Nature Walk

Recently, we got a whole bunch of rain over a couple of days, and afterwards the weather was just beautiful, so we decided to take a long walk along the greenway in Jamestown. There were tons of big puddles and the creek was super high.

Irene was, by far, the cutest things out there. She just went nuts over the puddles. She would scream, "MORE PUDDLES?!?!" 

And then run and jump in them.

She tried to get Olivia to come jump in a few, too.

There were several places where the runoff made streams across the path and Ezra liked to drop a leaf on the water and watch it float.

Olivia turned it into an olympic event, leaping across the streams.

The littles were just so happy to splash!

Gabe wasn't shy about it either. 

The rain on the grass made for some pretty sights.

Then Gabe found a wild honeysuckle vine and stopped for a snack, which then turned into a free-for-all on the honeysuckle. 

There was so much of it along the path that we kept having to push the kids along or they'd have spent all day on one vine. :)

Normally, you can get down and walk along the creek on the rocks, but this day, the creek was well above normal, so we were lucky to even have a place to take a picture.

Around this point, Rebecca had to run to a class, so we soldiered on, planning to meet in a park along the trail later, where she would pick us up so we didn't have to walk all the way back.

We found a flood gauge that showed that the creek was 3.5 feet above normal!

After hiking so far (at least 2 miles), we found the park and decided to take a break from walking and play on the playground for a while.

My goodness! These two really are peas in a pod, both in looks and personality!

After a good long while on the playground, Rebecca's class wasn't quite done, so we got back on the path and the kids found this huge stick they wanted to bring home. It was really a sapling that had fallen over sometime in the recent past. They though tit was great fun to work together carrying it. Ezra wasn't so much into the teamwork thing, though, preferring to sit it out and walk on his own.

We kept going on the path until we found a nice, gentle stream that wouldn't wash us all away. 

The kids took off their boots and socks and played in the stream for a bit until I heard from Rebecca that she was on her way.

On the way back, we took a side path that should have led us back into the park by the playground, but, despite the beautiful butterflies (or maybe because I was distracted by them ;), I got lost. Rebecca called me and managed to talk me out of the woods before we died. ;)

At The Playground

The Arboretum has installed a new playground and the kids love going there for an hour or two now that the weather's nice. They have these cool child swings that let the parent (or sibling) swing with their little one. The Littles love it. :)

 The bravery of our Littles often surprises me. :)

 The kids got new (to them) soccer cleats, so we brought them along for them to try out.

 It only took about 2 seconds for some other kids to jump in and kick the ball around.

 We're hoping to find (or start) a soccer team/league that meets on days other than Saturday so that the kids can participate.

Passover 2017

It's time for our favorite feast: Passover! Our tradition is to hold a whole-day celebration and feast, doing activities throughout the day with the kids and talking about Messiah as our Passover Lamb throughout the day.

One of the first things we do is to burn the last of the leaven (yeast) in our homes.

Throughout the day, at various times, we did the traditional Four Cups that are drawn from Exodus 6:6-7: The Cup of Sanctification ("I will bring you out of Egypt"), The Cup of Deliverance ("I will deliver you from slavery"), The Cup of Redemption (I will redeem you with My power") and the Cup of Restoration ("I will take you as My people"). For each one, a father from one of the families gave a short teaching on the meaning of the particular cup and how it relates to Yeshua. It makes for some cool discussion and thought.

Then we get started on food! We had cheese, fruit and veggies to snack on.

Then it was time for the lamb. The families all pitch in to get a lamb for slaughter and eating. This is in no way a sacrifice, but a way of remembering the Exodus and a stark picture of the death of Messiah.

Afterwards, we read the Exodus Story together using the book Let My People Go!, which has different reading parts for different people. This year we broke it up into families, so one family spoke Pharoah's part, one did the people, one did Moses, and one did the Narrator. It turned into a bit of a competition to see who could do their part the loudest. :)

While we were doing that, the lamb was roasting on the grill. It roasts for 3 to 4 hours, whole, covered with olive oil, salt and spices. The smell is amazing! And when it's done, and we've trimmed off the meat, we have a tradition of picking some of the leftover bits from the carcass.

I love that my kids have no illusions about where our food comes from. :)

Then, per the Exodus story, we burn the remains of a fire.

Now it time for the meal! Each year, the families bring side dishes and desserts, all around a particular cultural type, this year being Latino. We had beans and rice, fried plantains, salsas and all kinds of desserts. One family even brought homemade flan. I'm not a fan of flan, but this stuff was fantastic.

Later, we symbolically paint the doorposts like in the Exodus story.

And then it's time for The Prince Of Egypt! The kids all generally watch while the parents sit and socialize and eat dessert. :)

And then it's bedtime. This year, we brought our new (to us) camper to try it out. It actually fits all of us really comfortably and we're very happy to have it. The rest of the families piled into various rooms in the house. In the morning, we each had brought breakfast kugels to share that were very tasty. All-in-all, it was a wonderful time of celebration and fellowship that we love sharing in every year!

EMMA Arts and Sciences Night - April 2017

It's the end of the term for EMMA Classes and this time, the boys took Art and Music along with their PE class.

 They showcased their artwork, which we were very impressed with.

 We got to see Olivia's Pinecone Project from her Botany class displayed. She had to form two hypotheses regarding how a pinecone behaves in cold and warm weather and then do experiments to prove it. She proved that they close in cold, wet weather to protect the seeds, but open in warm weather to release them.

 Olivia also took a North Carolina History course that taught her not just history, but geography as well.

 She did a great job in the class, working hard to learn about our state's products and industries. I particularly like her depiction of beef cattle.

 At the end of the evening, the boys were part of the performance of The Agape League. They did sucha great job singing and doing the hand motions. 

 I'll admit that I wasn't sure Ezra would enjoy doing the play because he doesn't really like to be in front of people, but he was really into it and both boys did a wonderful job!

Finally, for Olivia's last day of Literature Circle, she dressed up as a character from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which was her favorite book of the term, and made a posterboard with facts about navigation to share with the class. In her Literature Circle class this year, they read a book about every 2-3 weeks and discussed it. Each week they chose or were assigned a role. The 6 roles were: Discussion Leader, Passage Perfecter, Character Coordinator, Creative Connecter, Vocabulary Detective, and Story Sketcher. And the books they read in the Fall were Number the Stars (*favorite), Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Trumpet of the Swan,  Ben and Me, Sign of the Beaver, and Best Christmas Pagent Ever. And in the Winter/Spring they read Rules (*a favorite), Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Lemonade War (Olivia devoured the whole series when we found them at the library), Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Olivia and I went on to read the Sequel), and The Blind Colt (we also went on to read the sequel). This was her favorite class this year along with Robotics.

 

Overall their full year at EMMA classes were fantastic and they can't wait for next fall's term. We've even signed Emma up to go!