Military museum

 

This first picture was Genevieve at Costco.  I lost Gigi in Costco, I had last seen her with my mom, and then I met up with both my mom and dad and she was not there...  Well  I sent Nathan off looking for her as well as myself.  Nathan found her first, he heard her playing the piano.  She was playing Christmas carols for everyone to enjoy.  It was hard to get her to leave.  She said mom I was working up quite a crowd.  She loved playing for everyone ha ha! 

 

 

 

My little performer!

I know I said that we would be back to the grind of school, but sunday I could see Nate was exhausted, and a spot opened up on a Chilliwack military museum tour, so I decided that that would be our schooling on Monday.  I had really wanted to go to this when it was first posted, but I thought we have so many other obligations, I did not want to overbook us.  Nathan has been asking to go to this museum for about 5 years, it is only open 2 days a week, and I guess I have not put much effort into going.  I am so happy that we were able to participate in this field trip!  The mom who organized this trip is the wife of an army officer.  She organized to not only have the military museum volunteers, but she brought in real army men.  They all had varying experiences, including afganastan, a landmine disabler, and a disaster relief. 

 

The morning started out by listening to Rollie Kieth.  He is a wonderful speaker, and had a lot of information to share with all of us.  A basic overview of history of the last 100 years :)  We then divided up into groups and went in different areas of the museum, we were guided by the different volunteers and servicemen.  It was so great to talk to these people  and get a really hands on museum experience.  Rollie was a tank commander, and it was a neat experience talking to him about all he knew of tanks.  Nathan has been reading a lot of Usborne books on war, and it was neat to see him be able to use that information today.  I didn't tell the kids where we were going today, and just said that Nathan had always wanted to go, he said are we doing physics?  I told him there may be physics involved.  When discussing the mortars used by the tanks, physics was definitely involved.  Love how excited Nathan gets when physics is involved, and how easily he can get the overall understanding of what someone is talking about. 

 

After the tanks we talked to the army officer who has been stationed in Afghanistan.  The kids got to try on all of his packs, armour and equipment.  What kid doesn't want to try on real army stuff.  I was a little disappointed in how non hitech the army gear was!  I can guarantee, my backpacking stuff is way more hitech.   We talked to him about how he dealt with the heat of the desert, it got up to 60 degrees, we quickly ascertained this would not be a job for Nathan.  His clothing would stand up straight after a day of work from all of the salt, Nathan had experience with that later in the day with his horse ziggy.  Ziggy, was upset that he was alone, and worked himself into a lather, Nathan had to brush him after and his hair was stiff from the salts coming out.

Gigi got a few laughs as she posed like this :)

I like how his hands stayed where they were, just incase he needed to get it off quick!

After trying on army gear, we went and looked at landmines.  It was interesting to learn how they decommission land mines.  We talked about where in the world there are lots of landmines.  Canada still uses anti-tank landmines, but if they lay them, they have to know exactly where they are and they must be removed, Canada does not ever leave any behind.  It was interesting to note that many countries do not have this policy, including our neighbor to the south. 

 

Up next was a little trip outside.  They got to get in a climb around on a few vehicles, a world war II dump truck, and the most exciting a plain, we asked what the plane was used for and I have forgotten.  Nathan stayed in here for a good 1/2 hour.  They then headed over to the soviet cold war era tank.

You can see gigi waving

We then headed back inside for some free time to explore around and discover things on our own.  We were at the museum for at least 2 hours, and I think we could have explored longer.  There was a lot to see, and it was wonderful having so many people around who could answer our questions.  We met up with Rolly Kieth again, who showed us his Canadian airborne uniform, for Northern jumps.  He was able to explain to us exactly what all the bits were for, and what he had to do in order to jump out of the plane, a couple of parachutes were there as well, and he was able to show us how those got deployed.  So fascinating!  Rollie Kieth was over during the suez canal crisis, and I was able to discuss with Nathan and Genevieve that their own great grandpa had been there as well.  They wanted to know if Rollie new my grandpa :)


So busy morning all Nathan wanted to do was go home, but we had horse to go to, Nathan did not want to go, but I knew he needed to go and would feel better if he did go.  He started to feel better on the car ride there, when he started to think about loping.  He was able to lope quite a bit by himself this lesson, and he just keeps on improving, you could see he is enjoying it and is proud of himself.