Riley's Farm

Experience a sojourn in America’s past, exploring the great conflict that divided state from state and brother from brother. The vast fields and orchards of Riley’s
Farm, in concert with our skilled staff of Civil War living historians, help your students and family imagine the contours of Civil War life in a way that motivates ongoing study.

Start the day off with a rousing town meeting in which your group must debate the war then decide whether to secede, join the union or stay neutral. All sides will get a chance to argue their point, as you relive the Maryland State Assembly.

After voting in the Assembly, spend time with Confederate and Union soldiers as they teach you about their home states and the issues they face. The Civil War comes to life as you experience activities such as a regiment drill, a visit to the Surgeon’s infirmary, and perhaps a lesson in 19th century etiquette, along with various other posts.

Once finished with all your camp posts, you will be given a soldier’s ration of lemonade, cornbread, cheese, an apple and dried beef. Along with your hearty meal our Packing shed bakery is open for additional food purchases to supplement the ration.

And finally at the end of the day, all your students participate in a large mock battle, reenacting the Battle of Malvern Hill . Fight for your home and land as a Southerners, or uphold the Union and fight to keep the country together as a Northerner. Given the muskets they are drilled with, all students will be lead into battle by one of our commanding officers.

Our first stop after the assembly was seeing what the women folk back home had to do and they had a lot to do with the men gone.  Do housework inside and then keeping the farm going also.

The girls decided they'd do some laundry.  My grandmother cut a vein in her finger when she was a young woman on a washboard.

On to a trial for desertion.  This man was lucky and was saved at the eleventh hour, but others weren't so lucky and they hung and thrown in a coffin quite quickly.  Man, those men were short.  And yes, those are Jory's legs next to the baby.

By the end of the conflict, over 103,400 Confederates alone had committed desertion.

We learned the etiquette of the Southern belles and proper social behavior.  Jory learned the proper way to bow and the girls to curtsey and why gloves were worn.

We visited the surgeon.  You were better off dying in battle than going to see the surgeon, where you more than likely died from a disease then your actually injury.

Before the battle, we got our lunch.  Yep, of cornbread, cheese, apple, dried beef, and lemonade.  Those poor hungry soldiers.  I had to stop at Mc D's on the way driving home because I was so hungry.

Can you say recruitment?

We learned baseball was invented as a way to pass time during the war and how they made soldiers out of common folk.

Preparing for battle...

And the battle is on.  We learned that on some battlefields the weapons were put down and men fought hand to hand because they were fighting their sons, fathers, neighbors, cousins, and friends.

And then the final round up and we were done. We bought Riley's Farm talked about chicken pot pie, which was delicious and we bought the 3lb apple pie, which was also good and very, very apple filled and big.  We had a great time and would definitely come back, even though we had to drive a gazillion miles to get there, drive through a wind warning ( I have never in my life seen a wind advisory warning on the freeway that asked high performance vehicles to get off the roads.  At times I wondered, if I was still in LA or California.).  We had to roll the windows up and turn on the air the noise from the wind was a bit much and the car was rattling from the wind.  Who lives out here?

We took a picture with our very own soldier.



We don't get to go on very many field trips, but it's nice when we can meet up with others and have fun, while learning at the same time.











We left Teddy at Happy's and we hung out, having a grand old time.

And all together now....

I see these pictures and I think, the near insanity was worth it.....They are four beautiful human beings who I am blessed and honored to have call me mommy.

And here he is....

Mr. America, looking very dapper.  My baby is nine.  This is the boy who made me a mommy.  I am madly in love with him, I can't believe it's only been nine years.  Other days I can't believe it's only been nine years, cause it seems like a thousand years.  For a thousand years, he's been my baby.  I adore him even when he's plotting to drive me insane.  He looks so grown up in this last picture.

Look at this face...

how could you not love this cute little face.  He is as happy as he is in these pictures.  He is the happiest baby I've ever had the pleasure And he loves to drool.  Minus the drool around his mouth, on his chin, on his vest, the slightly turned up collar and the unbutton sleeves, these were perfect pictures of an adorable four-month-old first professional shots.

My big girl...

is now 7.  Amazing how time flies.  And it's great to see her smiling cause there were some years where you couldn't get a smile out of her, sometimes you could even see tears on her face.

Score!  You can see her lilac earrings and her lilac ribbon.  A successful picture, okay minus the hands on the hips.  Just not a fan of that look.

My baby...

My baby is six.  Where did the time go?  And after all the hard work I put into these outfits, you can't see the lilac ribbon in her hair.  How do you know the accent color is lilac, especially when you can't see the socks?

Easter 2014

My motto for Easter is shop early and shop often.  When Layla came home, I realized that I couldn't take three children and my mother to clothing stores to shop for Easter clothes.  So I started the process of buying all the dresses I thought my mother might like, take them home, and the Irish twins put on a fashion show.  I'd take back all the dresses that didn't make the cut, then I'd move on to the next store.  This was the pattern until I hit all the stores, Children's Place, Macy's, JC Penney's, Target, Ross, Marshall's, TJ Maxx, and Sears.  We'd make a final selection, then all the other dresses would go back, then it would be time to find Jory a matching outfit.

CP used to be our go to place.  They were fabulous at having coordinating outfits for the boys.  Then they got a new buyer and sadly the store turned into a hot mess.

Last year, my aunt told us about a store that sold suits in all colors and sizes.  With the girls' dresses in hand, we went to the store, hidden in this mini-mall.  We were received a friendly greeting as soon as we walked through the door and serviced shortly thereafter.  The forty-something-year-old man looked at the girls dresses, walked away for two minutes and showed us a brown striped suit.  My mom and I looked at each other and the doubt was strong in both of us.  But the salesman assured us it would look good.  He looked at the two teal dress shirts I had to choose from, grabbed one and put it under the suit.  He assured us Jory would look sharp and match his sisters nicely.  He seemed sure, I'm not a man, or a clothing expert, and so I said, okay.  And just like that in ten minutes, we had been helped and I had spent $100 on Jory's very first suit.  Before we left the man put his hands on Jory and said, he would be a monument for God.

This year, I knew we would go back to this store.  I liked it.  I liked this men's clothing store, where the employees know their business, can size up a customer in a few seconds.  You don't get that kind of service at a Sears or even a Nordstrom's, unless you go to the personal shopper section.  But before Jory could get his new suit, I had to choose the girls' outfit.

I looked at this site and looked at the colors we wore previous years and decided this year we could wear blue, green or lilac.  That made shopping so much easier, even the girls could help.  We went into a store and I reminded them what colors we were looking for and everyone brought back their favorite dresses.  Sometimes that meant glittery dresses that I knew were never going to make it to Easter Sunday, but they were participating for the first time so some iffy dresses I let pass.

Ultimately we found our dresses at Burlington's, a place I never would have thought to look, but we were there to buy Jory some dress shirts and I decided to look at their dresses and the all white dresses were the winners.  This was even after I did an Amazon clothing buy for the first time.  Those dresses looked prettier in the picture. 

For a coordinating color, I decided to go with lilac.  I quickly discovered we live in a sad world where people don't sell lilac colored church socks for girls, not even on the internet, so that meant I had to create my own.  Yeah, they don't sell lilac colored dye either.  With white lace socks from Payless and dye from Michael's, I went about creating matching lilac socks for my Irish twins.  If you had ever told me the price of motherhood would be watching the season finale of Scandal, while using a stick to stir socks in hot purple water without letting the water splash so the dye won't stain the beige colored kitchen sink (it stains according to the internet), I would have laughed in your face.  But yet that's what I did for one solid hour, only to discover that since the lace and the socks were made of two different materials the lace became deep purple and the socks lilac.  Whatcha gonna do?

With runs to various Claire's and a hair store, I found the bows that I felt would best match the socks and officially the girls were done.  Then it was time to find my boys to coordinate.  We went back to the suit shop for Jory, the same guy waited on us, he remembered and once again we were out of that store in ten minutes.  I'm in awe of this man.  I love a person who knows their job and knows it well.  Great customer service.  It's awe inspiring.  Jory was taken care of, so now on to Teddy.  I thought this task would be fairly simple.  It would have been if lilac wasn't the coordinating color.  There were tons of suits out there for little infant boys, but none with lilac shirts.  Are you kidding me?  I checked the internet, nothing.  This shouldn't be this hard, then finally at Sears I found a lilac shirt, but of course the vest was grey.  Jory's suit is black, black jacket, black vest, black pants.  But they did have this suit in Teddy and Jory's sizes. Hmm....  I bought them each one and continued to hope that one day, somewhere I would find this same suit except with a black vest.  And I found it, at JCP in a size 18 months.  Teddy is a chunky monkey, but he's not that big.  So I had to settle for him wearing a grey vest and Jory a black one.

There were new challenges to this year's pictures.  One, there were now four children to get dressed.  And two, we were at a new place, JCP instead of our beloved Sears.  JCP was busy, but they had a video playing, Frozen, and the kids hadn't seen it.  SCORE!  They could be entertain in one space, I took over three chairs, put Teddy in Jory's lap as I began with the most difficult one - - Rowan.  She's tenderheaded so I thought I would deal with her crying at getting her hair combed and brushed, first.  She didn't cry too much, but based on her hairstyle, I realized there was no place to put her big lilac bow, oh well that could be saved for Easter.  Thanks to PE with Mimi, I knew how to discreetly change my big girl and put her in her white dress, her lilac socks, and her black patten leather shoes.  With the threat of "It being on" if she dared dirty the dress, it was on to the baby.  Her hair decided not to cooperate, so I made my second adjustment of the day I gave her a hairstyle different than Rowan's.  It hurts me just to write that, but sometimes you have to take one for the team and dreams of a perfect Easter picture die a slow, horrific death.

The threat of something worse than death if she got her Easter dress dirty lingered in the air as the baby went to sit down to watch Frozen, now it was Jory's turn.  I love boys!  They are so simple.  I hand him his socks, then I look through the double stroller looking for his shoes. The shoes he polished the night before in the kitchen.

"Jory, where are your shoes?"

"I left them in the kitchen."

So when he saw me laying everything out..hairbows in one bag, brushes and combs in another, socks in one in case the color bled onto something else, the night before did he think I was doing that for my health?!  Was he created to slowly drive me insane?  I've watched shows on the ID network and think it's so evil when a spouse kills another spouse by using rat poison.  It takes months and months for the other spouse to die and before their death they are in such pain and agony and the doctors can't figure out what's wrong.  Sometimes I think the terrific trio are doing their own form of this, minus the poison.

Does he know how long and hard and how much I stirred those socks, which not can't be featured in our pictures because he has no shoes?!?!  The pressure is on, I know they are going to be calling us soon, and now it's time for the spitter to get dressed.  I saved Teddy for last because he spits up a lot, I think he has some form of reflux.  I figured I'd work my way up so his shirt has a better chance to survive not looking so wrinkled in the pictures.He looked so cute in his church shoes with his black dress socks on.  His black pants looked good, then I put on his shirt.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!  I bought this last month and it's too small.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!?!  I just bought this suit last month.  Does it start at four months?  At four months, you join the band wagon to drive your mother insane?  So it seems.  Yep, this three - six month outfit is a goner so I get to spend the day before in the mall finding Teddy hopefully this same suit in the next size up.  Then I hear it.  Our name has been called, I ask the photographer to start with the terrific trio and to take birthday pictures with them.  While they are busy with that, I pull those buttons together because Teddy is wearing this outfit in these pictures.  I moved to the floor of the studio so I could watch the other ones take their pictures when I noticed Jory didn't have his suit jacket on. 

Seriously it's amazing I'm not in a nut house.  Did he think the jacket was just there in case it got cold?  Not to wear with the matching pants and vest.  I pray one day when its Easter picture taking day, my beautiful daughter gets sick, and it's up to my handsome son, Jory, to take their kids to the photo studio to take pictures, then he'll understand.  He'll understand.

Slow, horrific deaths are hard to watch before your eyes, but then I look at my watch and realize this train needs to speed up so we don't miss that much of our Good Friday service.  As I watch the photographer cajoling Rowan to calm down, I feel something wet on me.  I look down, yep, Teddy had spit up.  I take the diaper and wipe him off and quickly button his vest so the stain can't be seen. 

The photographer is ready for Teddy before I have time to button his sleeves, but bygones.  As I say, yes, he can sort of sit up by himself, I notice that the drooling boy has now drooled on his sleeves and the vest.  He hates me.  I let it go, but him on the sofa.  Three quick shots, two of which Teddy is smiling and showing those dimples.  The photographer throws in the other three, snap, snap, snap, and we're done.

I'm amazed.  I don't remember a photo shoot going so quickly.  Everyone quickly undresses and I put everything back in its correct bag.  I hand out the church clothes, so we can walk into church dressed.  After I put everything back in the stroller, the workers have restarted Frozen so the kids are occupied as I select pictures.  I was surprised to see there were that many pictures, then it hits me.  Crap!  We didn't take two shots.  We always take pictures of Rowan & Layla, Jory & Rowan, Layla & Jory, but the photographer was on to the next family so not this year.  Maybe this is the price you pay when four people need pictures taken.  Next year, I'll have a list of shots I need to hand to the photographer and a list of exactly how many photos I need.

With less pictures, it made the selecting go quite quickly and we were out of there.  A sweep of the infant section to see if I could avoid going to Sears on the day before Easter, was fruitless and out of the store we went.  The breakdown of the stroller and getting all the Easter stuff out went quickly and before I knew it we were on the road.  I dropped the kids off at children's church and Teddy and I found a sit near the front.  I was surprised we hadn't missed that much of the service, then I looked down at the program and realized I had the time wrong.  Score!  For all the misses at the photo shoot, it was less stressful than usual.  We'll see how next year goes.

And now you know the rest of the story...

I got everything up, the night before.  Jory shined his shoes and he left them in the kitchen to dry for the morning.  While watching the Scandal finale, I dyed the girls socks

How I got the 2013 Easter pictures....

I forgot to include this in the other post.  But basically I spent so much money on photos so for "free" I got a cd of the session.  Thank goodness that I did or else I would have had no photos from 2013.  I then took the cd to CVS to print out photos, unfortunately their cutting skills need a lot to be desired.  My 5X7s aren't quite by 5X7s and don't quite fit in the frames, but bygones...at least we have the photos.

The journey to the Easter 2013 pictures

An early draft of my letter to the credit card company...

On Good Friday, March 29, 2013, I took my three children to Sears Portrait Studio for an appointment to take pictures.  During the photo session, the photographer took Easter pictures of my son and two daughters together and separately, and then she took birthday portraits of them using the numbers:  eight, six, and five, in celebration of their birthdays.  The photo session was something we had been doing since my now eight-year-old son was three-months-old, celebrating his first Easter.

At the conclusion of session - Sxxxxxxxx, the photographer took me to the computer and had me choose which of the portraits I would like to purchase.  She had me write down the numbers of the poses I wanted to purchase.  She then sat with me once I had selected my poses and entered into the computer the sizes and quantity of the poses I wanted.  She informed me of the best deal based on the quantity of photos I was buying, I agreed to the package deal she was selling and she rang me up at the register.    I was told my photos would be ready in four to six weeks.  I thanked the photographer and my children and I left.

On May 9, 2013, the Friday before Mother’s Day, my eight-year-old son and I went to Sears to pick up our Easter and birthday pictures from the portrait studios so we could put the photos in the Mother’s Day cards we were giving out on Mother’s Day, which was two days away.  As we walked through the automotive department and headed towards the portrait studios I noticed the lights were off in the portrait studio.  I thought that was odd since I knew they stayed open late on Fridays.  As we got closer, I noticed something on the portrait studio’s counters, when we arrived into the department I realized the something I had noticed were envelopes and loose pictures.  There were hundreds of loose pictures laying on the counter in piles next to Sears Portrait Studios envelopes.  I realized the portrait studios must have gone out of business.  I was in a time crunch because my children had a church activity they had to get to, so I quickly stopped the first Sears employee I saw and asked him to call a manager for me.  The employee agreed to the request and I quickly turned back to the counter.

I told my son to look for pictures of himself, his sisters, and the three of them together, in the loose pictures on the counter, while I went through the envelopes. 

My son found three photos of himself, but none of his sisters or group pictures of them.  While I was unsuccessful in finding our Easter/birthday pictures in any of the envelopes.  A female manager arrived and explained to me that she came to work one day and the portrait studio department had gone out of business.  She said they had given no advanced notice that they were closing, they just closed.  She informed me all the pictures they could find and where in the portrait studio’s drawers were on the counter. 

I told her I couldn’t find my Easter/birthday pictures of my children and asked what would happen if I couldn’t find them.  She told me she would find out.  She made a call and explained my situation, and then she turned to me and said I could receive a full refund with my receipt.  I told her I had more than likely thrown the receipt away because I couldn’t return the photos once I received them and that all I had given the photographers in the past was my name and phone number and they gave me my pictures.  I asked if a copy my credit card charge for the photographs would be enough.  She told me to bring it in.

I instructed my son to go through the envelopes and I set him up on the floor to search for the pictures.  The manager offered to help me look through the pictures and asked what my children were wearing in their photos.  I told her my daughters were wearing matching teal tank top dresses and my son was wearing a brown suit with a vest and a teal color shirt on.  Upon saying that, I looked at the photos my son had found and realized the photos were the non-purchased extra copies of the school picture I had him take at Sears Portrait Studios in late November of 2012.  I told this to the manager and she nodded her head.  She told me the photos she had seen were mostly Christmas pictures and she suspected that my Easter/birthday pictures had not even been developed or printed.  She told me they would not be receiving any more shipments of photos from the main Portrait Studios office.  I thanked her for her help.  She told me to take the photos of my son’s school picture free of charge.  I thanked her again and I left.

On Tuesday, May x, 2013, I returned to Sears with a copy of my credit card statement where I was charged for my children’s Easter/birthday photo session.  I went into the garden/tools department and asked to speak to a manager regarding the portrait studios.  The sales associate called a manager and told me one would be with me shortly.  Fifteen minutes later, Mary L. introduced herself as a manager.  I explained the situation with her and she took my credit card statement to give me a full refund since I was charged for merchandise I had never received.  She tried giving me a refund, but told me she couldn’t; because she needed the salescheck number in order to issue a refund because she could not override the cash register.  I asked would my credit card company have ht number she needed and she said possibly.  I told her I would go home, call my credit card company, and then call her back with the number.  My son and I left the store to do what I had just said.

Immediately when I arrived home, I called my credit card company and spoke to a customer service representative.  I explained the situation to the customer service representative and he told me the exact time my card was swiped, the day my credit card was charged, and the authorization number for the sale.  He told me if Sears did not resolve my problem to call back and Capital One would handle it because I couldn’t be charged for merchandise I never received.  I thanked him for his help and the information.  I called Sears and asked to speak to Mary L.  She came on the line and I gave her the number and information I had just received.  Mary L. told me that was not the number, she needed.  I then gave her the portrait studio’s session number to which she informed me that number was solely for the purpose of the portrait studio to differentiate amongst themselves.  She told me she needed a number that started with 10.  I asked her if my credit card company didn’t have the number who would, she had no response.

While Mary L. was very nice she was not helpful in solving my problem or coming up with a solution to keep a customer, who had spent over a thousand dollars over the past eight years purchasing photos from their portrait studios, satisfied or happy.  We hung and I immediately called Capital One back.  I informed the customer service representative of the situation and he began the dispute for me. 

As of Thursday, June 27, 2013, I have not received the photos of my son posing next to the number eight in celebration of his eighth birthday.  I have not received the photos of my youngest daughter happily posing next to the number five or my eldest daughter next to the number six.  I do not have in my possession and based on what the first manager I met upon my first visit on May x, 2013, said I will never possess the pictures taken on Good Friday of my three children dressed in their brand new Easter outfits laughing out loud because the photographer did all she could to make sure they looked at the camera while smiling as big as they could.  

Easter 2013