June 21-26

What to do on a sunny Saturday, the first one of SUMMER? Operation Geocache in a new location was less than successful, though we did find a bird’s nest…

A rather anxious turtle they corralled back to the safety of the marshy bits…

And a glider being flown from the parking lot.

You can just see it off in the distance. The guy had two and did some rather impressive maneuvers

After that nature filled adventure it was time to hop into our bathing suits and back into the pool in the front yard.

On Sunday we buzzed the twins’ hair nice and short.

Even with rain the kids got some time in the yard on the scooters.

Monday was a bit of a wash what with Nana and Baba getting home from Mexico and all. But Echo is one determined student and got in her workpage fun.

Additionally we have signed up 4 of the 5 kids (Echo is not fully potty trained so can’t) in the same VBS as Renee and Chris’ kids are in. They go to a daycare that is in a church and that church has a massive 4 day FREE daycare! Quite the amazing church – Living Faith Church HERE. They are there from 9 am to noon with us just dropping them off. It has made for quiet mornings and afternoons of light schooling.

Trinity is working on completing one of her review workbooks. We have given ourselves the summer to get these books done.

Back into the pool…

With a butterfly for company.

I swear the twins can play AND understand Agricola way better than I ever will! Somehow… not that upsetting! But it is neat to see them stretch their reasoning, problem solving and reading skills. In fact, one of the boys’ 10 top Summer To Do items is a boardgame day (probably on one of the extremely common rainy days!).

Miss Echo caught up on her well tanned Baba snuggles. Apparently Mexico was a very relaxing vacation for everyone!

Tuesday once again began just me and my baby… with ICE CREAM on the way home from VBS in celebration of Mommy’s 35th birthday.

And then a continuation of the pattern… into the pool. Splish Splash, this thing has paid for itself in entertainment value already!

Ken took me out for my birthday just us two to a wonderful Japanese place that cooks your food (private chef!) right in front of you! We tried chicken liver and green tea sherbet! the liver was… odd… the sherbet good! The chef was amazing as well, so personable. (Thanks to Shandai for the recommendation) 

Yup I took a pic in the car

Main course of dinner with other bits and bobs

The green tea with green tea sherbet

lovely ambiance

By Wednesday Echo was REALLY missing her siblings… lay around and watch tv sort of missing.

I am so proud of the kids for agreeing to continue with light schooling even after a busy VBS filled morning. Gammie’s mailed worksheets are a HUGE help.

This time I had two more garage sale finds! Gotta stop when you are driving home from wherever and see a sign… right?

Thursday was the final day of VBS and a busy morning. Not only did Ken have to drop the kids but then he had an appointment for Echo. So it was Baba that drove me to pick the kids up in the pandemonium that is a large VBS. We did enjoy watching the neighbourhood bunny in the front yard. Before they left for Echo’s hearing exam. Turns out she is just fine with wax buildup. So baby girl is a bit of a lazy talker with dirty ears that SHOULD have decreased her hearing abilities!

Packed with a snack on the way to her hearing test

It’s always an adventure with these two… there was some sort of a fire somewhere in the hospital so their entire wing got evacuated!! Everything was fine in the end though.

Gavin actually made his first Pokemon trade with a kid from there (name unknown).

And the final craft was rather cool! We gave our information to one of the boys the twins met. His mom had asked if we could do so on Wednesday. Sadly the rush to leave and Ken waiting when he dropped off as long as he could meant we had to give one of our little half business cards we gave as Christmas cards post move for address change had to be handed to the boy himself. So it is a bit of a crap shoot as to whether or not we will ever hear from them. We could not go to the evening program as we had other commitments.

4 days of 9 until noon and I can honestly say… our family is not hard wired for that sort of life. I think we really do enjoy and maybe now appreciate a little more, the flexibility that is homeschooling. BUT the experience of a large VBS has been great and really got us excited about our own church’s much smaller version. That one Echo is enrolled in too as I am helping her age group.

She really was a card this week 🙂

June 3-5

We had some very exciting moments when the mail called for Echo to get a pair of scissors… one look at her smile and those child safety scissors in her hand and I sent Trinity and her long and seemingly TEMPTING hair in the opposite direction. Together we were somewhat successful.

With 4 scooters in the house and the hunt for a 5th ongoing the kids are really working together to share and teach EVERYONE how to ride them. I think we lucked out with the 3 wheel version I found Echo at a garage sale. Definitely a confidence builder for her so far!

We continued our week with a walk first thing in the morning to the nearest park. It was quite the walk, we had to avoid the usual walking path and bridge with all the rainfall… too many bugs and the water levels everywhere are so high it seemed smarter to walk the roads there. We spooked a bunny… they are all over the place this spring…

And then we played our hearts out at the park. It is so nice to go and have Echo able to handle herself pretty much solo now!

Super exciting… we managed to assemble our Texas binder! You can find our resource page HERE. I did not link all the books we used but have listed titles and authors. I am always amazed when we go to assemble at the actual AMOUNT of stuff we have completed to put into our books. This will definitely not be our only time visiting Texas as a topic but we certainly enjoyed our first experience.

We also had a run to the mall on Wednesday… errands coupled with education about water tables…

AND geocaching in the sunshine!! Ok maybe more playing in the sunshine but we did find at least one!

So much nature!

Echo decided to round off our day with officially starting our Canada overview. After all what is July 1st but CANADA DAY!

The weather so far has been so accommodating that on Thursday we were finally able to go to the rather well known Minnehaha Falls. The water level was SUPER high so we did not do the whole circuit. But we saw some amazing vantage points.

Got to enjoy the beautiful green everywhere while we Geocached…

And even dipped our feet CAREFULLY in the water. The current was amazingly strong all over the place and a portion of the river where you could normally wade rather far in really wasn’t overly safe.

But it was gorgeous!

After all that sunshine it was back home for another journal completed! Well done Trinity!

I love looking back at these days and portions of weeks and seeing just how much enjoyment we are taking from all aspects of our days! This is going to be a summer to remember.

May 24-29

I have to say we have learned from our winter… get those kids OUTSIDE!!!

And on Sunday we joined Matt, Fran and their twins at a local park to have a full on BBQ…

Park…

Lake…

S’mores…

(and dinner)…

We had it all!

And on the Monday we were back to Geocaching… we have had some amazing journal entries regarding our experience with some VERY creative hiding ideas.

We had a lovely print out for a scavenger hunt (HERE) to have the kids looking everywhere for their nature objects.

And a break with snacks and park fun while the twins and Ken hunted that last cache.

Tuesday was much more our work work work on the schoolwork day! We had a rather interesting experience learning about Legends and Pecos Bill. We are working on understanding the difference between true factual stories and what a legend really is. The kids just keep quoting back at me – EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN TEXAS and then giggling.

We got back into our classic Treasure Island. I am not sure which book we will read next. BUT we are working on a plan to get us storytime every day.

We are working through our dinosaurs that were in our Texas book… of course links to all of this will be in the Texas resource page (eventually).

And then right back out to burn off the energy… so much discussion of spring, teaching of siblings on the outside toys… so much fun!

On Wednesday I changed it up. Before the mosquitoes can take hold we drug the whole classroom outside to enjoy our grassy backyard. Once we found an ant free spot that is!

Great fun and we didn’t get too badly eaten up.

We fulfilled another additional Scout thing by driving down to a local small airport and checking out the planes. The kids all took turns spotting planes and talking about the different kinds. Family favourite is the seaplane. Though everyone was quite put out they land in LAKES not SEAS.

From there it was on to a park for a Geocache and play about in the sun.

Goofs!

Add in some Texas themed story writing and I think we succeeded with an interesting mid week.

Thursday was another special outside day. Echo had a preschool assessment to go to at our church so she and Ken dropped us off half way with some schoolwork.

A snack…

and a park! It was just really too bad that her session was delayed, we were there over 2 hours in the end and rather warm and cranky. BUT we met some wonderful little kids with their dads and enjoyed a perfect spring day.

Miss Echo did wonderfully with her assessment though they did reinforce that we should get her hearing tested to rule out anything extra in regards to her lisp (not total word forming… lazy girl!) which of course we already had scheduled for later in June.

Spring has sprung and so have we… out into the sunshine!

With super high water levels EVERYWHERE

Can you spot the neighbourhood white squirrel?