Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 82)

Recently we had a family apple taste test.  It was really quite a lot of fun.  I bought seven different kinds of apples and gave each family member stickers to rank their favorite to least favorite apple on a wall chart.  It was a lot of fun to see who liked each apple type.  Mine & October’s least favorite was the Red Delicious but was Scarlett’s favorite.  I had a little difficulty believing that Scarlett really inderstood how to rate her choices but since our taste testing I have bought her Red Delicious apples several times and she has gobbled them up.  October & my favorite were the Golden Delicious and Jeff’s was the Gala apple.  We then got to talk a lot about the apple chart and how rankings.  The girls still talk about which was each persons favorite apple!

I recently read an article about how natural playscapes get kids more active than traditional playgrounds.  I’ve already noticed this myself.  And I enjoy taking the kids to play in the woods or part of a park more so than going to a traditional playground.  The kids want me to get up and chase them around the regular playground (and sometimes I just want to sit down) or they play various “food” games with bark chips or dirt that mostly involve them standing in place pretending to eat or serve food.  Nowadays when October is active on the playground it involves her wanting to climb ON TOP of the playstructure which is both a bit dangerous and is bad news for all the smaller children following her lead.  Besides the Kelsey Creek Farm park we also visit the Lewis Creek Park quite a bit.  It’s a five-minute drive and quite diverse.  There are soccer fields, playground, nature center, picnic area, and hiking trails through wetlands and forests.  We recently discovered a couple of apple trees and October has had lots of fun climbing the apple trees and collecting apples.  I love it.  The kids have made 2 apple pies from their apples (more pictures to follow).  They also found a cedar tree that they can all climb on and up….we’ve spent hours in one small area of the park collecting apples, picking blackberries (in season till October this year), and climbing trees.  I’m not really surprised by the article as I’ve already discovered the benefits from free play outdoors for our family.

Here are some pictures of the kids at Lewis Creek…

Last Spring, I signed the girls and I up for a class field trip to the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.  I had actually been looking forward to this field trip for awhile and it fit nicely with studying Ancient Civilizations this year.  Last week, we went and saw the IMAX movie Mysteries of Egypt at the Science Center and again the girls loved watching an IMAX movie and it was rather informative.  We read several books about Egypt, Pharaohs, and King Tut.  However, I was ill prepared to take three small kids to the exhibit itself.  We arrived early as instructed but ended up waiting a full hour and in several ques before entering the exhibit.  So after waiting for an hour the kids were a little amped up and inpatient.  Two things that were not conducive to an exhibit that require no touching ANYTHING and keep voices low.  There were no backpacks allowed in fear that one may bump into an exhibit (although you were never close enough to actually bump an exhibit), no food, no drink, no kneeling on the floor, no bathrooms and no re-entry.  Even touching the metal rope barriers around an exhibit was prohibited, kneeling to read the placards was prohibited, no touching the glass that contained the exhibits was prohibited.  A store full of crystal may have been less stressful.  I had to carry Lavender (she’s 30 pounds now) in my arms for the hour plus we were there.  I had to tell Scarlett she was out of luck when she said she had to go to the bathroom and hope she was bluffing.  I had to remind October a million times to not point too closely or touch the glass.  How on earth were the kids going to be interested in anything there if I couldn’t kneel to their level (and give my arms a break) to read the placards or ask them what they saw in the statue or other exhibit.  I was ready to leave 10 minutes into it and after an hour I needed a drink.  The exhibits were very interesting and it’s amazing that the items have survived over such a long period but I just wasn’t prepared at all to take the kids.  I needed a stroller for Lavender.  I needed to prepare Scarlett & October for what it was like…although I really had no idea.  So basically, I paid for us to get yelled at for an hour and the kids to say that mummies look a lot like poop.  The end of the exhibit, of course, leads you through a gift shop to which I let the kids touch any damn thing they wanted becuase I didn’t have a backpack to hold my wallet to purchase anything anyways.

I took the girls ice skating for the first time and they thought it was SO much fun! They’d like to go again.  I was a little nervous on how I would do since I might have gone ice skating in college but the last time I actually remember going ice skating was with my Grandma Judy in Plymouth when I was a kid.  I tend to overestimate my athletic abilities but I figured I can rollerblade so I should be able to ice skate.  And I was right!

Before stepping on the ice.

First time on the ice

Doing alright.

Scarlett ended up getting a walker to skate with and did fairly well.  October would let go of the wall for a few feet before she would either grab back on or fall.  They were both EXHAUSTED after a little more than an hour skating.

I can’t believe that I have forgotten to share that Lavender bought a lotto ticket months and months ago.  Maybe, I should say she purchased a lotto ticket on behalf of the woman loading her money into the lotto machine.  More details, please?  The whole family was at the grocery store and we were checking out at the self-check out lane.  While I like going through self check-out the kids LOVE going through self check-out and I often indulge them.  It’s a pain in the *ss with kids.  One kid is trying to scan items while the other is taking the items off the end scale to put in the cart which then results in the machine beeping at you to put the last item back in the bagging area.  So there’s what two kids are doing.  The third (Lavender) has wandered over to the push the buttons on the scratch-off lotto ticket machine.  Except that the lady feeding bills into the machine has not noticed the 2 foot little person beneath her feet pressing buttons and is more than a little dismayed when she discovers that it is not the machine that is broken but that someones child (mine) has robbed her of choosing the $2 scratch off that she wanted in lieu of a $1 scratch-off that my daughter randomly choose.  I run over to get Lavender, not realizing she has purchased the lotto ticket so when Lavender reaches in and pulls out her lotto ticket, I remark that it’s not hers and to give it to the woman.  You can imagine the look at this woman’s face as she replies that it is not HER ticket but that SHE bought it.  Oops.  This was before we went to a cash only system so we didn’t even have a dollar to give to the lady!  Instead, she had to wait for us to check-out so we could get cash back in the form of $1s to repay her.  And Lavender didn’t even win!

We’ve had some great September weather and I scheduled a field trip to one of the beaches in Seattle right on the Puget Sound.  We headed over to Alki Beach which was a half an hour drive or so to check out how the tide actually went out and hopefully see some tide pools.  I expected a rocky/coarse sand beach area that seems typical to the Seattle area.  I was quite surprised to find actual sand with a biking/jogging trail alongside the beach as well as beachfront resturants and patios’s lining the street.  It was like a different world!  And top it off with 80 degree weather in September and it made for a great day!  While we didn’t find any tide pools there were plenty of shells washed up on shore (I timed our visit for the tide to be out) and other sea life to be explored.  We also watched  ferry boats go back and forth and the girls dug a big hole.  Before we went, we read a book about the sea life found on beaches from the Cat and the Hat Learning Library – I’d recommend these books.  October loves them!  Then when we got home, I had the girls write a report on their field trip.  They each drew a picture of what they saw or did and with Scarlett’s I wrote down what she said and with October’s I wrote her words down and she copied them.  Did I say it was a great day!

We spent Monday learning about Salmon at home.  October even created a play/show regarding the migration of salmon from ocean to their spawning grounds.  It was really a cool day for homeschooling.  We watched a PBS DVD on Salmon here in the Northwest…I think I was more into it than the kids.  We read a couple of books and then October started drawing a female salmon laying her eggs in a gravel bed.  That’s when she came up with the idea to make a “show”.  I guided October through what the lines could be and through this I could have Scarlett ask her fish character why October’s fish character was returning to her stream, how she knew it was her stream and what she was going to do when she got there.  It was really a great way to reinforce what we learned in the books and on the DVD.  I never would have thought to create a show.  A coloring worksheet or glue & paste the salmon life cycle in the correct order would have been more of something I would have thought of but letting October take the lead and us run with it was really cool.  We spent 3 hours working, reading, and watching about the salmon.  Then yesterday, between Scarlett’s dance lesson and October’s gymnastics lesson we went to the Issaquah Fish Hatchery and saw the salmon already beginning to run.  It really is quite impressive if you’ve never seen it.  Large salmon seemingly just hanging out in the stream while others jump completely out of the water and work their way through the fish ladder and then others still that have already died and are littering the banks of the stream.  We even got to see a few biologists in the river that were recording data on the fish such as length, age, gender and when they ran across a female that hadn’t released her eggs we saw the biologist cut open the belly and release all of the eggs.  It was pretty cool.  I plan to go back next week to see how many more salmon are running.



Can you see the salmon jumping in this picture?



Watching the salmon swim by in the fish ladder and jump completely out of the water.

Some splashes were large enough to make it over the top of the tank and splash us.

The girls using the interactive salmon migration display.

Remlinger Farms really isn’t much of a farm but more of a 4-H fair with kiddie rides, a few animals to feed, ponies to ride, a train around the park and expensive admission.  The girls have been once before back in the Spring as one of our field trips when a special school-week day was happening for about 50% off the cost of admission.  Since that trip, October has talked and talked about going back with daddy.  She was SO excited to take him and show him the rides and how much fun it is!  So, I bought a Groupon and scheduled a family trip a few weekends ago.  When Jeff asked if he needed hiking boots for the “farm” I promptly said it was all paved and wasn’t so much a farm as the kiddie area at a carnival, oh, and it’s cheesy and admission is overpriced.  But the girls excitement and joy for bringing Daddy was what we were paying for. And the girls did have a wonderful time!  October was already talking about going to a place with real roller coasters and wouldn’t that be fun.  Maybe next year, we’ll take them to an actual fair with larger rides. 

Scarlett loved riding the horses!

Lavender thought the horses were pretty cool as well.

A stagecoach to play on.

The boat ride.  Scarlett & Lavender ran back for several turns on this one.

Lavender went by herself on the ferris wheel while Scarlett & October went elsewhere with Jeff.

The spinning wheel barrels.

Jeff & October getting ready to go fast!

This is fun!

Nope, nope I was wrong.  Make it stop!

The antique cars

September 16, 2012

While we were renovating our house at the end of August we had to forgo our final camping trip of the season so that we could get the house somewhat in order before school started.  We decided on an impromptu trip to Hurrican Ridge in Olympic National Park on Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  It really wasn’t a good trip.  Lavender was sick but the two days before but seemed okay that morning, Jeff started feeling bad once we arrived and the girls were tired of the travel, hungry and cold by the time we got there.  To get to Hurricane Ridge you have to either drive an extra 1.5 hours or take a 30 minute ferry ride.  We opted for the ferry ride and got over to the park with little delay.  We waited for an hour and a half for the return ferry….a 10pm ferry.  It was a long wait.  While we were up at Hurricane Ridge we went for a short hike, had a snack and a pb&j dinner and headed back.  It was 50 degrees up at the ridge.  The girls weren’t interested in hiking at all so it was like herding cats.  They wanted to pet the very tame deer that walked the path with us.  The really big, neat playground we stopped at on the way home was the highlight of our trip. 

The view when we arrived…before the clouds rolled in.

Having a snack before a “hike”.  Notice the shirt October is wearing on her head to keep her head warm.

The ferry ride to the Olympic Pennisula



Our “hike”.  We should be hiking up but you can see how spread out we are and Scarlett and Lavender facing the wrong direction.




A deer hiking near the trail we were on.



October’s cannon ball.

October’s back float.

Lavender

Scarlett swimming

Scarlett jumping in the pool

The last of summer for us was awhile ago but I’m just getting around to posting a few pictures of the girls swimming in the pool right before it closed for the season.  They really both got much better over the course of the summer and with their swim lessons.  October kept pushing the limits I set at the pool of only going as far as the 5 foot line marker and Scarlett was getting quite daring.  Every visit to the pool, at least once I would fish her out.  She really is a little too fearless.  Now she can swim a good 3-4 feet but she doesn’t take a breathe that entire time so if she’s not in reach of a side or can touch then she goes back under.  She coughs and spits pool water through her nose nearly every time she jumps in and rarely wears goggles.  I am trying to get her to roll over and float on her back when she gets tired or needs a breathe (this is what they teach in swimming lessons). There is no lounging or book reading for me when I take the kids to the pool.  Lavender wears a new life vest and usually she chooses to use the swim ring as well even though she can float and manuever just fine with only the life vest on.  They have a ton of fun at the pool though!