Shades Mills

Our weekly Shades Mills outing almost didn't happen after another rough school morning.  The full moon this month is wearing us out with bad attitudes and crankiness and poor sleep.  

Once there, we almost left early due to lingering attitudes and a dumped water bottle on Zoe!  But we sat in separate spaces, gathered our thoughts and kindness back, ate an early supper and continued on.  Happily the second half of the day was much better than the first.

I am rarely disappointed with time spent in nature.  It may take some time (in this case a few hours!), but we always leave in a better mood.

Attempting to build a tee-pee.
It was a short lived endeavour.

Blue damselfly (I think).

Getting ready to race down the hill.

Dragonflies mating?
or fighting?

We watched them for a few moments and then realized
that the dragonfly on top had taken the head off the
other dragonfly!!  It was pretty gross.

Decapitated dragonfly.
Adrianna "explored" it further.
I didn't.

Dragonfly wing.
Cool details.

"Threenager"
Sums him up entirely.
Good gravy he has been a LOT of work lately.
Not even nature can take the 3yr old out of the boy.

Furiously (and I do mean furiously) trying to crawl.

Collecting Goose feathers.
She wants me to buy an ink pot so she can try dipping
them in ink and using them as a quill pen.

Adrianna caught this baby fish.
The girl can catch pretty much anything.

Park

After a rough morning of school, we decided to walk to the park and library for the afternoon.  The park was deserted!  The kids had fun doing some of the riskier activities that they can't do when younger children are around.  Riding bikes in the bandstand (and off the side!).  Leaping off the play structure.  Flying off the swings in gigantic leaps.  Apparently there was a lot of energy to burn!

Getting ready to leap.

Straddle leap off the swing!

Running/Riding off energy on the bandstand.

Climber

Monkey.

Benji's nature collection.

Happy after a quick nap.

Birds, Butterflies and a Pond

We attended a homeschool nature class at the RARE conservation area.  The focus was on birds, butterflies and pond life.

Learning about birds nests.

Catching bugs and butterflies.

Catching tadpoles.

Momma Toad (or Poppa Toad?) with tadpoles.

Jars of pond life.

Diving Beetle Larva.

Shades Mills

Our weekly visit to Shades Mills was much warmer this week.  The kids spent the entire time at the beach area.  Swimming, playing in the sand, exploring and finding (and burying) dead things.

These little inch worms are everywhere this year
- much to the boys' delight!

Adrianna caught a butterfly with her hands!
No harm done.  She let it go and it flew away.

Discovering grass.

Sunning himself on a rock like a lizard.

Making sandcastles.

Dead Duckling.  :-(

Dead fish.
Adrianna poked it.
We learned that rotting things STINK.

Dead baby turtle.

We found a clutch of dead baby turtles.
They had been dead for awhile.

The grave site.

A Time to Plant

Garden time!

Veggies on one side and flowers on the other.  Like always, there are many helpers.

This space used to be "the dirt space".  Nathaniel spent many
many hours digging and dreaming and creating here over the
years.  He has many many fond memories of this space.  He was
a part of creating this garden but I think he's a bit sad that
its no longer a play space for him.  He's growing up.
(I have fond memories too....)

Shades Mills

Our weekly visit to Shades Mills landed on another chilly Tuesday.  

Despite the weather we still manage to have a good time and find something new.

The little brown tips of the buds pop off easily.

Tiny pretty weed flower.
Speedwell possibly?
or Ground Ivy?

The May Apple's are in bloom.

Painting a dandelion in his nature journal.

Dragonfly nymph?

Even though it was REALLY cold, the boys got soaked.

Camping

Our very first family camping trip!!

We went to Lakewood Christian Campground with a group of families.  There were about a million children and ours had a blast.  So much fun that leaving and coming home was very sad and hard.

We will certainly do it again.

All ready to go!
We slightly overpacked and needed to take two vehicles.

Gotta eat chips when camping.

Brand new tent in the background.

LOVING the campfire!

Adrianna won the first sack race.

Helping Benji.

There was a LOT of sword fighting.
Gangs of little boys running around with nerf arrows, swords, sticks
and other instruments of war.

Still got it.

spider-dog

We discovered the creek on the last day and brought
home real clay for the kids to use.

Crashed in the tent.

Using the creek clay to make creations.

Benji's snowman.

How we all felt after a weekend of camping.