Letter No. 5: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

We've moved on to our first postcard of the project!

This one comes to us from my friend (and former student!) Stephanie, who currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"Oooh, it's a sunset picture!"

I explained that Philadelphia is a big city (much larger than Harrisburg, which is her only experience with large buildings), and we spent several minutes scanning lots of gorgeous views of the city on the trusty ol' Google Image Search (She loved pointing out to me which pictures were daytime shots, sunset, or nighttime). I also told her some of the history of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in general (she's going to have to learn it someday...), and she was truly astonished when I pointed out that Europeans first settled here in the seventeenth century.

"Four hundred years ago? That's craaaazy!"

Then we looked up some of the history of the Liberty Bell, and I asked her if she wanted to draw a picture of a bell.

Freja: No. How about I draw a picture of a flower?

Me: Do you want me to draw a bell?

Freja: Yes! And then I can color it!

I... can't draw. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

So thank you, Steph! And thank you, Philadelphia, for allowing me to give my daughter one of her first history lessons.

Letter No. 4: Gawler, Australia

So not only did we receive our first piece of International mail, but it came to us all the way from Australia! 

Freja is thrilled! Ola... less so.

Heather sent us a little packet of things from Gawler, Australia, including a card, a letter, three pictures, and a page from a street directory.

Heather works at the Gawler Public Library, and sent us pictures not only of the library, but also of the South Para River and a Kookaburra. This then led to us spending too much time (or not enough?) of watching videos of a Kookaburra "laughing":

This also prompted Ola to run around the house shouting, "I'M A KOOKABURRA!" before she squatted down on the floor and began cackling at a high volume. Also, have I mentioned that she's two years old? Yeah, that should probably go in there somewhere. 

After the videos, and the pictures, and the look at the wall map to see just how far away Australia is (compared to Boiling Springs, Carlisle, and Reedsville), Freja sat down to write out her reply:

Dear Heather,

I want to fly on a plane and see where the Kookaburra lives. I want to play outside and hear the Kookaburra laughing at Daddy and Mommy and Ola and me.

I like your library. I want to work in a library, maybe when I grow up, because there are books.

Thank you for your letter and card and pictures!

Love, Freja

1... 2... 3... "AUSTRALIA!!!"

Letter No. 3: Carlisle, Pennsylvania

I have a stack of mail to go through.

No, strike that. Freja has a stack of mail to go through. And letters and postcards keep coming in. And we are SO FAR BEHIND. Far enough behind that only the use of ALL CAPS will get my point across.

So the third piece of mail arrived hot on the heels of the first two, and it was from Nancie Imler, who I know from my Dancing Years (very deserving of capitalization).

First, came the envelope:

PUPPIES! PUPPIES, PUPPIES, PUPPIES!

Paper and envelope glue. The bane of a young child's existence. 

And then, of course, she saw the card inside:

No, Freja. This does not mean you can have a puppy.

No. Clutching the card to your heart in an adorable fashion will not sway me.

Once I could pry the card from her fingers, we went to the computer and looked up all sorts of things. We looked up the town (City? I'm not how large the population has to be before it makes that jump. (Even my Google skills fail me. Apparently, it's a vague area between the two.)) of Carlisle, the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (where I spent almost the entirety of my teenage years), and even Carrie Imler, a principal dancer with the Pacific Northwest Ballet (and also Nancie's extraordinarily talented daughter). 

And after all of that, Freja sat down to pen (pencil? crayon?) her reply, which I failed to photograph (I blame lack of proper sleep, caffeine, and any combination of those two things) but I did copy down her words to repeat here:

Dear Nancie,

Thank you for your card! It has two puppies on it! One puppy opens, two puppies open!

I looked at Carlisle on the computer. It is an old town. It's my favorite place! I liked the dancers because they're dancing. 

I want to come to Carlisle soon!

Love, Freja

I like dancers because they dance, too, Freja. 

Letter No. 2: Reedsville, Pennsylvania

Only a single day after receiving her first piece of mail, Freja got her second card in the mail. This one came from Charlene, the mother of one of my former dance students, and baker of fantastic eatables, who lives in Reedsville, Pennsylvania. (I also learned on this occasion that Reedsville is a census-designated place, something I had never heard of before, but I didn't bother to explain it to Freja, because I doubt her interest in the minutiae of local municipal governments (or the lack thereof)).

The card was bright, and Freja was really not into waiting for me to take pictures of it before I allowed her to open it.

... really, really not into having her picture taken.

Inside was a Halloween card with "a baby spider on it"!

"With a trick-or-treat bucket!"

The next day, we looked up Reedsville online, and Freja really, really liked the pictures of the Amish and horses that we found on a Google Image Search (because growing up in Pennsylvania, she's NEVER seen either of those things before. *ahem*) Then, she sat down to pen her reply to Charlene.

The headband is imperative to writing success.

She also decided to include a drawing of a princess on the back of the letter, because PRINCESS. 

It's a bit boxy up top, but I like the puffy sleeves. 

The finished letter: 

Dear Charlene,

Thank you for the card! There's a spider on it! It opens! The spider has eyelashes! That means it's a girl spider.

I drew a princess for you. I don't know her name. No, it's Rapunzel with a colorful dress. It has four colors. There's pink and purple and red and a darker purple mixed with red. 

Thank you for the card again!

Love, Freja

Yes, thank you, Charlene!

... PRINCESS.

Letter No. 1: Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania

I have a daughter.

I actually have two daughters, but this is more about my oldest daughter, Freja.

Freja is four years old. She is precocious (which I'm sure when looked up in the dictionary bears a definition somewhere along the lines of: "will constantly ask questions which will lead to more questions which will lead to some level of dissatisfaction for the answers received"). She is also eager to learn about new places and things, as are all children her age. And she's obsessed with mail.

And so I decided to do a project with her. I put out a call on my Facebook page(God bless you, Internet) that went something - or exactly - like this:

"Okay...

I'm thinking about doing a project with Freja. She's become really interested in two things lately: Places (in other words, learning about town names and wanting to know where we are when we drive someplace) and mail. So I'm posting this to measure the interest level in doing something in which people will volunteer to send a piece of mail, addressed to Freja, and then we can locate it on the map, maybe look up the towns online and so on, and she will reply back to the person who sent the original letter/post card/what-have-you. I'd love to get a mix of local, out-of-state, and maybe even out-of-country people, so that she can be exposed to a variety of places throughout the duration of this.

So... is anyone interested in doing this with us?"

And I received a surprising number of responses from a wide variety of people. 

And just two days later, Freja got her first piece of mail.

Of course I blurred out the addresses. I mean, this is the Internet, after all.

She was excited, and so I gave her the card to open.

The envelope barely survived.

Inside was a lovely glossy card from Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, sent by Gay, a long-time friend of the family (from before I was born). 

"It's a duck fence!"

Excited Freja is excited!

We looked up Boiling Springs online, which included a large number of pictures of water and ducks and some very lovely buildings. Then we looked at the website for The Village Artisans Gallery, where Gay sells her AMAZING folk art. (Freja liked what she called the "Blue Angel" the best.)

And then she set to work on her reply.

She has her thinking headband on.

This is the finished letter (and yes, I wrote the main body of the letter, dictated by Freja): 

Dear Gay,

Thank you for your card. I liked the ducks. I liked the duck fence, too. I liked your carvings. I liked the blue angel the best. I want to come visit you soon. 

Love, Freja.

So thank you, Gay! And thank you, Boiling Springs. We may just have to come and visit the both of you very soon. :)