Beth 15th Birthday Celebration and Activity

This week we celebrated Beth's 15th birthday.  Her birthday was Friday, the 26th.  We always allow birthday people to choose their dessert or cake and other meal entrees on the day we are celebrating.  Beth wanted Dirt Cake this year.  It is very yummy, made with oreo cookies, french vanilla pudding, cream cheese and cool whip.

Beth was serving everyone; she was pretending to take that big bite!

For her birthday gifts, Beth got the new turtle neck shirt, dressmaker scissors, a Kodak pocket knife, 2 Hershey candy bars, fuzzy house shoes, some money,  and an mp3 player.  She also got a jumper which is featured in a post on her blog: 

The birthday activity was to go to a Living History presentation in Arvada, CO.  It was presented by a church group that has a lot of homeschoolers in it who are interested in history. There was a play first, then eight different stations we went to, to learn about different parts of colonial life during the time period right before and the starting of the Revolutionary War.  At several stations, the characters gave a short lesson of comfort from the Bible "for these perilous times."  We couldn't help but think how appropriate it was for "our perilous times" as well.

In this picture, Beth was being a "camp follower", washing clothes for the soldiers of the militia.

These were other people in our group, doing what we had just done, but were not able to take pictures of ourselves doing:  filling straw tick mattresses for the soldiers to sleep on.  

While we "women" were being "camp followers", the men and boys were becoming part of the militia.  Here Jason and Jeffrey are getting some training by the officers.  Our friend, Mathew Hinkle is the French officer on the left, dressed in white.  He explained to all why the French were interested and involved in the colonies' struggle for independence from England.

This picture is similar to the one above, but Rowen is also in it.  He took a half day vacation to go on this outing with us.  We were so glad to have him with us, even though he doesn't appear in many pictures!  It appears that Jason either doesn't want to be in these pictures or there is something else distracting him!

We were at an agricultural station, learning about animals and crops the colonists grew.  We also learned about indentured servants, as there was one who told us all about it!

These girls played some beautiful string music for us in the music tent.

This is a girl who explained how to make candles.

Emily took turns with a line of smaller children who dipped candles.

At a woodworking station Jeffrey and Jason helped the town by cutting firewood.

Emily also helped out by cutting firewood.

This was the clothing and education station where we learned about the schooling methods in colonial times and the different articles of clothing worn by the colonists.

One of the stations was games the colonial children played.  All the games were made from readily available resources.  This video is of our group moving a hoop made of twisted vines all around the circle while we were holding hands.

The one station we did not get a picture of was the longhunter camp.  The word longhunter is not about the very long gun used, but means hunting for a long time period--two or three months at a time.  We saw lead bullets being made there and visited with the longhunter.

At the end of the afternoon, there was a trial for a traitor who was in the camp!  It was conducted by the mayor of the Virginian town,  on the right, and the town attorney, on the left. We were supposed to collect clues about who the traitor could be throughout the afternoon.  The traitor was supposedly stirring up the Indians against the settlers, thereby furthering the British cause.  Lots of the children present brought accusations against several individuals as the traitor.

The boy on the right was determined to be the traitor.

A jury was chosen to determine his guilt and sworn in.  Jeffrey was chosen to be part of this jury who found the young man guilty.

We didn't get pictures of it, but the young man was put in stocks for "24 hours" and pelted with Virginian tomatoes!  (water balloons!)  Emily got to throw a water balloon at him.  It was too crowded to see or get a picture, but Emily told us he got drenched and muddy from the breaking water balloons.  He was in stocks on the dusty ground.

After all that fun and learning, we found a park in Arvada to eat our picnic supper.  It was a beautiful day.

This was a bridge over a canal or stream in the park.

We had a fun day celebrating Beth's birthday.  We are thankful to have her in our family.  She is a blessing to all of us every day!