Today I got to go on a 2nd grade field trip with Reece!  It’s a lottery system – at our school, there are usually more parents wanting to attend than spots available, so they have to draw names for parent helpers.  I even rescheduled my hair appointment to do this, so you know I was committed!  For girls, missing a hair appointment is a very serious matter.  Plus, I haven’t been to the Mahaffie Farm since Jake was a toddler when we went there for family pictures, so I wanted to check it out.  It’s grown tremendously and I learned a whole lot today about the Mahaffie family and all the ins and outs of running a stagecoach stop along the Santa Fe Trail.  Ugh, I might be at the stage of life that all of this historical stuff is now interesting.  When I was younger and my dad made us go on educational vacations, I think I wanted to poke my eyes out.

First we went down in the cellar of the limestone house and the kids churned butter.  Not surprisingly, none of them seemed to know what butter was made of or how it was made.  City folk for sure.We learned how they lived without electricity, iPads, TV’s, used outhouses, and slept all together in small rooms.  The best part of this trip was they did chores like the children did in the 1800’s!  They learned how to do laundry with lye soap…brrrr it was cold in that water!  I’m pretty sure this was Reece’s least favorite part of the day!

We learned what the children did for fun…we played ‘graces’ and running with these big wooden rings…so fun!They husked corn and ground it to feed the chickens, then they learned about the California Gold Rush and mined for gold…adorable!We learned all about the covered wagons traveling on the Oregon Trail and how they made their food on the fire, roasted and ground their coffee beans on the journey.  Ok so I actually didn’t realize that the people didn’t ride in the covered wagons…they walked along the side!  The wagons were just for their possessions, elderly and babies!  Oops…maybe that is something I should have known before today!We got to ride on a horse-drawn stagecoach!  And as you can see by this time of the day, we are going a little stir crazy…

So they put us back in the cellar to learn how to write with Quill pens!  You would think this would be super boring for 2nd graders.  Actually, they loved it!  They pretended they were living in the 1800’s and writing about their traveling adventures in a journal. How we made it out of there without permanent ink all over their clothing, I have no idea!  This could’ve been an absolute disaster!The kids read actual journal entries from a 14 year old young lady living in that time and passing through the area.Here is Reece’s journal…pretty good huh!?Finally we learned about the goods that were traded and they got to learn how to use a whip used for herding oxen (with safety goggles on of course!)Can you believe we packed all of this in!?  Well, I guess we were there for 5 hours!  What a cool field trip and this place is just a few miles down the road from where we live.  I feel like everyone should check this place out if passing through Olathe, KS.  The staff did an awesome job and kudos to them for wearing those horrendous outfits with a smile 😉

I LOVED spending this day with you Reecie Cups!