7-Quick Takes

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1. We thoroughly enjoyed our second week of spring break!  During Holy Week the kids sang with the choir for Holy Thursday, Mr. Pete and I played for Good Friday, and then the kids sang again at the Easter Vigil and the Easter Sunday Morning Mass.  Mr. Pete sang for the later Easter Sunday mass. So after all of that including preparing an Easter Dinner and Easter Baskets- we needed the second week to recover from the first!

2.But it’s not good to have kids with nothing to do!  So Gabe painted my bathroom and hallway and did a pretty good job too (although he broke both of my broom handles when he was rolling paint on the ceiling!

3. On Tuesday we visited the McKinley Monument in Canton Ohio.

McKinley is kind of a tragic figure.  He and his wife lost both of their little girls when they were very young. Mrs. McKinley then developed epilepsy that plagued her throughout her life and William McKinley protected and supported her commendably.  In fact being an outstanding husband, some said, helped him to gain the presidency in the first place.  He was assassinated during the beginning of his second term at age 59. This statue outside of his monument was based on a photograph taken just hours before he was shot.

4. These are two talking mannequins of William and Ida McKinley inside of the McKinley Museum.  In many ways Ida’s life was even more tragic than her husbands.  Her mother passed away just a few weeks before her second child was born.  Then her baby died and her older daughter died from typhus shortly after that.  Her epilepsy kept her from being in the public as much as she would have liked, but she did sit with her husband and cared for him after he was wounded until his death.  She outlived him by six more years and was said to have visited his temporary grave site and the graves of her children daily.

5. The McKinley Museum was very impressive.  They have managed to collect a lot of items from the era.

They also had a science section that we spent a lot of time in.  Really, I could have spent all day there reading the exhibits.

6.On Thursday we went to the Homeschool Gym.  We hadn’t been there for a few weeks because of the cost of gasoline and the distance.  But the leader of the gym was leaving this week so we went to wish her well and also for the kids to have a chance to play with the friends they had made there.

7. Then we topped it all off today by planning a play day in the park with some other homeschool families.  All in all, a nice break for the kids and for me!