Good News

Just a few weeks ago, my dad was clearly dying. When it looked like a matter of days, we had him receive the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  This includes a prayer for bodily healing, and, all I can say is, God really answered that one!  He's doing much better.  He is still fragile, but no longer actively dying.

May God bless and reward all of you who prayed for him!

So, I'm back home, the Emperor is back to teaching, and various Zoomlians have started college again.  Here at home, I'm only teaching Leena (part time here, part time college) and Choclo and Oob.  We're easing into the new school year with slurpees to celebrate our First Day of No School.

First Day of No School

For our First Day of No School, we went playground hopping!

And swimming!

















And working on personal projects like this Bionicle armor Leena made!

And I've been working on plans for our Big Trip, Awesome History, and Chemistry!

Happy First Day of No School

 The school kids headed off this week, so we grabbed some friends and did a playground hop!

We managed three large playgrounds: Indian Creek, Watkins Park, and Buddy Attick.

 The one I was most excited about was the new Wizard of Oz themed playground at Watkins, but evidently everyone else had the same idea!


I don't think I've ever seen such a crowded playground!

We only stayed long enough to look around, and we agreed we would love to come back later. 

But we had a great time at Indian Creek and Buddy Attick, so it was a great start to our non school year!

Happy First Day of No School!

 To celebrate, we started off with Mass, then a playground hop.

This great new super hero themed playground opened last month, and this was the first chance we had to try it.

It was, well, super!

We met some home schooling friends there, so we had some company.  Extra fun!!

Klenda really liked the rings!


One odd thing about this playground is it's super secret location.  Google maps directed me to a local school (irony alert!), and told me to walk in a particular direction.

We parked at the school and walked over the river and through the woods, and found the playground...and a large parking lot.


I was able to work out a good set of directions for next time anyway!

We ended up staying there most of the morning, but we squeezed in a  side trip to the Alien Playground on the way back, so we are counting it as a playground hop!

We invited our friends back for lunch, games, and ice cream making, so it was a highly successful First Day of No School!

Catching Up

 It's a good thing I take pictures, otherwise I'd forget half the stuff we do!

Way back when we were celebrating our First Day of No School, I had wanted to do our usual thing of going to The Big Enormous Playground With the Teeny Tiny Zoo.

Ah, but this time I remembered! 

I finally remembered that the carousel and train are closed on Mondays, so this year I went on Wednesday. 

And this year they closed the carousel and train a week early. :O(

But the playground was as marvelous as ever, and, when we ambled over to the Teeny Tiny Zoo/Farm, we discovered that they were having hay rides!

Well, all right then!


If you've never been on a hay ride, it's a ride in a tractor drawn wagon, usually seated on bales of straw.  

Yes, technically, that makes it a straw ride, but that doesn't sound as nice!

We had a marvelous time on the ride and a great time touring the farm.

Mxyl was quite taken with the peacocks, and Klenda found a particularly beautiful chicken that looked like it was wearing a black lace shawl over a russet gown.

I think our favorite animals were the twin 3 month old goats who were playing and frolicking and running into each other like, well, kids!

 On the way back we followed a new trail marked with an owl. 

We didn't see any owls, but Leena found a toad, and Zorg found a praying mantis, and I found Blue Streak!

Much to my surprise and delight, the trail came out exactly where we had parked!

Happy First Day of No School!

 We had a lovely playground hop - six playgrounds, which I think is a new record for us!

One playground we had not visited in over a year and we were quite surprised to find that the old tennis court had been turned into a new skate park!

 What a fun day - it was so nice to relax and play together.


We also made it to the library, a favorite spot. 


 Leena asked a librarian where she could find more books about optical illusions, and the librarian was surprised that she had homework already!
 
Leena, of course, just likes optical illusions, but I guess they don't often see a kid researching their own interests.


Speaking of which, one part of the skate park was very steep, and it had turned into a caterpillar trap.  We rescued four large and interesting caterpillars, of which we took home three to try to raise in our butterfly pavilion.

 Anyone know this fella?


We ended our day at the "alien" playground near the library.

We call it that because it looks like it was designed by and for space aliens.

Very fun!

First Day of No School

We had our delayed First Day of No School last Thursday!

Off we went to Watkin's Park, also known as The Big Enormous Playground With the Teeny Tiny Zoo. We played on the playground for a while.


The diggers at the sandbox were a big hit.





Then we went over to the farm/zoo. Choclo's favorite animal was the tractor, of course!


Everyone loved feeding grass to the peacocks and llamas.



And we wrapped up our visit with a ride on the carousel!

Happy First Day of No School!

Yes! It's that time of year again! Monday was the day the public school kids went back.

What I had hoped to do was give the kids a preview of all the fun stuff we'll be doing, hang out and celebrate our freedom from the school schedule by doing lots of fun educational stuff they wouldn't be doing if they went to school. And get slurpees.

What actually happened was that our beloved Grammie was going off on a trip later in the week, so we ended up spending most of the day with her, hanging out, and having slurpees. So that was OK!

We just pushed everything else later into the week. Happy First Week of No School, was nearly interrupted on Tuesday by a Mommy meltdown, but that ended up being PMS, so that was OK (eventually, after chocolate).

Which brings us to today which was great! We tried out our new workbooks (we like doing workbooks from time to time) and then went off on an expedition to the Arboretum.

That was lovely! Our first trip with Oob walking! He loved the nice soft grass under his toes (ours is a bit crispy at present). Best of all: gravel! Yes, the beds in the dwarf conifer garden are mulched in gravel. Perfect for picking up and dropping back down. (I don't totally get the appeal, but I have not yet had a toddler that hasn't loved spending an hour or so doing this, so who am I to argue tastes?)

The older Zoomlians took pictures (the picture was by Mxyl) and played a game of hide and seek that was either wildly successful or dismally unsuccessful. No one found anyone (the garden is vast and lushly planted, and Zoomlians are wily) but no one minded, so that was OK. And they collected 172 cicada shells. That's not hyperbole, they counted them when they got home. Interestingly, Zorg, who collects cicada shells, had just yesterday found one with the cicada still inside ("one without a hole"). It was examined carefully then placed on our maple tree.

I taught the older Zoomlians how to identify pines and cedars. This was a triumph for me which nearly expunges my mortification at discovering (at the age of 10) that not all evergreens were pine trees. I went to visit my grandmother in Washington state and I was surprised at how many pine trees they had... In my defense, we didn't have many conifers on the base where I grew up. To my grandmother (born and raised in conifer heaven), it was like calling an oak a maple. As shocked as she was, maybe it was more like calling a telephone pole a maple. I'm pretty sure my Mom heard about it. My point is: look Grandma, my kids can tell a cedar from a pine! I'm still working on the spruce/fir thing myself. I think it's spruce cones point down and fir cones point up. Or the other way around.

In other news, we are going camping on Assateague this weekend. Please don't rob my house. We have a tent. We can put it up. We can take it down. We have an enormous list of WHAT NOT TO FORGET. I don't know where I put it. This will be fun. Really. Kate told me so! We are actually getting pretty excited!! Now I remember: I have to call Coleman and tell them I found the missing pieces under the tent when I took it down. We'll be fine. We're going to have a great time! Right, Kate?

Happy First Day of No School!

To celebrate, we: baked a cake, made a spaceship, toured the neighborhood pointing out interesting features of Earth for visiting Zoomlians (including many discarded solar collectors from certain large earth creatures), made fudge, played board games, watched Carmen Sandiego, went to Mass (where Choclo entertained the, er, masses by sprinting up the center aisle during the final prayers), made a massive mess with foam paint, dawdled diligently, told knock-knock jokes, read the beginning of A Child's History of the World (while the Zoomlians drew pictures) and did the laundry. Among other fun things. Quite a happy day.

Made me think: why restrain ourselves to a single day? Tomorrow we're going to the Arboretum with some like minded friends for fun and a picnic. In the afternoon, we are hoping to get to the rest of the things the Zoomlians wanted to do today!