D-Day Memorial - Bedford, VA

March 19 - our home school group headed to Bedford, VA to see the D-Day Memorial. The theme that runs through the memorial is "Valor, Fidelity and Sacrifice. We started out in a tent full of educational information.  Our educational guide talked to us about World War II, what it was like to be a soldier and what it was like on the home front.  They focused on the European War since the Infantry Division 116 came from Bedford and suffered such great losses.

German soldier's uniform.

C-rations.  World War II's MRE's (Meals-Ready-to-Eat).  

Some of the girls demonstrating.

R. showing what a soldier would carry with him.

Our educational guide with a knife.

R. with more equipment a soldier might carry.  One of the problems was if a soldier fell into the water with all his pack on it was very hard to get up.

The memorial is divided into three main areas: Planning, the Battle and the Victory.  The area representing Planning was in the form of a formal garden since they used a mansion. Busts of all the major military leaders surrounded the garden area.

The formal garden has the same shape and colors as the D-Day shield, except the black is replaced with green grass.

The shield.  The rainbow represents the many nations that participated.

Bronze plaques are everywhere.  This one shows the layout of the D-Day beaches and the battle plans.  Hardly any troops were actually at their assigned places but it did reduce the number of expected fatalities.

From the Planning area we went up the Battle area . The right side lists all the USA soldiers who died and on other side...

lists all the soldiers who died from other nations with flags of those nations.

The water was not in the reflecting pool yet, so I plan to take the kids to the memorial again.  Apparently the fountains mimic the sounds and actions of the gun fire.  If you get wet, you've been shot.  The big X thing is something the enemy put in the water to thwart ships.

This soldier represented valor.

These soldiers represented fidelity.  

This soldier represents sacrifice and the soldier he represents actually had a Bible that fell out on the sand.  The sand at the memorial is actual D-Day beach sand.

These soldiers climbing the wall represent valor, fidelity and sacrifice and the heroic climb that many soldiers made to take over the enemy positions.  Above was the third part of the memorial the Victory area.

Here is the Victory Arch.  The colors on the top represent markings on the airplanes used to make them different from the enemy airplanes.  Flags of the participating nations surround the arch plaza.

A reminder that when a soldier died they tried to bury the body with gun, helmet and dog tags.

Another representation of valor, fidelity and sacrifice.

I am reminded by our visit to the D-Day Memorial is that it is important for us to stop and remember the sacrifices of those who came before us for liberty and the many great blessings we enjoy.

After we finished up at the memorial we headed over to Liberty Park for lunch and playtime.  We forgot bread for our egg salad sandwiches so we ate them on potato chips.  B. decided she likes it and thinks we should do it all the time.

A lovely, shady shelter.

A colorful play structure.

C.

On the way home we decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway to Floyd, VA.  I had never gone that way before.  I knew it would take longer and I promised the girls ice cream at the Country Store.  We drove and drove. There are not many turn offs from the Blue Ridge Parkway and I was getting worried that we had somehow missed the turn. Fortunately the girls fell asleep and didn't notice how long it was taking. I saw a sign for Rocky Knob and figured if I didn't find route 8 by the time I got to Rocky Knob I better stop and find out where I was.  Fortunately route 8 showed up right before Rocky Know and we made our way to Floyd and the Country Store.

 Yummy ice cream!  Worth the wait.

Chinese New Year - Annual NRV-Families with Children from China

Every year we invite all our local friends who have adopted children from China as well as others who have some relationship to China and/or our children.  This year we celebrated the Year of the Tiger on Feb 20.  Chinese New Year (CNY) is a two week celebration. It begins with the first new moon after the full moon that follows winter solstice.  CNY started on Feb 14 this year.  It ends with the Lantern Festival which is also the full moon.  It is always special to me because it is when we were in China meeting B.

We usually have crafts, especially since the children are getting older. The oldest one of our bunch is about 12 or 13 years old.  The youngest is about 24 months.  The party includes food, a lion dance, bubble wrap stomp (instead of firecrackers) and red envelopes.

J.T. decorating his craft.

Final result of some of our artwork. Many thanks to A.M. for lending us her wonderful Chinese stamps.

Food!  We usually have traditional noodles, dumplings and less traditional foods - but delicious and creative none-the-less. We've gotten pretty good at making Nian Gao - Chinese New Year cake made with glutenous rice flour. We use peanuts and raisins in ours which add a little salt to our cake.  This year we also did a chocolate chip-pecan nian gao.

Dumplings!  People traditionally eat lots of dumplings for New Years because they resemble gold nuggets and that would bring prosperity to the family.  Eating long noodles brings long life to parents.  There are lots of fun Chinese New Year traditions, new clothes, not sweeping on New Year's Day so you don't sweep out good luck, fire crackers, etc., etc.

The group!

Lion Dance. We made this great lion head a few years ago and it just keeps on going. We fix it up a little bit each year.  Several kids got to be "first" and the others followed behind walking through the family room, dining room and kitchen and back in again to the cacophonous banging of everyone else.

This year we invited the children who sang at Chinese New Year - Virginia Tech program to do a repeat performance.

They sang the Tiger Song and a couple of others.  If I can figure out how to upload videos here again I will.

Here the older kids are getting ready to stomp on large bubble wrap - the sound is almost exactly like fire crackers and much safer.

Stomping!

 Little kids stomping!

Red envelopes - the children wish each of their parents and/or grandparents and/or senior person a Happy New Year and the parent/grandparent/senior person gives them a gift of a red envelop.  In seriously Chinese families with serious red envelopes this can add up to quite a bit of money.  At our celebration there were a $1 coin in each envelop, chocolate coins in another and a dollar bill in a third.

Grandma B., Boboa G. and C. handed out red envelopes to some of the girls.

B. receiving her red envelopes.  

Chinese New Year is a holiday we look forward to each year.  It ends our holiday season which starts with Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and New Years.

Author's Party

Grandma runs a Writing Workshop for the younger kids in the home school group and A. runs one for the older kids.  Every semester or so the students select one story to edit and spruce up for presentation. This was J's first Author's Party.

J. did a story about the Wizard of Oz.

D. did one on the Birth of Jesus.

The children also learned manners, invited their parents to come in and sit down.  After the program was over and everyone had presented their stories they invited the parents to enjoy refreshments which included grapes, carrots and "ants on a log" .

Food from the Philippines

The photo doesn't nearly do it justice. This is basically chocolate rice pudding made with glutenous rice flour, sugar and chocolate. It is supposed to be a favorite breakfast food. It tasted good with a little extra milk. History-wise we learned about the Spanish-American War.

I also fried a ripe plantain something commonly eaten in Cuba but forgot to take photographs. The fried platanos reminded me of my time in Venezuela.

International Adventures in Cooking

We've been studying "Story of the World, Vol 4" and have found that cooking food from the countries we are learning about make it more interesting. We learned that Ethiopia was one of two countries that remained under it's own rule after the "Scramble for Africa" . So we made Ground Nut Sauce with eggplant. B. thought it was OK, J. didn't like it and I thought it was great. BK said I could make it again. It is also good with squash instead of eggplant.

Basically it is one onion sauteed, two tomatoes diced (or one small can of diced tomatoes) sauteed with the onions. Cut the eggplant into bite sized portions and saute them with the onions and tomato. Take 1/2 cup of peanut butter (preferably one without sugar - the first time I made it I used the blender and made my own with lightly salted peanuts with oil) and 1/4 cup of water. When the eggplant is cooked (about 10 minutes) add the peanut sauce.
Serve over rice. Ours need more salt. I also tried it later over sweet potatoes. It was really yummy of sweet potatoes.

Next we read about the next-to-last czar of Russia, Alexander III, how his father was working to improve the life of serfs and improve the country. He saw his father assassinated so when he came to power he took away some of the liberties his father had granted. We also read a book "Russian Girl:Life in an Old Russian Town " that had an easy recipe for Pirog - It was basically a pile of cut up, cored apples. On the side you mix up milk, flour and eggs, then pour it over the apples and bake until the cake is cooked - sort of an apple cake. It was yummy but salt would have helped. It seemed a little like the bisquick "Impossible Pie" idea.

Next adventure was Korean cooking. We learned about the Sino-Japanese war which was fought mostly on Korean soil. King Kojong and Queen Min were ruling Korea and trying to bring the country to modern-ness in the late 1800's. Queen Min tried to get Russia to help against the Japanese and was assassinated. Above is a squash pancake. The pancake part is flour, milk and egg. The squash part was summer squash (normally it is zucchini) onions and green peppers. By itself it is pretty boring.

But add some dipping sauce (1/2 cup soy sauce and 1 tsp of cider vinegar) and it becomes quite delicious.

The page from the "Cooking the Korean Way" for kids.