Stone's Trace Festival

Our history book this year is the Story of the Great Republic by H. A. Guerber. I cannot recommend this book enough for elementary history! It was written at the turn of the century, and is in a living book format. We all have been enjoying it, and (sadly enough) I am learning the most of anyone! Why couldn't we have learned these things in public school? Anyway, I digress... A few weeks ago we heard that Stone's Trace Festival was happening, and we'd been meaning to go for a few years, but we always seemed to have something else come up- so this year we decided to go. I started looking into the background of it (it's a historical festival) and realized that we were studying about the very person that we can thank for Stone's Trace that day in history! I had never heard of General Mad Anthony Wayne before, but apparently he was a large figure in American history- there was a chapter in our history book about him and he actually cleared a passage for the pioneers right by here, leaving behind a historical site called Stone's Trace near Ligonier (where our beloved Fashion Farm is located!). We had so much fun seeing reenactments, checking out the goods, and eating cornbread and fresh from the kettle apple dumplings. Stephen loved the traveling bagpipe player, Katy searched and searched for Johnny Appleseed (who was handing out "purty" stones) but we never found him- next year!, Hannah loved going through the museums, and Erin thoroughly enjoyed her massive ice cream cone. The girls found a huge garden spider outside of one of the museums (the picture doesn't do him justice), and took their first bus ride ever. They had everyone parking on the school campus (they have their elementary, middle and high schools all on the same campus- how convenient is that?) and then bused us over to the grounds across the way. And let me tell you, this was my kind of school bus- it was clean, smelled like potpourri, and the woman driving it had hymns on piano playing. The girls chose the seats all the way in the back of course! :) What kid doesn't like bumps?
So, this was definitely a destination worth going to, and we'll be back again next year, Lord willing!