a soldier’s dinner and a president’s dessert

This was one of the most fun meals we’ve enjoyed so far in our journey around the US, reminding me of another exciting dinner we shared in our journey around the world and this one was pretty fun too.  Maybe we should eat in the backyard more often.

For our Gettysburg meal, as we read and learned about the civil war all week, especially as we were really understanding it from a soldier’s perspective through

we decided to have a meal mimicking something the soldiers would have eaten while in battle.  And of course, we couldn’t resist the urge to have our own “authentic civil war” backyard fire (thank you Craigslist and the friendly lady who sold us the washing machine drum fire pit).

Gettysburg Menu:

 Beans

served in empty aluminum soup cans

Hard tack

hard tack is a super hard cracker the soldiers would carry with them in their packs

I seriously almost broke my tooth on this stuff

Bacon (made a la fire pit)

 Fall in soldiers!

our mighty men

After dinner we shifted gears a bit, thanks to some inspiration from a library book we found…

It was a cute little story, but the best part was the back…

So we brought our battalion indoors, cleaned them up and enjoyed some fine-dining, president Lincoln-style.

Delicious!

After a more heavy week, it was nice to have a fun, unique dinner.  And although we are grateful that there is no longer obvious slavery in our country, we are all too aware that people in the US and around the world are mistreated and sold as slaves.  It is truly heartbreaking.  We spent much time this week praying for those people around the world who are purchased and treated like possessions and we thanked Jesus for purchasing us at the most costly price.

Thank you Abraham Lincoln for taking a stand when others were too cowardly to stand up for what is right.  Thank you for your words of inspiration at Gettysburg to rally the people to fight for justice.

fourscore and seven years ago….Gone to Gettysburg

I am SO behind in posting our adventures that I will likely be grouping a lot more together these days.

We left Flagstaff and took our journey east to Gettysburg, going deep into history and sad times in our country.

It’s been a long time since I learned about the great war that divided the north and the south, black and white, slave and free, and as much as I feel so ignorant regarding slavery and even the reality of this war, I caught myself in such disbelief as we read stories and learned, wondering how could people fight over whether or not they could own other people. It truly baffles me still.

In order to learn more about the war and those involved, we dove into  several books from the library and home.  These were our favorite:

This is a book I bought when I taught and it has great short bits on different events in American History. The short story we read from this week included one on Lincoln’s childhood and what led him to the presidency.

“The Gettysburg Address” with wonderful illustrations and a brief description of what made this speech significant.

This was one of my favorites with sweet stories of Lincoln and his two wild sons and how he loved them so!  It was a touching book about how a father cherishes his children in the middle of fear and devastation.

Tallinn and I spent much time reading this wonderful book! While we didn’t finish it as it ended up being a bit heavy and over his head, I hope to continue it again someday when he’s a bit older.

President Lincoln was by far my favorite president and being reminded of his character, hard work and determination, brought back lots of childhood memories.  What an amazing leader he was!

Gettysburg Spelling Words:

1. honest

2. civil

3. battle

4. war

5. fighting

6. slavery

7. address

8. unfair

9. African