Pre-Wedding Visit to Jacksonville!

We had a slight change of plans before our friend, Lori's wedding, so I called Grandmother the day before we were scheduled to leave and asked her if she might mind having houseguests for the next two nights. She said to come on, so we did! It was a wonderful treat to get to see her and rest at her house before heading up to St. Simons for the wedding weekend!
She took us to really neat place called the National Estuarine Research Reserves, near St. Augustine. They have a museum there where we watched a movie about estuaries, and then each child (even Liam!) was given a scavenger hunt to complete and bring back to the lady in charge. They searched all over the displays, completed and checked over their scavenger hunts, and then the lady gave them each nice prizes, coloring books and posters and stuff! It was a lot of fun, and we definitely want to go back and explore the next time we are down and have more time to play there!

It was funny how the pelicans were all just hanging out here, each in their own little group.

The girls are excited about manatees, but I was excited to see clams! All of those things sticking up out of the ground are clams at low tide! Pretty spiffy!

Cool trees that make you want to draw them. :)

They were fascinated by the sea foam, especially when it would blow and roll around. (And, yes, it was pretty CHILLY that day!)

Afterwards, we took them to ride on the St. Augustine carousel and play on the playground there.

It was Liam's first time on a carousel, and he LOVED it!

This was a really cool slide at the playground - all rollers! They LOVED it!

Royalty

We have missed the past three weeks of our co-op, first for Katy with the flu, then Darsie the next week, and then Liam this past week. Katy, especially, has been sorry to miss her classes, so I talked to one of her teachers last week to see if there was anything she could do at home. This wonderful mom gave me the book they are reading and the coloring page that went with it. She also gave me the crown that they have been adding to each week so that Katy could add another jewel to it this week. Then, she gave me two other crowns and a whole container of jewels so taht our other two could get into the act, too. It was a wonderful afternoon, and the kids are still very proud of their crowns!

Music Class

Liam's birthday present was a term of Makin' Music classes, and we have been enjoying them greatly! He gets to go on a Mommy or Daddy date each Friday morning to his class (and we enjoy seeing our old friends from when we both worked there)! Some Fridays have not worked out, either from sickness or conflicting plans. However, two friends of ours, who are wonderful teachers (!), also teach a Tuesday morning class and invited us to come (with all 3 kids) when we need to. So, we have availed ourselves of that class several times, especially enjoying seeing Sandy and Denise again! The kids have had a blast as well!

Mmmmm.......Pilgrims!

Today in our month-long pilgrim study, we read about pilgrim girls' chores and then made butter and cornbread (from a box, nothing too fancy!). I forget every year how tiring making butter is, and then every year we make it and I ache for days! It was really good, though, with the warm cornbread! I think history is our favorite part of lessons every day! I am accumulating a whole list of books that we want for Christmas, too!

Can you tell they're posing?

Mmmm!

Schoolwork

Since the girls were sad to see their friends go, one of their assignments today was to write a letter to them (we try to write letters each week). Liam wanted to get in on the action and drew a picture for Annika, and I just had to post another "people" picture, since it is so fun to me to see him drawing recognizable things!

Washington, D. C. Field Trip!

In the spirit of spontaneity, and since our friends were heading that way, we dropped any plans we had for yesterday and headed south to D.C. with them. Two field trips in one week - pretty fun school, don't you think? The girls were especially thrilled to get to spend more time with their new friends. We left in a gray, rainy morning and arrived to bright, hot sunshine! It was the perfect day to sight-see!
We started at the Washington Monument, headed down the mall past the WWII Memorial and reflecting pool (they really liked the ducks there!) to the Lincoln Memorial. Then, after walking through the Vietnam Memorial, we headed past the White House and enjoyed ice cream and french fries in the Ronald Reagan Building. After our brief and wonderful rest (sitting felt great!), we swung by the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and then the Capital Building and then played in the mall while the guys fetched the vans. All in all, a great day! The only downside was that we think Darsie has the flu now, though we didn't realize she was getting sick until we were already down there. Some Motrin and a few stroller rides later, though, and she did pretty well (the fun friends helped, too!).

WWII Memorial fountains

More WWII Memorial

Look, that's where the president and his family live!

View of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial

Capital Building

New Skill!

I used the girls as guinea pigs this afternoon and had them test out the houses my co-op class will be making on Thursday. They had great fun decorating their houses and watching me glue them together. While they were all decorating (Liam, too), I noticed that Liam is actually drawing people now! After weeks and weeks (forever!) of dictating who to draw for me or the girls to do, he was drawing his own people today and telling me who they are! The curious thing is that he is drawing the same way Darsie started out - upside down. He draws the circle for the head and then sends a leg up and off of it for the body. No idea why, but it is interesting that both of them have done it.

Darsie's house

Liam's house

Katy's house

Liam drawing people on his house

Close-up of his people - circle then line shooting off of it. He also put heads looking out of the windows - I think he said they were me, Matt and him. Pretty neat!