I swear I intend to catch up but we really followed through on our pledge to make every day count in May as much as possible. Living in the moment and finding the amazing in every second!!!

May 12-17

We are very blessed with our main penpal… Gammie has become instrumental in our writing and letter practice. We get more letters some months than we can almost keep up with but every one is answered! This newest installment came not only with letters but with a rainy day (and we have had a few) fun craft using pom poms.

She has added a new incentive for our school work… sending the girls their own work pages to mail back to her. Echo calls it doing her mail and I am happy to say she was VERY interested in doing it. We actually budgeted in curriculum overview books for the kids this month which includes one for her that she will start later in June or July.

There was also a new card game … whack a mole in card form?? The kids LOVED it!

Geocaching is going to be life changing for this family! Now even and every day trip to the store could be expanded to include a treasure hunt as well! We quickly are doing up all the local (walking distance) ones.

And on these outings we are finding more and more examples of winter being truly done and gone. After such a horrible winter each and every little indication is so AMAZING!!

Tuesday Trinity was teaching Echo how to concentrate on her pages…

Zander finished ANOTHER journal. Each book has higher expectations of the writer. This newest book means he has to have a title for every entry, the date and around 7 sentences! Anything to get the creative writing juices flowing! Well done Zander!

Another chapter of Treasure Island later…

And later in the day we made another trek out into the parks of Minnesota to find more Geocaching locations. This time we took Echo and while she and Mommy did not venture into the wooded area we did enjoy our walk. And met a nice puppy.

Wednesday was full of paper work.

Osprey

With the boys in the pool in the evening. I am not sure when we will sign them up for the next series of sessions but man are they improving. We honestly  cannot afford the large number of sports a lot of kids are in right now but what we do do seems to be so appreciated lately that I feel like as long as we keep taking advantage of what we can afford and maybe create our own opportunities we will do just fine!

On Thursday we were indoors and watching BBC nature shows. The kids made a lovely poster after.

The boys assembled some amazing Texas mini lapbooks. The links to these will be in my Texas Resource entry at the end of May.

More Wild Kratts…

Roadrunner

And reading…

And a Dirty Jobs about mosquitoes (I had to share Gavin’s picture… that is one HAPPY insect).

Emanuel learned about South Africa as well.

On Friday since everyone BUT the kids and I were out and about I snuck out with Ken and brought them home CHOCOLATE DONUTS! Yup we miss our Tim Hortons!!!

And I mean we REALLY love the geocaching. I would totally suggest it to any family (or person for that matter) that wants something to do that is really on your own terms. We have downloaded an app for our smart phone but you can get a GPS unit (we want one one day). We have been picking an area that has multiple caches to find and do our best to get them all. We have our own special bag of things we need (that is still evolving and I will share the total list in the future I promise) and try to keep the kids as involved as possible.

Nature was out full force as well. Amazingly enough all this was close to Sam’s (ok so we combined a  good trip Geocaching with shopping…). A Saturday well done.

Spring has sprung full force here… and this is our best year yet for taking advantage of it!

April 21

Easter Monday… well the Monday after Easter was the perfect day for our family to head to the Como Zoo… it is a donations only entrance so way more affordable for our small budget than the state zoo. It may not have ALL the animals but there are more than enough to make for a fun and fulfilling day.

We started out with the seals and penguins where we picked up our second plastic mold creature – a seal (last time it was the gorilla). The kids want to collect all of the ones available at the zoo. One animal at a time.

We got some spectacular pictures of the polar bear.

We had a snack in front of the lions who were napping in the sun.

And other cats as well

There was the newly renovated gorilla enclosure to check out as well.

Don’t forget about the monkeys!

We had a quick stop off at the gift shop to look around and get a postcard to send to Cousin Jimmie back home. And then it was out the door and into the sunshine.

Time to head home for the OTHER big activity! Gammie sent the kids a box full of Easter Egg Hunt fun! Pre filled eggs and peeps for all!! I had Ken set it all up –  the pretty eggs in the front yard in pretty plain sight for the girls and the backyard full of  the others in harder to find places. The girls were so excited to have easy to find and the boys totally loved the challenge.

Ready to hunt

After we ran and hunted and laughed it was time to take all the booty up to the sun room to hang out in the sunshine as we painstakingly opened each and every egg and pile up the treats… jelly beans and rockets (US Smarties). Each egg was carefully emptied, closed back up and put into the bag to be saved as I am told we MUST repeat this procedure next year!

Throw some more fun outside with a tiny bit of school and I think we made it an Easter Monday to remember!!!

April 10-11

Thursday was a rather special day. Family field trip! The first on our Spring/Summer odyssey. We packed everyone up and went downtown to the Mill City Museum. Did you know that Minneapolis was once the Mill Capital of the world? In fact, the one we were in… well the remains of it… was the largest briefly (4 months) until they built a bigger one across the lake. We also learned that the waterfall that ran the mills was gotten from the Native Americans, the flow changed and often even dirtied up. What a history!

We did have a blast. We came at the perfect time and were able to watch the video and take the elevator tour pretty much alone. Though the elevator scared the crud out of the kids.

Waiting for the movie to start

Ken went all the way to the top of the building and took some amazing pictures.

I think they had the most fun at the water lab… but then who doesn’t when you can play with water and wood.

Of course, I made sure to stop and take pictures of the kids in their Aunty Holly finery. An early Easter present. She does have some great taste.

The day was breezy but lovely so we spent some more time outside afterwards.

Friday was a special half day of school… after all, Nana and Baba came home! So spelling tests and then fun in the sun.

Emanuel even helped out with snacks and lunch for his Scout achievement! FRUIT SALAD!!

We ended the day with a family walk. Just the 7 of us, down the street to the walking path. Maybe not a lot of green but it was a lovely walk. At one point the frogs were so loud that when a friend called Ken he had to walk back the path to hear the call!

It always feels absolutely amazing to have so much family outing time. Healthy Kenny is a FUN Kenny and he is stepping right up and willing to go to these events I line up. So pleased.

Enjoy the picture overflow from our Mill City Museum trip!!! Check out their site HERE.