Homeschool fun

Here's a few pics of some of the fun things we've been doing as we've been learning about explorers in social studies.

Learning how to tie sailors knots

And building a great big explorer ship out of cardboard boxes. It was a very fun project but once it was built we couldn't fit it in the house so we had to bring it in the garage at night and it took up the whole garage. Needless to say the ship has now been demolished but it was fun all the same. :)

Crazy Boy!

Here are some very crazy pictures of my very crazy boy!

Enough said. :)

Some special friendships

At the end of August we spent a day with some kids who are a very special part of our family. I have done part-time daycare for Devon and Carter for almost 4 years but since they are both in full time school this year, I won't be looking after them anymore. So they came over for one last time before school started and everyone had lots of fun. We will miss having them around regularly, but we hope to still have some pro-d day visits. :)

Last week, I had the pleasure of an evening out (at Afterthoughts of course) with 2 very special friends. Sandra Plett was my roommate many eons ago at Columbia Bible college, and Darla Faulkner was one of our unit-mates. Sandra is a career missionary in Mexico (see the link to her blog on the right side of the page) and she is home on furlough for a few months. Being that we haven't seen each other since Sandra left for Mexico almost 3 years ago, there was lots of catching up to do! Thus, the four hours in Afterthoughts was not enough, so we had to move on outside to take these pictures once the waitress got impatient enough to let us know we should leave. :)

And here's a picture of one more special friendship worth mentioning. Deanna is the daughter of some very dear friends of ours. Rachel and Deanna were born exactly 7 weeks apart and they both got glasses before their first birthday. They both love dressing up and pretending. They are so adorable when they play together. I had to take this picture, because when Deanna came over, we realized they had both worn their matching skirts that day (and it wasn't even planned!)

Dressup Fun

Towards the end of August, Dad came down for a visit. He brought with him some things of Loni's that he had set aside for our kids' dress up box. Loni was well-known for her love of "bling" and there were all kinds of "shinies" and "pretties," which brought great joy to our children, who all love playing dress-up. Even Evan found a jacket he could wear, which he thought looked quite like a pirate costume. :) The pirate, of course, had to steal all the jewels from the lovely lady. The younger lady was in bed already when these pictures were taken but she got right into the dressing up the next day.

Here is Grace in all her finery.And now with the dress lifted up so we can see the high heels. :)
That's my girly-girl!!
Now this is a series of pictures that Evan insisted I take, specifically so I could blog them. He wanted it to look like one of those cartoon flip books where if you flip through it fast enough, it looks like the figure is moving. He was so serious about the whole thing, it was very cute. Don't tell Evan I said he was cute though! He is way too grown-up now to let me call him cute and he certainly doesn't want to be called handsome (since "handsome attracts girls") so I am only allowed to call him cool.

Here he is - Mister Cool!

Oh my, look who else got in on the dressup action! This picture is for Mom R, who sometimes wonders if her grandchildren have a mother since there are no pictures of her. :)
Nice earring Papa!
How cool is that?!

Camping

This summer we didn't have a lot of holiday time because Ryan needed to focus on getting the business going but we did manage to take a few days and go camping up at Rolley Lake. It's a nice little lake and the best part about it is that it is so close to home. This proximity turned out to be a good thing since we ended up having to take 2 vehicles in order to bring everything we needed to camp for 3 nights with 4 kids. We had an extra this year, since Evan's friend Cam came along for part of the trip.

The girls swimming
Canoe time

The boys swimming
Cam was so excited to help with the dishes. I'm not even being sarcastic - this wonderful 9 year old boy begged me to let him wash the dishes! I tried to keep him, but his parents wanted him back. :)

Yummy s'mores

One of the highlights of the trip was at campfire, when Evan and Cam sang "OH Canada" and accompanied themselves by armpit farting!

It was a good trip and fun was had by all but I think next year we'll go back to Hicks lake. I prefer it over Rolley lake despite the lack of flush toilets because the lake is bigger and much nicer to swim in.

Catch up time

Oh boy, it's halfway through September and I'm still updating what we did in August. Better late than never I suppose!

August long weekend we went to Agrifair. Here are a few pics of us on the rides. Correction - me on the rides with the kids and Ryan staying off the rides and taking pictures so he didn't puke!! :)

Also on August long weekend, we went with some friends to Tugboat Junction in Harrison. The mini-golfing was fun and Evan enjoyed exploring in the "tunnels" (man-made and kind of cheesy but at least he had fun!) But the best part was the impromptu BBQ afterwards.

Rachel and Olivia won free passes for getting a hole-in-one at the end!!

I think Evan thought it was great that the girls were scared in the dark tunnels and he wasn't. :)