"t's Monumental!"

DS brought home an assignment last week entitled, "The Monumental Scavenger Hunt". There was a list of about 15 historical places in town and we had to find eight of them and take a picture with DS in it at each one. At school the kids will research all the places and write about them. Then they will compile a scrapbook about it all.
Our first stop was at the Prairie Grove Battlefield. This is right up the road from my house and right across the street from the Super Cheap Thrift. We go here a lot for days out and picnics.This is Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church. I don't really know the history of it, but is a sweet quaint tiny church with gorgeous stained glass windows.

On to the "Old Courthouse" which is no longer used as the official Courthouse. The clouds were moving fast and when you looked up at clock tower, it really looked like the whole building was going to tip over! We got out of there!

On to the Historical District to find a house on the Historical Society List. I spotted this one and DS ran up for the photo. He wanted to get on the porch. He didn't understand that this was someones house and I could see they were inside watching TV through the glass door.

This is "Headquarter's House" where the Generals lived during the Civil War Battles. I've driven by this many times and never paid much attention to it. It is really neat with lots of gardens and interesting things. It wasn't open that day.

This is the "Old Post Office" on the city square. They keep the entire square covered in gardens and the flowers were just gorgeous. They put over a million lights up during Christmas and it is a Winter Wonderland.
This is the Confederate Cemetery. Very interesting - sits way up on a very peaceful, shady hill. There is a tall monument with four cannons and a soldier on top. The Confederate Flag flies every day. There wasn't anyone else around so we walked around along time and looked at everything. Suddenly a car pulled up and some more people came in the gate. Then I heard my son's name as a girl came running. It was one of his classmates out on the hunt too. Small world.
This is the Greek Theater at the University. It is a really cool place too. I hadn't realized that DS hadn't ever seen it. They cut off traffic through the UA campus so you can't just drive by it anymore. I spent many hours sitting in the amphitheater studying for exams and just chillin' in between classes.


And lastly, "Old Main" the original main building at the U of A. This is a fabulous building with fountains out front, beautiful trees and plants everywhere and the names of all the graduates engraved in the sidewalks. I will have to take DS back to see it all since we left fast. I could only find one parking spot and it was a Handicapped, Permit Only spot so we literally ran to the end of the car and snapped the photo and got out of there.

When this assignment came home I did a bit of grumbling about it. We like to do this sort of thing, but I know plenty of parents either can't or won't make the time to take their kids out to do it. We had a fabulous time and enjoyed learning more about our historic area.

Tomorrow I am taking DS and his friend to the "Grossology" exhibit. For those of you without children under the age of 13 or so - Grossology is the, uh, study, of, well, boogers, spit, poop and all that other icky stuff. Oh, the kids love it. School gets out at 1:00 so we will have most of the afternoon to get grossed out. You might think it is very nice of me to offer take a friend with us. But, you see, the two 11 year olds can go "pick the booger out of the giant nose", "weigh the saliva on the tongue" and slide down the "giant colon" while Mom stands near the back holding her stomach. Eeew.