Back in Time at the Kellogg House

The second graders at Golden Elementary visited the Kellogg House. In the beginning, I got partnered up with Sophia and Jacqueline. The yellow school bus driver started the engine. Everyone was talkative and chatty during the long bus ride.

When we finally got there, we waited for our tour guide, Billy. He took us to the back of the Kellogg House and showed us how to use a washboard. I loved how the wringer squeezed the water out of the damp cloths. After that, our hands smelled horrible!

Then Billy took us to the orange grove. We sampled on sweet oranges and tangy grapefruit. We also tasted delicious lemonade. It was exquisite!

Our class made some quits ourselves out of paper. When we were finished, Billy led us to a blacksmith shop with a bunch of metal hanging on hook or lying on shelves. Ken, the blacksmith was trying to bend a horseshoe. He passed it around and we all tried to bend the crooked horseshoe, but we couldn’t. Ken said he could fix it but he would have to cheat. He cranked a handle of a fan to blow air into the fire and made the fire bigger and hotter. Then he stuck the horseshoe in the huge fire to make the metal of the shoe softer. It came out blazing red! He banged on it hard with a hammer until it was better and then laid the burning hot metal into a small tub of icy cold water.

Next, he made a nail for us and he told us about the different things he makes out of raw metal like eating utensils. He allowed us to put our hands in handcuffs also. It was like going to jail for the first time. Yikes! Before we lined up we took turns hitting some metal with a hammer.

When Billy led us back to Kellogg House, he showed us around the inside. We got to play with some old fashioned toys like Jacob’s ladder and a cup with a ball. There were felt boards, chalkboards, pick up sticks which were real sticks, Lincoln logs, wooden doll houses and tic-tac-toe.

Right before lunch, we went to dress up in old fashioned clothes. My dress was white with pearls and frills and puffy sleeves like Snow White’s dress. Everyone loved my outfit! We learned about the styles of their fashion and then headed out for lunch.

I had chocolate covered crackers, a peanut butter sandwich, apples and grapes with a juice box.

Billy also took us to the parlor which had a photograph machine, outdated phone, an organ and a grand piano. Mrs. Bartak played the piano and I loved the song she played. It was a very soft tune.
We went into the dining room and Billy startled us with the ghost drawers and showed us traditional cooking tools like a drainer, coffee grinder, and a butter churner. We made some butter for ourselves! We shook the cream to make the butter. We had it on crackers and it was scrumptious! I wish I got seconds.

Sadly, after the butter time was over, we headed for the bus. I am glad that now a day we have easier ways to do things! I will never forget our journey back in time at the Kellogg House!

At the Dunes

The day after school's was out, we went camping with YMCA in Newport Dune. We set the tent and went to sleep early. After waking up on Saturday morning, I tiptoed out of sleeping bag to eat breakfast. I quickly noticed that my dad went home for the night and saw my mom waking up. My brother was still asleep. I jiggled my mom up to ask her what was for breakfast and she handed me a piece of cinnamon bread and a napkin. I thought Kenny was pretending to be asleep except I wasn't so sure about that. A few seconds later, Kenny pretended to wake up. I wish I never taught him how to do that. Faint yawn, stretch, groan, yawn, open eyes slowly, pretend to struggle standing up, and then you stretch again. "I bet none of you know that I was pretending the whole time!" he said. My mom handed him a paper towel and a piece of cinnamon bread while I got seconds. It was really yummy in my tummy!

Then the door opened. It was my dad! He climbed inside the tent and explained why he went home for the night. He said that he couldn't fall asleep because of the chatter outside, the freeway, and that lousy old woodpecker. I understood about the woodpecker that was making tappity-tap sounds all night long, but I mean about the chatter and the freeway? Honestly, it wasn't so bad! I have to admit that it wasn't a bad idea to go home for the night, really it was only a 20 minute drive from home! Plus, dad did bring us our scooters and McDonald's Hot cakes! (We were allowed to scooter and bike on the sidewalk.)

I ate two pancakes with butter and went to the car to get the scooters. Once we were there, I opened the trunk and took out my scooter, except not Kenny's. He had to get it out on his own! My mom and dad trudged through the sand while we rode on the sidewalk. It was already 10:00. I rode up to our friends' trailers. They were getting on wristbands for the water park. I got a blue one and wrapped it around my wrist. Then, my friend Quinn's mom said that we were getting 4 hours to play in the ocean and that there would be fun things to play with. So I got on a life vest and ran down to the ocean.

The water was freezing, but I swam through it to an enormous, inflatable, saxophone looking thing that had two mouthpieces. I climbed onto one of the mouth pieces with Kenny and his friends. Some random girls climbed onto the other mouthpiece. We pushed against the wall of the mouthpiece and we went up into the sky! It was scary, but really fun! We pushed it down again. Whee! (see video of the saxophone thing). We flipped it over a couple more times. When we finally got tired of doing the same thing over and over again, I hopped down into the water and swam to the "Saturn".

We were all shivering by the time we got there. I tried to climb on it, but slipped off and plunged right back into the freezing water! I finally got onto the green Saturn when all of us started rocking back and forth, side to side, to and fro. The Saturn spun real fast and it started slowing down. I sat down on the Saturn's ring and held onto a black handle, so I wouldn't slip off while the Saturn started spinning. Then it spun the other way, I jumped off.

I was so dizzy and tired. It's unfair that inflatable Saturns go so fast. It is also unfair that time passes by so quickly when your having fun 'cause before we knew it, four hours were done and that was good and bad at the same time. It was good because that meant I didn't have to suffer in the coldness of the water anymore, but it was bad 'cause we didn't get to play on the inflatable toys any more. Still, we did get sundaes. There were nuts, and hot fudge, sprinkles, chocolate chips, caramel, and four type of ice cream. Vanilla, double chocolate, mint, and cookie dough. I took a whole bowl of nuts, that's all. I am a nut addict. It was a really good day and we had a spectacular time in the water even though it was crazy cold!