My Mother In-law Is As Old As Laura Ingalls

The hubs & I took the 6 children to meet the actress who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. It's kind of a summer tradition for us; a state park has Little House on the Prairie days where  they set up activities so children can do things as the real Laura Ingalls would have done them & one of the actors comes for a meet & greet. The kids get to participate in games, making butter, stuffing mattresses, washing clothes with a washboard.

Most of our kids love it. Boy Teenager, at 14, isn't too thrilled by it. But he's part of the family so he gets dragged along, pretending to be happy to be with us because he's good at playing along. And he knows playing along is a lot better for him than dealing with Mama's Wrath. Little Blondie even wore an old-fashioned style dress & braids so she could look similar to the Ingalls girls.

Just as we got to the park, just about to enter the gates, hubby's Mom called him. As we stood in the hot sun impatiently begging waiting for the hubs to get off the phone, Ginger Girl says, "We should have Grandma come with us 'cause it would give her good memories of the things she did as a little girl."

Why do my kids choose to say things like that when I'm drinking water? I totally spit water out through my nose as she said that.

I was oh so tempted to call Mom 2 back & invite her just so that Ginger Girl could innocently ask her to demonstrate some of the activities. I would have loved to see my Mother in-law's face at that.

When we met Alison Arngrim, aka Nellie Oleson, we had the option of posing with her as herself or as Nellie. We asked her to put her hot, curly wig on for our picture. We each tried to scowl as well as Nellie...some of us much better than others.

'Cause we're that awesome.