A trip to the past.

We have become absolute fans of "The Little House on the Prairie" series, written by Laura Ingdalls Wilder.
We have grown into the books and simple can't help it but love them to pieces! We have been reading the series for about two years now. We didn't start from the very first book, so we haven't been reading them in a chronological order. And I think it adds a little twist, an extra fun to it.
We are down to a few chapters of the "Little Town on the Prairie" and then the last two books, out of the total of 9. We almost feel like to drag reading them a bit, to stretch the pleasure.
We read them together in the evenings. The girls usually draw something while I read out loud. Now that Mirek is at home in the evenings, we got him hooked on the books as well. He calls himself "Pa" and me "Ma" and we have adopted a few things from the book for our family. Like serving Pa's plate first at a dinner table :)

Ivana would read a book quickly to herself and then she would still insist on me reading it out loud and then she would get excited to hear the parts she had really enjoyed when reading them herself.
The girls would play together , pretending to be Mary, Laura and Milana would be Carrie. For a few days Milana insisted that she was not Milana, that she was Carrie.

I can't start praising the books, because it would be so hard to stop. Plus no words would do justice to describe the books. You simply have to read them yourself. And it doesn't matter you are not in school anymore. I believe it is a must read for every adult. I think I was born in a wrong time in history. I wish to have been living in those times! I so wish our lives these days would be simpler and people would be more connected and more for each other.

Discipline, self-reliance, respect for the land, a shared community, the joy of music were the values celebrated in those books. The values that are as valid today as they were in the Dakota territory in the 1880s.

On Sunday the day was trully a perfect fall day. The colors have been in full swing and the sun was still giving out enough of warmth to enjoy the outdoors without bundling up too much. Millbrook Village 1800s festival was last Sunday and it has become our beloved place to visit over the years. It was great to have our friends join us, and the girls each had a buddy to enjoy the craft demonstrations with and participate in the activities. We could not pull them out from the 1800s school house. They were too cute in their sun bonnets, sitting by the desks with their slates and answering teacher's questions.

On Wednesday we went to see a musical based on the Little House series. I was even more excited than the girls. They could not wait, and neither could I. Beautiful, wonderful, spectacular performance! I shed a tear at the theater. That how much the actors had touched me with their brilliant acting, singing and dancing. I was so happy that we had managed to attend the show even though those were the last tickets and we were sitting all the way up in the Mezzanine 2.
"One of the classics of American literature, Mrs. Wilder's nine volume memoir have become part of our American DNA", wrote a director of the musical F. Zambello. Our family would like to thank the producers of the musical for taking upon a challenge to make the books sing.