Land of Lincoln

This week finds us in Chatham, IL for a week of meetings.  Chatham is a small town just outside of Springfield, for those of you who have never heard of it.  I hadn’t either until a few weeks ago!  On Wednesday of this week, we were able to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in downtown Springfield.  It was really an interesting museum.

There were several show-type exhibits that we watched, and I thought they were very well done.  In addition to having a lot of the Lincoln family’s personal memorabilia, they had a host of Civil War artifacts and information.  We wandered around for a while, but I was only able to take pictures in two areas, so I didn’t have a lot of physical documentation for our trip.

Here are the kids posing with the Lincoln family.  Everyone say, “Cheese and pickles!”

Probably their favorite part of the whole museum was Mary’s Attic, an interactive area for children.  It had a number of various period costumes for the kids to dress up in, as well as a cottage hearth/kitchen in one corner, an enormous doll house, a huge table of Lincoln Logs and some other fun things. 

Honey, I’m home… from the war!

Stoke up the fire, Esther!

Dinner is almost ready!

My favorite meal!  Potatoes, apples, bread, and cheese, all made of rubber!  How thoughtful of you, my dear!

Daniel quickly tired of the dress-up game, and moved on to the other activities.  Here he is being an architect.

We really enjoyed our time here, and I had to practically drag the kids out of Mary’s Attic, in spite of the fact that it was past lunch time!  They even asked of we could come back.  At first, I was a little disturbed that they didn’t enjoy the exhibits more, but I came to the conclusion that they will learn all about that stuff eventually.  I just need to take a chill pill and let them enjoy being children—dressing up, playing house, building houses—all that good fun that they too soon outgrow.  Life is more than just collecting facts; it is all about really living!