Fort Toulouse

I'm LOVING having all 6 kids in school.  It allows me to go with my kids on every field trip they have.  I've never been able to chaperone field trips because I've always had little kids with me, but now I'm going on field trips once a week.  It's a blast.

Bladen is a 4th grader this year & 4th graders always have the very best field trips because that's the big HISTORY year.  He's studying Alabama history & he's got some amazing field trips planned.  His first field trip was to the nature preserve & his 2nd was a trip to Fort Toulouse & Fort Jackson.  It was a BLAST.

I love seeing history come alive.  And I love seeing my own kids get excited about history.  This was the perfect place for that.  Fort Toulouse & Fort Jackson are 2 forts (one French, one British/American) that do reinactments of the time period they symbolize.  People are dressed up like people from the 1700's & 1800's & they show kids & adults what life was like in the forts during that time.  It was incredible.

Bladen enjoyed the street performers.  He even got to play with the monkey marionette.

There was SO much to see & SO many people to talk to.  I loved all the amazing costumes & props from those time periods.

Bladen's favorite part was the homemade root beer.  I had cream soda & let me tell you, it was delicious.

Bladen's favorite shop was the blacksmith shop.  I'm pretty sure we visited that blacksmith shop 3 or 4 times during the field trip.  He enjoyed watching them put the metal into the fire until it was red hot.  He was amazed as they pounded the metal into shapes.  It was really interesting.  Being a blacksmith was hard work.

Bladen's little friend Heidi loved the silhouette lady.  Back then, pictures were too expensive so people would have silhouettes made to hang on their walls.  This was done by a silhouette artist who would cut their silhouettes onto black paper & glue it to white paper to hang on a wall.  It was pretty impressive.  Quite the talent.

We learned how to spin wool into yarn too.

The French Fort had some really strong structures rather than tents.  Their uniforms were quite beautiful too.

Bladen also enjoyed grinding corn into cornmeal in the Indian Territory section.

It was a blast.  What a fun day with my cutie pie.  I love him so much.