Book Review: Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal is a wonderful book that I savored for about a week. Some books I get so engrossed in that I devour in 24 hours, but I was happy to visit this book every day and continue on the journey.

Conor Grennan is 29 years old and decides to take a year off to travel the world. But, partly to impress women, he decides to start the year off by volunteering. He chooses 3 months in Nepal working with orphans.

When he arrives at the orphange, he doesn't know what to do. He's never really been around children before and they are crawling all over him the moment he walks towards the orphanage. At first, he can't remember all of their names and learns to identify them by the shirts they wear.



Mount Everest in Neapl (from Wikipedia)

But, Conor discovers that these children are not orphans after all. Instead, child traffickers have tricked families into paying huge fees in the promise of keeping them safe from the civil war in Nepal and a good education.

Conor comes up with a new mission: to reunite these children with their families in the mountains of Nepal.

The story of these children is full of sadness, hope, humor and love. It is an amazing story of an issue that is still being faced in Nepal today. The organization that Conor founded continues to work on reuniting these children with their families.

Bruin: My Family's Pet Bear

One of my hobbies is genealogy and I came across an amazing family story about one of my Pennsylvania ancestors! His name was Robert Stewart and he lived in Pennsylvania in the 1800's. And, he had a pet bear. Yes, a pet BEAR!

The story was written about 30 years after he died, but I can imagine the story was told over & over in the area. Here's the story which is taken from History of Centre and Clinton Countie, Pennylvania (page 523) which was published in 1883:


An image of "Grizzly" Adams and his pet bear from Wikipedia

 Mike Swartz and the Black Bear

A tame bear belonging to the family of Robert Stewart was missing one morning, whereupon a man by the name of Mike Swartz and Mr. Stewart went in pursuit of him. After a while he was discovered in a tree a short distance from the house. One of the men, who had a gun, fired at the bear, and succeeded in bringing him to the ground, but slightly wounded. In order to prevent Bruin from escaping Mike ran up and caught hold of the bear, which in turn Bruin caught Mike by the hand with his mouth, at the same time giving him a hug such only as bears can give; at which Mike called out to his companion, who was at a safe distance, to come to his assisstance, but Stewart, who no doubt thought "self-preservation the first law of nature," cooly replied, "Mike, if you were my own born dear brother I could do nothing for you under the circumstances."

Isn't that a terrific story?!? Of course, the story doesn't tell what happened next. I'm assuming everything turned out fine and they had a good laugh about it later. I did look to see if Mike survived, and didn't find a death notice. And, with the humor of the story, I do think it must have turned out OK after all.

There was another brief passage from the book about Robert. It was on the preceding page and both gives me pride in my Stewart family and an idea of where to look for Robert's elusive parents and possible siblings. This is from page 522:

Robert Stewart came from Chatham's Run in 1816, and settled on the Valentine Hanna property, near the Bald Eagle Creek. He had formerly lived at the mouth of Young Woman's Creek. He was of Scotch descent, and was the father of eight children, - four sons and four daughters, - all of whom possessed energy, and were very remarkable for their powers of endurance.

I'm wondering how they behaved that they were spoken of as possessing "energy" and "very remarkable for their powers of endurance." It sounds like a great family, though, and I'm happy to claim them as mine!

Visiting the Gardens of Versaille

I don't remember if we did something else in the morning, but by the time we got to Versailles via train from Paris, we only had a few hours to look around! The line to get inside the palace was very long, so we chose to just walk around the gardens instead. Some day, I will go back and tour the palace!

Our first view of the palace.... so much GOLD!!! And, the cobblestones... OUCH!!!

 

 

The first fountain inside the palace gate.

 

 

We are very close to the fountain, right behind the palace. I think practically everything you see is Versaille's Gardens! Amazing!

 

 

A view back towards the palace and that original fountain.

 

 

It was a beautiful day as we walked around. And besides the beautiful fountains, flowers, columns, and landscaping, there are a lot of statues! And, there is beautiful classical music playing over the speakers. I loved this! It really added to the atmosphere.

 

 

These are marble columns off to one side of the main pathway. It was my favorite place, with many small fountains all around a central fountain.

 

Another view... with Alex.

 

 

I was playing with the fish-eye setting on my camera and liked how this turned out. When we first saw this fountain, at the back of the gardens, the water was spounting. But, each fountain is only on during certain times. Beyond this, you can see a 'lake' which is actually more like a city park and not part of Versailles.

 

 

Another 'fish-eye' photo taken from the same spot (near the back of the gardens) but looking back towards the palace.

 

 

Me in the gardens with the palace behind me. (Basically the same spot.)

 

 

A beautiful, tree-lined walk off to one side.

 

 

This is beyond the gardens into the 'public' area. You can see people boating and there were a lot of bicyclists riding by. I wish I could have joined them!

 

 

Loved this photo of the fountain with the trees behind them... just wish I would have waited until there weren't people walking by. Still, gorgeous!

 

 

A closer look at the cobblestones... we had to walk a long way on these! And, it wasn't comfortable!

 

 

After the gardens, we stayed in the city of Versailles to eat. Alex didn't like the outside cafe that the others chose, so we headed to McDonald's! W had a Croque McDo! We had several croque sand-wiches while in France - basically a grilled ham & cheese but the cheese is usually on the outside.

 

 

We also had nuggets with some great sauce!

 

 

And, while we waited for the others to finish, Alex used our French phrase book to translate the name of a nearby restaurant. It was a lovely day!

Visiting the Eiffel Tower...a Scary Tale

Of course, we visited the Eiffel Tower while visiting Paris!

 

A great view of the tower.

 

 

 

We heard the lines were long, but were shocked to see lines lasting about 2.5 hours! We watched these people 'dancing' in a circle under the center of the tower. It was the summer solstice and we believe it was some kind of religious activity.

 

 

As we waited in line, I took a few photos of the gorgeous ironworks.

 

 

 

Alex and I decided to leave everyone else to their long wait... and CLIMB to the top! (An image of Gustave Eiffel on the stairs.) There are two levels you can visit. We would climb to the top one, and then climb back down to the first one where everyone else would meet us.

 

 

This is a view of the Seine River during the climb up.

 

 

We made it to the VERY TOP!!! 668 STEPS!

 

 

A view of the Seine River from the top.

 

 

A recreation of Gustave Eiffel's office on the top deck.

 

 

As we looked around, it started to get dark. It was approaching midnight!

 

 

The Versailles Gardens has a firework show a couple of times a week. We could see the fireworks off in the distance.

 

 

By now, I believe we were back on the lower deck. We'd been separated from our family for several hours... and we couldn't find them ANYWHERE! I was getting really nervous. The tower closed at 1 am, if I remember correctly, and it was approaching that time. There were not many people on the tower walking around, and I debated on what to do.

 

The sparkling light show that takes place at 12  & 1 am (I believe)

I finally decided we should take the elevator down and that, hopefully, we'd find our family. But, they weren't at the bottom, either! It was very late and dark out. We ended up talking to a guard and asking if we could stay near him until we found our family. He didn't speak English very well, but at least I felt a little more secure. I was starting to make plans for how we'd find a taxi... it was not a pleasant thought. But, thankfully...

 

 

My family finally showed up!!! They had went to the VERY top (which they had said they wouldn't do) and had got stuck in a very long line for the elevator. We had caught a ride from the lower level. We were so very thankful to be reunited!!! And, we all caught a ride and were happy to get back to the hotel. We' been at the tower for about 5 hours.

Mushroom Matters

FACT: Egyptian pharaohs ate mushrooms and forbade anyone else to eat them. They believed the mushrooms had magical powers!

FACT: Roman warriors were fed mushrooms to give them "god-like strength"!

mushrooms in my backyard

I love mushrooms. Not to eat, but to look at and photograph! Alex is studying mushrooms at school and, as I was helping her with homework tonight, I came across a wonderful resourse for upper elementary/middle school students!

more mushrooms from our backyard

The resource is called "Mushroom Education Packet" and it is at the American mushroom site. The interesting facts I listed (above) were found in this packet. The packet includes these sections: A History of Mushrooms, Mushroom Farming in the Kennett Square Area, How Mushrooms Grow, The Parts of the Mushroom, and Recycling in the Mushroom Farming Industry.

Besides the short articles, the lesson packet also includes worksheets like fill-in-the-blanks, word searches, and true or false questions. There are even mushroom recipes, mushroom math, a mushroom science experiment, and more surprises!

our 'spore print' from 2008

When we did a quick, impromptu study of mushrooms in 2008, we made the above spore print from a mushroom. It was a neat exercise, and this study guide talks you through how to do it. It's a great activity to do a couple days after a rain!

If you use the packet, please let me know! I'm no longer homeschooling, but still have a heart & desire to teach!

Palette Knife Painting

I took a three hour workshop yesterday called "Rooster Pallette Knife Painting Workshop." We used acrylics and painted, not with a brush, but with a metal pallette knife! This is a techinque that was often used by Vincent Van Gogh.

Starry Night by Van Gogh - from Wikipedia

 

I'm not sure if "Starry Night" was done with a palette knife, but it certainly looks as if it could have been. Using a palette knife to paint is kind of like decorating a cake: you smear the paint onto the canvas with the underside of the knife.

So, here's my palette knife-painted rooster! It was a NEAT experience and I already bought supplies to do it again. By the way, there are parts of my rooster I love (like the colors in the main body - the green and yellow parts) and parts I didn't quite get right (like the tail is too large, the feet are too small, and the wattle should be curved - not pointed). But, overall, I'm happy with this project and can't wait to do another one!

L'Orangerie in Paris

The l'Orangerie was one of several art museums we visited while in Paris. A museum of Impressionist art, it is best known for its two oval rooms that each house 4 large murals of Monet's water lilies or nympheas.

Image of Monet's water lilies at l'Oragerie from Wikipedia

As much as I enjoy Monet, I didn't enjoy these rooms that much. Maybe I was just tired of water lilies! We'd seen them at several museums already... and seen the 'real thing' at Giverny!

After you left the two oval rooms, one of the first displays was this series of two dioramas. This diorama shows a model of the study of Paul & Domenica Guillaume and the museum houses their collection. You can see, on the wall, miniature recreations of some of the paintings in the museum!

I recognize at least one Picasso.

I like this one even better. On the wall you can see a couple of Degas' works and several by Cezanne. And, if you look in the mirrored doorway to the left, you see the hands of the photographer... me!

My three favorite works of art at this museum were all by Renoir. This one is titled "Gabrielle et Jean." Gabrielle was the "beloved nanny" of the Renoir children and she was often painted by him. Jean is one of his sons. I just loved the image of them happily playing together.

What I loved most about this image of another of Renoir's sons, Claude, was the story behind it. Evidentally, Claude did not want to wear the tights. His father ended up bribing him to wear them!

And, I love this painting of two young girls at the piano. I have played the piano for over 30 years and used to play and sing with my sister and with my best friend, Jill. It also reminds me of the best piano teacher I ever had - she had a cross-stitch of this painting (actually, there are multiple versions of this subject) hanging over her grand piano. These are fond memories brought back by a painting!

A Walk Around Paris

After visiting Normandy for three days, we spent some more time in Paris...
 

Arc de Triomphe... It was so windy & cold this day that we didn't actually walk across the street circle to visit the memorial. This was as close as we got!

 

A detail of a freize from the Arc de Triomphe showing General Marceau's funeral.

 

We spent a little time on the famous Champs-Elysees lined with luxury shops and cafes.

Again, it was so windy & cold that we didn't last long!

 

The Beautiful National Academy of Music.

 

It was lined with busts of famous composers, like Betthoven and Mozart!

 

This is the rotunda roof of Galeries Lafayette, an upscale department store that is about 7 stories tall. We didn't shop... we just looked at the architecture and headed to the roof.

 

This is one of the views from the roof! There are a few benches up here and a lot of people just lying around enjoying the day. We enjoyed sitting on a bench and enjoying the view.

 

We walked through the Tuleries Garden which is by the Louvre. From here, we could see down

part of the "historical axis of Paris." The obelisk is the Luxor Obelisk and it's Egyptian.

Behind it, you can see the Arc de Triomphe.

 

And, this must be how they keep the grass in the ditches in the Tulleries Garden down.' We saw this goat and were shocked. Then we saw that he was tied up here, and figured out he was the lawn mower! Looks like he needs to get busy!

 

This is a view of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid at the Louvre - through another triumphal arch.

This one is called the Arc de Triomphe du Carroussel.

 

Another view of the outside of the Louvre.

 

And, these are "love locks" on a bridge over the Seine! There were probably thousands of locks!