Legends and Lanterns

The 10th Anniversary of Legends & Lanterns

Yesterday we went to St. Charles, MO, for our favorite annual Halloween expEERIEnce…Legends & Lanterns! This is a very special year, because the event is celebrating its 10th season!!!

Because we waited until the last weekend of the event to visit, we got to see all of the carved pumpkins ready for the evening pumpkin glow. This is a truly tiny sample…it’s hard to explain how many hundreds of pumpkins there are up and down Main Street!

The seasonal decor and atmosphere in St. Charles is always outstanding! When you see the horse-drawn carriages go by, you truly feel like you’ve been transported back in time!

Scarecrow Glen is so much fun to walk through…I’m always impressed with the creativity behind the displays!

And we stopped in the Tourism Center, where we got a behind-the-scenes look at the planning and preparation for the event:

Of course we ran into all of our old favorite characters. I look forward to seeing Captain Hook every year, the Big Bad Wolf is always a riot, and the assembled writers can be counted on to give a great performance, whether spoken or sung!

And some new favorites, too! I was especially excited about the addition of the regal and intimidating Evil Queen, and the costume and makeup of the Aos Si (similar to a fairy if that name is as new to you as it was to me) were outstanding!

I had to get pictures with my personal favorites:

This year’s program guide was styled like a yearbook…I mean FEARbook! It’s so well put together…I love all of the trivia included, and there were spots to stop for embossed stamps at some of the event locations. Each character also had a “class of” listing, so you could see just exactly when each personality was added to the event, as well as a “Sinister Superlative” in the spirit of a “most likely to” prediction.

This is such a fantastic affair, and I’m so glad we’ve been able to be a part of it for so much of the past decade…I’m already looking forward to see what they have planned for the future!

2024-25 School Year–Week Ten

First up…a glimpse of our trip to Legends and Lanterns in St. Charles, MO, last weekend. A highlight of the event was a stop in Oz where we met the Wicked Witch of the East, and admired her silver slippers…we were glad she was representing the book we’ve been reading!

Speaking of Oz, we also stopped by Starbucks so we could try their new Wicked drinks:

On to the schoolwork, including some of the stuff we worked on last week. Ladybug learned about whole-to-part and part-to-whole fallacies in logic. She started a new literature study of A Tale of Two Cities, and also continued reading Paradise Lost. We read about Ambrose and Jerome in religion. She continued reading A People’s History of the United States, including the arrival of Columbus and the beginning of slavery in the Americas. In psychology she read about sleep cycles and different theories about dreams. Tomorrow she takes the ACT!

Chickadee solved problems using ratios and proportions in pre-algebra, and also converted decimals to percents and vice-versa. She read about the Kingdom of Prussia and New France in history. We discussed the internal, external, and bibliographic tests in science. She worked on writing an analysis of a short story. We’re getting closer to the end of Tom Sawyer (thankfully). We continued to read The Wizard of Oz, and made a pair of recipes from The Wizard of Oz: The Official Cookbook…”Oh, Look! Apples and Walnut Salad with Shrub Vinaigrette” and “Apple Shrub Cocktail,” with flavors of the apple shrub we worked on all week, plus lemon juice, hibiscus syrup, and seltzer.

We have plans for a few outings we want to go on in the coming weeks…stay tuned!

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee had a great time at Legends and Lanterns, and got to see some of her favorite villains:

Lizzie Borden gave her some tips on using an axe…I’m not so sure how thrilled I am about that!

We’re already looking forward to going back for Christmas Traditions!

Legends and Lanterns 2024

It’s that time of year again, when we make lots of trips to St. Charles, MO!

This past weekend, we were on historic Main Street for Legends and Lanterns. It’s always nice to see the characters…like greeting old friends (or enemies, depending on your point of view!).

Since we’ve been reading The Wizard of Oz, we were especially excited to see the Wicked Witch of the East, and we were especially thrilled when she showed off her shoes…silver, like in the book!

And it’s always a treat to see Rizzo, the Big Bad Wolf, lurking just outside of Grandma’s Cookies:

There are frightful decorations everywhere you look.

And on the way home, we stopped at Sonic for a Witch’s Brew caramel apple boba slush float, which was truly tasty!

Next up in just a few(ish) weeks…Christmas Traditions!

A Journey Through Halloween History

I was a little worried we weren’t going to make it to Legends and Lanterns this year…we had to wait until the final weekend to fit it into our schedule, and the weather forecast for Saturday wasn’t exactly promising. But the rain held off long enough for our visit, and, as always, it was fun!

The characters are always the main attraction. We saw some old favorites, and a few new faces as well.

Also new this year was the addition of some do-it-yourself passport stamps for some of the characters. I really loved this activity…the lovely embossed stamps are such a fun, tactile inclusion to the passport, and they’re really beautiful!

It’s always fun to catch a performance by the Angry Villagers!

I am also always captivated by how charming and lovely historic St. Charles is, especially in the fall! The decorations are top notch, and the glorious fall colors are outstanding!

Scarecrow Glen is another favorite stop. At this point, they’ve run rather far afield of the concept of scarecrows, but I don’t care…I just love seeing all of the creative displays! The homage to Jack Frost was definitely my favorite…I’m already looking forward to Christmas Traditions!

I’m glad the weather was clear long enough for our visit!

2023-24 School Year–Week Ten

Ladybug verified trig expressions and identities in pre-calculus. She’s almost finished with readings from Eusebius in religion, and she’s very excited about that! In physics, she finished the chapter that introduced Newton’s Laws (not that she’s done with them!). She reviewed the use of possessives in grammar. In history she read about England’s John Softsword and the shogunate in Japan. She continued reading from The Divine Comedy.

Chickadee learned how to do scientific notation and base 2 in math. She started the chapter on the respiratory system in science…so far, she’s learned about the nose and sinuses. In religion, she began reading about the time of the judges. We finished reading both Anne of Green Gables and Felicity’s Surprise. She read about the reign of Charlemagne in history, and also about the Vikings and Erik the Red and Leif Erickson. She practiced diagramming predicate adjectives in grammar.

Here’s a look at the pumpkins they painted…Ladybug made a Stitch pumpkin, and Chickadee made a poison apple:

We also finally made it to Legends and Lanterns, and I think it was extra fun after our fairy tale-themed summer school!