Today is Wendy's birthday and I surprised her with a trip to Mansfield to see the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like most people our age, Wendy was obsessed with "Little House on the Prairie" as a child and had mentioned before how badly she wanted to be able to visit the historic site where Laura and Almanzo settled in Missouri. It's a really cool little road trip and the tickets for the museum and guided tour and entry into both houses they lived in is only $8 for adults.
It was amazing seeing all of the hand written notes, old photos, hand-made dresses, etc. They even have Pa's fiddle on display. There is so much stuff to see I can't even describe it all. It's interesting to see pictures of the real Ingalls family when you have Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert pictured instead.
Wendy enjoyed learning that Laura was extremely short and never even reached 5 ft tall as an adult. There are so few adults that Wendy is taller than, she really gets excited. Walking through the houses and seeing furniture that Almanzo made and items that were mentioned in her stories was amazing. We even got to see the desk Laura sat at while writing some of the Little House books. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend checking this out.
The saddest part is when you realize that Laura, Almanzo, and their daughter Rose Wilder Lane are actually buried in the Mansfield Cemetery and you go rushing over there to see their graves only to realize that since they had no other family in this area and their bloodline did not continue, no one decorates their graves. Laura and Almanzo have a double headstone and Rose is buried right next to them. The headstones are pretty and the area surrounding the three graves has been marked off to draw attention to them. But there are no flowers or any decorations at all. All around the entire cemetery you see flowers everywhere; but the Wilder family, despite their fame and celebrity, remain unadorned. This is actually the second time I've visited their graves in the past year and it has been this way both times now. Something about that really bothers me. I can't believe no one is there who will pay this family respect. Makes me wanna drive back out there with some flowers.
On a happier note, after we got back from our Mansfield trip we took the twins to Hollywood Theater to see "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse". It was MUCH better than the first 2 Twilight movies. See, I have read all 4 books. Read them before any movies were made. So I was highly disappointed in the first movie. It skipped around so much and was hard to follow. It left out huge chunks of the book and the characters were 10x more emo on-screen than they are in the book. The 2nd movie, "New Moon" was a tiny bit better, but I still didn't care for it. Fortunately the 3rd installment, "Eclipse" is a HUGE improvement. Followed the book really well, characters were allowed to be happy for a few minutes (less emo), really well shot and directed. Now I'm excited to see the 4th.
Day two at my new job and we have been given binders and tabbed dividers to help organize our training documentation. I am so excited I'm practically squealing with delight. I happen to be a total dork and I LOVE office / school supplies. It's a real struggle for me not to constantly buy notebooks and pens and binders and rulers and glue and... well you get the picture. Of course I also love homework and studying and learning new things. So this 8 week training program is right up my alley. 
