Half Pint (Road Trip Part 4)

My kids have been in to Little House on the Prairie, lately. It started when Chloe chose that book to read for a book club that she has with her friends. We had the best time hosting the book club at our house.

Brielle, Hannah & Chloe

We made whirligigs, which is a toy that kids would have played with in that era.

The girls enjoyed making homemade lemonade, churning butter and eating homemade cornbread as they discussed the book.

Then Chloe had to do a biography for school where she had to dress up like the person. She chose to do Laura Ingalls Wilder (Half Pint). Yes, she was a real person. The TV show "Little House on the Prairie" was based on her life.

Luckily, we have a pioneer dress that fits her.

Well, one day we were at the dentist and I was reading an article in a magazine about a road trip you can take and visit all the places where Laura lived. Three of them were in three of the states that we were already planning to go through anyways. We decided to go to Walnut Grove, Minnesota where the book "On the Banks of Plum Creek" is about. Jason wasn't too keen on seeing ALL the "Laura Ingalls" sites and we decided we would only make him suffer for one day.

Chloe & Myah playing "on the banks of plum creek".

They had a big family festival happening the day we were there complete with a Laura & Nellie Look-Alike Contest. So, since we had a pioneer dress that fit Chloe, I decided to enter her in the contest.

She was shocked when she was chosen to be 1 of 3 finalists out of about 30 girls.

She was paired up with a "Nellie" look-alike and they had to perform a skit together.

They didn't win though. Here is a picture of the "Nellie" and "Laura" that won.

We had a great time touring the little town of Walnut Grove and the museums they had there. That night they had a pageant that we went to, but we were bummed when they announced on the loud speaker that everyone had to evacuate and take cover because there was a huge storm coming. They even had police escorting everyone out. We were told to go to the local school, but we just drove to our hotel which was about 80 miles away and witnessed the most awesome lightning we had ever seen. It was literally like a strobe light for about 2 hours.