Goodbye Laura- We'll Miss You!!!

This year we studied pioneers as part of our history curriculum.  I thought a good book to read during lunch would be Little House on the Prairie.  Honestly, I thought the boys would hate it.  It's a story about girls, right?  I couldn't have been more wrong.  We spent the year reading the whole series over our weekday lunches.  We just finished the last chapters of The First Four Years this week.  The boys were genuinely sad that we had come to the end.  We came to love Laura and her family so much.  We laughed and cried right along with her.  We learned so much from those books.  We talked about the differences in how they lived vs. how we live.  How Mary probably wouldn't have went blind if they would have had the medical knowledge that we have today.  We talked about hard work and more importantly- family work.  We talked about dating and marriage and respect for your parents.  Farming, schools, westward expansion, Native Americans, animals, and I could go on and on...  Don't you just love a good classic!