Colonial Days

Yesterday we went to Provo to check out their new addition to the Freedom Festival called Colonial Days. It centered around the Printing museum and there were lots of other cool things going on. I wish we could have gone last night and seen the play they put on, but it just wouldn't have worked.

We started out at the Printing museum...I know it sounds like it might be kinda boring, but it was actually really interesting. I'd like to go back for one of their tours and learn more. Jason has gone for one before and he said it was really cool and has wanted to take the kids for awhile, but we've just never gotten around to it. I'm sure you all know how that goes. This picture is the kids in front of one of the printing presses near the front of the museum.

These pictures are probably the kids favorite part of the museum. There was a guy there and he'd type set your name for you. He'd key in your name and then molten metal would be pressed with the letters to form a typeset just for you (that you got to keep!). It was really cool to watch and the man doing it actually ended up being someone from our ward!

This is the kids in front of a bunch of different kinds of presses they had there.

During our interesting perusal of the printing museum we were temporarily asked to leave for the ribbon cutting of this new activity so we headed outside to see what that was all about. We saw a bagpipe band and there were some VERY short speakers including the mayor of Provo and the Lt. Governor of UT.

This is the kids watching the "parade" of the bagpipe band and a bunch of people dressed in colonial clothing.

After the ribbon cutting we were allowed to go see what they had on "Colonial Road". There were actually some interesting booths there. Emily was just in heaven because she has been so interested in how they did things in the "Pioneer Days" she's wanted to make a clothes line and she even asked if she could wash her clothes by hand like the pioneers do. She really cracks me up. So, they had wash boards and all of that kind of stuff for her to see how they did it. I think the only thing she would've liked better is if they actually let you try washing something. They had people demonstrating how to weave baskets, how they cooked and what kind of food they ate, how to make lace, and they even had this game that they actually did let the kids try to play. It's called graces and you take an embroidery hoop and two people with two sticks each. The person who has the hoop makes and X with their sticks with the hoop on them and then they pull the two sticks apart which sends the hoop flying (hopefully) towards the other player who catches it on their sticks and then sends it back. Kinda like catch I guess just with hoops. The kids were surprised how difficult it was. Here are some pics of the kids trying it out. It actually didn't take them too long to get it figured out.







This is a picture of the kids watching someone spin wool into thread.

So, there's some of the fun we had at Colonial Days.