Forts in the Forest

On Friday, (yes, we've had a busy week!), we went to a local garden that features different forest habitats. We went with three other homeschooling families and had a naturalist give us a guided tour.

Our guide is telling us about some of the invasive species that he and the other workers continuely are removing from the garden.

The special attraction this summer is a series of seven forts built in the forests by different building contractors. They ranged from a jungle gym type fort...

...to a fort on stilts...

...to a little wooden house.

But by far, the favorite fort was the castle fort.

Next in popularity was the "build your own fort". The staff had erected some poles and had made available some twine and burlap, but the visiting children had added sticks and rearranged things to make the fort better.We had to drag several of the children away from this fort to go eat lunch.

And now for some "just for fun" pictures. Aaron peeking out of the castle fort.

Deborah peeking out of the house fort.

All the children on the observation tower.

Stephen on top of a giant fallen stump.

Nathan and a friend balancing on logs.

Deborah and a friend in the fort.

Spray Park

On Thursday, we met some friends at a local spray park. This is the first time we've been here and the children enjoyed themselves very much.

Aaron is in the red Detroit Red Wings shirt on the right.

That's Deborah with the Cardinals hat and the yellow dress.

Church Camp Day

On Wednesday, we had our annual church picnic at a nearby church camp. It looked like rain as we approached the camp. I was concerned that we had driven for an hour and a half to sit under a pavilion all day. But through it looked bad a good part of the day, it only rained a little bit when we were eating lunch. It still was a little too windy for the moms to swim but nothing could stop the children.

One dad braved the cool winds and went out with the children. They had a great time with the inflatable boat.

Deborah went canoeing with some of the older boys.

The best amusement was finding the perfect balance between one person and all the others on the floating dock near the edge of the swimming area.

Usually this ended with most everyone falling into the water.

We played in the sand...

...while the moms knitted on the beach. (I told you Mike that knitting was the new hot thing!)

And of course, once the children were thoroughly tired out from the water, the sun came out and it would have been actually pleasant to go swimming. But we changed back in our regular clothes and went to their remote control car course and ran our truck and car for a while.

Some of the other folks brought their instruments.

And of course, we had to have a big picnic supper. Followed by the mandatory somemores.

This is my favorite picture of the day. The boys are watching their friends play what I heard called Hillybilly Golf.

Longest Day of the Year

This weekend, the cherry nets went up. The birds had begun to eat them and we don't have a lot to spare this year. After I got them up, we had two big rain and wind storms and three of them fell down (at different times). So I got some twine and anchored each teepee to the ground using some tent stakes. That seemed to have solved the problem.

On June 22 (the closest we could get to the Longest Day of the Year), we dug some of our Red Norland potatoes. We had our first Peas and Potatoes dish - a much longed for event in our house.

We invited some friends over to celebrate the Longest Day and the weather cooperated and we were able to have a great picnic on the screened in porch.

Stephen's new look

Announcing the new look of Stephen - new glasses, new watch, and one lost baby molar.

All Star Fun

Our local minor league team was the host for the All Star Game in our division. To help celebrate the day, they had some fun games for the children on the lawn outside the stadium. So on a day that turned out to be too cold for swimming (our scheduled activity), we decided to go check out the games.

They had the pitching machine out and were shooting fly balls for the children to catch. Nathan is just about to catch one in his hat.

Deb was more interested in the flora around the lawn.

But they all loved the bouncy thing in the shape of a giant baseball helmet!

Father's Day

Last Sunday we had a wonderful Father's Day. The day was sunny and warm. I made a nice meal which started with shrimp cocktails made with our horseradish and then my dh grilled steaks. Before dessert, we all went for a walk in the woods. We took a side excursion to look at the river. That entailed walking along a dead maple tree for a ways. Deb did very well.

Everything is so green now.

And the blue flags are out. My second favorite wildflower.

Then we came home to eat cheesecake for dessert.

The front flower bed is done (mostly)

We finished (mostly) the new front flower bed. We had earlier put in the new sidewalk so we had the old sidewalk bed and some new areas to fill. We ripped out the shrubs that were dying slowly and the ones with thorns that I hated. So here is the front bed before planting.

And a couple weeks later, here is the completed bed. I planted the flowers and my dh leveled the ground and put in the edging. Then together we put down the weed barrier and mulch.

Here's the view from the driveway with our lovely model Deborah. I still need to plant some mums and some iris but I can't do that until the end of summer. This front bed looks so nice that we are eager to fix the other beds around the house. They have too much shrubbery and not enough flowers for our tastes.

Literature Group Presentations

On the same day as the baseball picnic, we had our literature group presentations. Each child gave a presentation on one of the books that we had read over the last school year. Deborah drew a picture of Titania and Bottom of Midsummer's Night Dream. I asked her questions and she gave the answers.

Our friends had made a full scale (to them) picture of a knight and gave a talk on why King Arthur's tales were good to read.

The rest of the kids and the dads listening.

And the makers of the Globe cake made a new cake - the King Arthur cake.

Baseball Picnic

Two Saturdays ago was our baseball picnic. All the teams from our township got together and had a big picnic with a raffle and free bubblegum from the consession stand for the children. It was a perfect day and the picnic food was good.

The big draw to the picnic was a baseball player from our local minor league team came out.

He was a big hit. He took a lot of time to talk to the children individually and take pictures with them. He autographed balls and posters for the kids. And he stayed to eat with us. Nathan was chosen to sit near him. Nathan was thrilled! The ballplayer also gave a little talk on the life lessons he learned playing Little League.

Fun Food

I made kabobs last weekend and they were so pretty that I thought I would take a picture of them.

I also went to a knife skills class and learned the right way to chop vegetables. It was a very useful class. I learned about the right cutting boards and to NEVER put the knives in the dishwasher (the teacher shouted that one out and startled the class) and how to hone them. It was a hands on class and the last thing we did was to make a garnish with a paring knife. So here is my apple swan.