer and were 'helpers' all afternoon. We both enjoyed helping out with the kids and interacting with people, it was a lot of fun! At the gazebo there was local bands playing bluegrass and folk music, occasional we'd jam out and dance to the music! :)

• The Riverfest was put together to bring the community together, helping to support local businesses along with raising money for charity.

Along with the day-long events at the riverfest, there was a "duck race" where you would buy a rubber duckie -the proceeds going to a local organization- and they would toss the ducks off the bridge and into the New River.

It was an exciting race, watching over 600+ ducks float down the river to the finish line! Of course, things didn't go as plan... many of the hundreds of ducks started floating further down the river than they anticipated. Apparently they spent all afternoon trying to round up all of them!

Accomplishments at the fair!

The fair - which is usually the highlight of my artistic career. This year I entered 4 photographs, 3 paintings, and a sculpture, all of which got a ribbon :)

Watercolors, 1st place

Acrylic, 2nd place

Watercolors, 3rd place

 I've gotten 1st place before, but this year was the first for me, receiving the purple ribbon, Best in Show!

Wilbert

I was very happy that my paper mache turtle-named Wilbert-got his own ribbon.

Black and White Portrait, 1st place

Wildlife, 2nd place

my kitties just got a 'participant' ribbon...

Glencoe Museum

I'm always willing to explore new places, and this place in particular is somewhere I've driven by many times, but for some reason our family has never stopped there. This place is called the Glencoe Museum. I actually had no idea what this place was about until we visited it just recently.

• Glencoe gives visitors a fascinating look back at the Victorian way of life during the post-Civil War years. Built by Confederate Brigadier General Gabriel C. Wharton, the house and grounds provide an intimate view of a lost way of life.

I learned a lot from going to the museum, and I'm glad we finally took the trip inside!

The doorways and ceilings are so huge and tall, not to mention all of the many windows of this house, it is so bright inside. My mother said it reminded her of her great-aunt's house :)

A courting chair, how times have changed...

This house was filled with such elegance, and housed many things that seem so foreign but yet at the same time familiar. Many of the things I recognized, and even my mother used when she was a girl.

This house is different from a modern day home- they have a fire place in many of the rooms, also there was no indoor bathroom or running water. Our guide was very informative and answered any questions we had! (We've also seen him before, he works at the local library as well!)

The upstairs had a bedroom, but also had many different kinds of artifacts and information.

We learned about Native American history, and also go to see items the Native American Indians in this area would have used. Another thing we learned about was the Civil War and the railroad history of Virginia.

•  A purple heart. A military decoration for those wounded or killed in action. My grandfather received one of these.

We also ventured downstairs, to a room which is now used as an art gallery, the art shown was quite interesting and I enjoyed looking at the gallery. Before the tour was over, there was one more stop to take- the one room outdoor school house!

The cone of shame...

I really enjoyed our time here at the Glencoe Museum and we all learned so many new things!