Happy Times - part 2

Yeah, Helen and William had arrived. Now we have two full days to enjoy. Friday Helen has to teach though. We discuss where the best place in the house for her to do this would be, where we don't disturb her but we still can have activities with William. We find a pretty good place. 

First we need to go shopping. James, William and I are down the hill. A notepad is needed. Which one?

It's raining, it's pouring today. So William is cooking. Helen and William had not tried the Moroccan Kefta yet. Helen had brought her fill dough. The filling is easy and delicious ...

... but doing the filling of the dough? Not so much. The filo is so paper-thin and, of course, rips easily. He kept at it until there were all 16.

The ping-pong table in the basement was William's favorite though. Incredible Papa just never could say "no". They were both rather proud of the fact that they both got better at it.

The valley we could see yesterday is nowhere to be seen today. 

Saturday, glorious Saturday. What a difference from yesterday. And we have decided what to do. Helen has three friends in Nashville which happen to be 100 % Native American. When they heard where she was going they suggested the Museum on the Cherokee Reservation. The drive was about 22 miles and lovely.

The museum was very interesting. 

So much information. Lots of history. Here are games to see which are similar to some games of today.

A Cherokee man, Sequoyah invented the written form of his spoken language (in the late 1810s and early 1820s), allowing the oral history of a people to be written down. Sequoyah used versions of characters from the Roman alphabet and modified others to make new symbols. Each one signifies a syllable in the Cherokee language.

In a glass case was a bible in the Cherokee language. 

The story of the brutal relocation of so many people of course makes one very sad. 

There were stations where craftsmanship will be demonstrated sometimes. Today there was only a potter.

There were lots of masks and of course they are quite fascinating.

Back to the car and what is next? It is a nice looking village next to the Oconaluftee River with footbridges to a small island. But there were lots of people about. We had seen people on the parking lot with ice cream cones and went on a search to find the shop.

Looks like we found it, ha-ha.

Of course the museum had a gift shop and William saw a bin with all sorts of gem stones. He loves those and Papa let him fill one of the bags. 

Omi across the room saw pea shooters and thought that all 4 boys might like them. We got one for each of them.

William and I had a shooting match from the deck into the woods. We had fun.

We even had somewhat of a sundown that evening.

Sunday

How fast the time had gone. We were supposed to vacate the rented house at 10 am. That is not a problem since we are all eager to get on the road for the drives. Since Helen had to work next day and William school again we saw them off of course. 

                                                                    And there they go. 

James and I were not in such a hurry but soon were on our way too. It was another lovely sunny day. We raided one of the coolers for a picnic lunch. 

Everybody got home safely and had a good time. Grateful. Thankful. 

PS: Sarah had a nanny-problem in the following week. Of course we helped out. We had something we could surprise the boys with. All 3 were so happy with their pea shooters. A win for Papa and Omi. Yeah.