The Return of Mrs. Nesbitt

If we were doing a "Toy Story" themed story, it was only a matter of time.  As you can see above, Buzz Lightyear was a bit damaged with his most recent fall, and yes, now once again he thinks he's Mrs. Nesbitt.  This was an opportunity for us to get a goofy hat on him, and let him have a bit of a tea party with the sheep on stage, which of course includes Madison and her two friends.

Leave it to Jessie to come around and knock some sense into him.  But the larger mystery out there is this:  which toy is out there causing mischief?  We try to get that bottom line across, and also move a plot along on one stage.  This series has been fun using familiar characters and lines, and of course our message today was great, about not being so jealous of other people's talents and abilities.

Afterwards, it was time to return to the Northeast Georgia History Center, and of course, who do you think was there?

That's right, it was our friend from the Atlanta Historical Dance group, and she was dressed up as a flapper from the Roaring Twenties.  Naturally, the dance she was there to teach this time around was the Charleston.

And naturally, Madison wanted in on that.  Later on, she and a few friends were dancing along.  And in fact, Madison was doing a bit of the Charleston when we got home afterwards.

The theme of the afternoon was "pastimes," or at least the ones that were done in the past.  So it would be "Past Time's Pastimes."  That would have been a good title, but I'm not in charge.  Which might be a good thing.  Anyway, here's one pastime, a game called "Faro."

One important lesson to learn about gambling:  the house usually wins.  The girls had fun playing though, gambling the coins that they were given.  Madison started out a little rough, but earned just about everything back.  She fared a little better than her friend Jolina, but again, both of them had a good time with the game.

As you can see, people were dressed up in period costumes, staying at various stations and helping with different games.  Madison played a little D&D at one point, a more modern game - and also played some super retro video games, I guess from the 90's.  Also, there was a place to mix and match some costumes of your own - and Madison chose some of these backdrops:

Of course, these were fun costumes.  But as you can see below, the volunteers and helpers here at this event were wearing clothing items that looked mainly like this:

This is a porch to a cabin they have on property, and in one room was the game of faro.  In the other room, there was a collection of wooden games, and a game of checkers too.  Plus this classic game here - you can see Madison and Mommy both did well, both winners!

Mommy was playing the hoop game too, a game with small sticks, where you tried to pass a hoop from one player to the next.  She got pretty good at that.

But here below might have been the event of the day, the moment where our daughter was up to try a little bit of sword play.  Yes, she'd take a little stab at it!

Both girls tried it out, and both had a great time learning some basic moves, such as this sideways jump and thrust forward, nearly a hop sideways while lunging for some major artery.  I'm not entirely sure how lunging for a major artery is considered a pastime, but we'll let this one slide!
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Also, as you can see below, Madison was learning how to parry with her sword.  The instructor had good humor and Madison seemed to really enjoy it, and really catch on too.

Here she is, lunging back again and going on the offense!  You can hear Inigo Montoya's voice in your head now, can't you?

But alas, this was Madison's first attempt and she was overtaken in the end, although not before scoring perhaps enough damage to cause her opponent to have to change his name to "Lefty."

Still, you can see she was having a blast in these photos.  Mommy is up there on the porch, just taking in the sight of our daughter clashing swords.  I do seriously think she'd enjoy a bit of fencing if she wanted to try out for a fencing team.

She's not bad at it!

We had a great time, heading back in afterwards, and realizing that we'd been at this event for a few hours, and it was pretty much time to head on.  Afterwards, as Jolina's family was there, we went over their house, and Madison even got to go to their community pool for a bit, cooling off there.  Mommy spent some time talking with the family there, while Daddy was on the computer or resting.

We got home, and the girls took baths, and Madison worked a bit on her autobiography a bit.  We read another chapter of the Star Wars book tonight, with only two more to go in this second book.  We prayed for Ba-Ba, and read from the devotional as well.  It was a great day today, the end of a full weekend!