Weekly Wrap-up: April 12-18

On Saturday, our yard was mowed for the first time of the year.  The change was so amazing, and the day was so beautiful that I had to ask Greg if we could invite a bunch of people over after church on Sunday to grill out.  In fact, since the crowd was a little low, we ended up inviting the whole church!  Of course, many people couldn’t make it to such a last-minute lunch, but we had a great turn-out.  Before lunch, the boys played Horse…

…while the women talked…

…and the kids made various instruments from wood (when not playing Horse, of course):

After lunch, we even ended up having a haircut at our house, which I thought was hilarious:

In the above picture, Anna is showing off her homemade broom.

On Monday, we watched a really cool video on Netflix about “The Seven Wonders of the Solar System.”  Also, the blocks we set out for Everley ended up being just as fun for the kids:

That afternoon, we were out and about:  speech therapy, Wal-Mart (for soccer uniform returns), gymnastics, and Kohl’s.  Then it was time to head home to meet Everley’s dad.  The kids also found a crazy amount of snails after the day’s rains.  Which Anna, of course, shoved proudly in my face.

Between Anna’s impulsiveness, and the crazy faces that Ev was making at me, I was very amused!

On Tuesday morning before school, we had some playtime with Ev:

In the afternoon, we went to Vanderbilt’s Dyer Observatory, since they were having an open house in celebration of the anniversary of the Hubble telescope:

We were given a tour of the place by one of their astronomers.  The tour included a room where the acoustics did funny things with your voice at certain points throughout the room:

They also got to poke around the observatory’s (HUGE) telescope:

Plus, there were many artifacts and blown-up pictures that the astronomer told us about, including this one, a star “nursery.”

For Wednesday’s family day, it was too rainy to do my original plans, so we decided to go to plan B:  half-price burgers from Sonic, followed by a tour of the Tennessee State Museum:

They have a little scavenger hunt called “Clipboard Capers,” and I told the kids that if they found all the answers, we’d stop by a little dessert place I’d seen on the way in for a treat.  They were all over it.

Luke said, “This is surprisingly fun!”  I knew it would be.

There was a little quilt section, which we explored in honor of Gaga:

The museum is actually really cool for a free, local museum.  After we found all the answers, we went to Sweet Things, the dessert place I’d seen.

While in the museum, we saw a model of Ft. Nashborough, which led Greg to realize that the replica of Ft. Nashborough was only 1/2 a mile away.  We decided to walk down there to see it.  On the way, we passed a large fountain, which led to me giving the kids (and Greg!) all the pennies in my purse to throw in the fountain.

Greg also showed them the art of snapping pennies.

Further explorations led to the discovery of an underground parking garage and an observatory deck:

When we finally got to Ft. Nashborough, we were sad to see that it was closed for renovation.  However, we did have fun posing with a nearby statue:

Then Greg remembered a nearby candy store a coworker had raved about.  We had definitely met our sugar quota for the day with the dessert shop, but we couldn’t resist.  And I’m so glad we decided to stop in.  It was like something out of Harry Potter!

I definitely see us making more trips here in the future.  Especially because Anna has a sentimental love for taffy, and they have a HUGE taffy selection!

I can’t remember much from Thursday, except that we apparently had some time in the library with Everley:

Friday was a day where I felt like we reached a new plane as a family:  it was truly a “do life together” day.  First, we completed and hid a geocache present for our friend, Alison’s birthday:

We hid the geocache near the Brentwood Library, then ducked in to get some books.  By the time we got home, it was lunchtime.  Anna tore into one of the books she picked up at the library less than an hour earlier:

After lunch, the kids read independently for awhile before we did our “together” portion of school.  In light of our morning teamwork with the present, our “together” session reminded me yet again at how much we get to learn together as a family.

After school, we cleaned the house together, and then made dinner together from a recipe in the kids’ new cookbook.  It was delicious.  For dessert, Luke made an apple crisp. 

It was soooo good.  Then the kids and I each packed our bags for the next day’s trip to Georgia.  From start to finish, it was a day of working together, and it went so well.  If this is a portent of things to come, I’m excited!

On Saturday morning, the kids had a soccer game.  Luke started out at goalie, but switched to offense partway through:

In the meantime, Anna took a turn at goalie:

Directly after the game, we headed to Macon because on Sunday, we were headed to Panama City with my parents.  We had an uneventful trip down, and the kids were so excited to get there—all the more when they found out they had “beach presents” waiting for them:

These are some lucky kids!  Gaga even channeled her excitement about the trip into making those travel pillows the day before they came!

Of course, even though the presents were supposed to be for downtime in the condo, Luke couldn’t resist putting together his LEGO set, and Anna couldn’t resist her butterfly mosaic.  She was even able to enlist Granddad’s help:

We had a nice evening with my parents—and then on Sunday, we headed to PC!

Weekly Wrap-up: April 6-11

We are LOVING this spring weather, and the pace of our homeschool—well, really, our extracurricular activities—has slowed enough to make general life more enjoyable.  For instance, instead of rushing through our history readings so that we can get everything in before whatever lesson/practice we need to run to, we have time for extras, like memorizing the preamble to the Constitution:

And we’ve been continuing with our Bible reading response sheets, with Everley even participating on some days:).

Wednesdays are still our family days, and the kids were dying to cash in on Anna’s winnings from our March Madness tournament.  In a shocker, her bracket was the best.  Up until the final on Monday night, she had been waffling between Carrabba’s and O’Charley’s for her celebratory dinner—uninspired choices, but whatever.  Typical of Anna, she changed her mind on Wednesday and announced that she would choose The Pharmacy because that’s where Luke was dying to go.  We were all happy with that choice.

We love our family days:

The kids had fun being trying on my sunglasses:

And Luke loved the Pharmacy’s homemade sodas:

Even though it was bright and sunny on Wednesday, it was over 80 degrees and super muggy, and none of us was used to that weather, yet.  Also, I had been wanting to visit the Science Center to take in a planetarium show, since we had been studying space in Science. So we decided to spend the afternoon indoors at the Science Center.  I was also pumped to learn that with our renewed membership, we had free passes to the planetarium.

First, though, Greg and Luke spent some time at the Tinkering Shop, where Luke worked on a birdhouse for Anna

And Anna, of course, reveling in her new weight, decided to tackle the moon walk again:

It was a loooong line, but she was undeterred.

Afterward, while we waited on Greg and Luke to finish, she posed for this picture:

Reunited, the kids each did a short news segment:

Then, we headed up to the body section where the whole family participated in a group, arcade-style game where you try to shoot the germs:

We hung out a little more in the body section…

…before heading to the planetarium show. 

It was a really cool one called “Stars of the Pharoahs,” and it kind of even reminded me of Soarin’ (the ride at Disney World) because you felt like you were zooming along so often, this time around Ancient Egypt.

On Thursday, it was so pretty that we took school outside for a little while:

We also continued our space studies:

On Thursday evening, we also had our first soccer practice with our new coaches:

Friday after school, we spent several hours running around getting soccer supplies for the kids and their team.  That night, Anna was so excited for their first game that she slept in her jersey:

When she woke up, she immediately got fully dressed for soccer, despite the fact it was over two hours before we needed to leave!

Here we are at the fields.  I love this picture.  It’s now the wallpaper on my phone.

Our coaches were super-enthusiastic.  The boys even went out and bought shirts to match the team’s uniforms:

We got beat, but the coaches kept everyone’s spirits up, and the kids had a good time.  I think it was an adjustment for Anna to play in the older league where they take positions more seriously, but it is good for her. 

Even though it was such a big day with our first soccer games, my favorite moments of the day came at the end, where we were just being silly together as a family.  Greg was home from work, and the kids were snuggling with us after their baths when Anna asked Greg to give her an airplane ride.  He joked that he’d give her one if she gave him one.  Which led to this:

Of course, Luke also got in on that action, and then the kids wanted us all to play a “One Potato, Two Potato”-style game involving feet, which we did.

Just sitting there together on our living room floor, cozy and separated from the rest of the world, was so nice.  It really was the best ending to a week.