Summer Fun ~ A Nature Walk in the Woods

We are blessed to live very near a beautiful state park that is full of hiking trails…and we never seem to make time to take advantage of this blessing.

But this weekend we made the time…

The temperature reading at our house was in the mid to upper 90’s, it was at least 10 degrees cooler in the park .

After checking out the visitor’s center {which had some really great displays},  we headed up to a short trail that would lead to a vista of our town.

When we got to the beginning of the trail, we discovered a humongous rock that had beautiful specimens of what we had just been studying in our science book {Exploring Creation with Botany}.

The kiddos found some wonderful samples of moss growing on the ground.

And a bunch of lichens all over the rock formation.

As we headed up the trail we noticed bunches of ferns growing next to the trail.

And even some small clumps of wild raspberries.

After a half mile of walking we reached the vista area where we were able to overlook our small town.

And we found even more lichens growing on the rocks up there…and these lichens were greener {our book taught us that the greener the lichen, the cleaner the air}.

Of course, I had the kiddos stop and pose by the trail sign…and then we headed back down the trail.

On the way down, we spotted a number of trees that sported woodpecker holes…

And ds9 spotted a tree with a fungus growing on it {we saw a sample of this particular fungus at the visitor’s center}.

We finished our afternoon with a trip to a nearby playground area, known as “the tire park”. 

This playground is one of our kiddos’ favorites mostly because it is so unique.  Instead of wood chip mulch, the mulch is made of recycled tires {which is much softer to fall on}.  There’s also a couple of really cool tire swings,

a zip line,

and much more…

I told dh that we definitely have to plan more hikes and take advantage of the beautiful parks that we have in our area.

Summer Fun ~ Small Town Parade

One of our kiddos’ favorite parts of summer is watching our town’s annual parade.

There’s fire trucks,

marching bands,

and little horses in costume…

And most every one of them throws candy to the parade watchers

Ds4 loved waving at everyone as they marched, rode or drove past…

Dd7 enjoyed waving her flag as the parade went by…

And ds9 enjoyed sharing his loot with the adults sitting behind us who weren’t diving for the candy as it was thrown out {he’s a sweet kid}.

Yep, a good time was had by all .

Swimming Lessons 2011

Today was the final day of swim lessons for ds9 and dd7. 

For the past two weeks we have headed up to a nearby university pool every morning for one-half hour of swim lessons. 

Dd7 loves being in the water, but she does not like the jumping in part.

Ds9 claims to really, really dislike taking swimming lessons…I think he’s changed his mind this year and he may in fact actually rather enjoy them, but he hasn’t admitted it yet :)

I told him that it doesn’t matter whether he likes lessons or not, he must take lessons until he learns to swim, for safety reasons that’s just a rule in our home :). 

He’s done an awesome job this year, and he can now swim on his own across a portion of the pool.  Today was safety day, so he was practicing swimming with a life jacket {they love wearing the life jackets:)}, but he can swim sans life jacket too.

Summertime swim lessons are also a super-easy way to fulfill PE requirements for our homeschool :)

Summer Fun ~ A Night at the Carnival

What’s summertime without a night at the carnival?  My in-laws blessed our three kiddos with ride-all-night bracelets so they got to go on every ride they wanted, as many times as they wanted ‘til we called it a night :).

 

 

Oh, to be a kid again.  I used to love the Scrambler and the swings, but I am pretty sure I could not handle them anymore…too much spinning makes my head hurt :)

But I did ride the ferris wheel with them {I’m in the other corner of the car}.  And for the record…I did not like it when our car stopped so others could get on, especially when we were at the tip top of the wheel :O!

No More Training Wheels

It looks like he’s not a little guy anymore :(

Nope, he’s definitely a big guy now…he can ride his bike without training wheels!

And he is so proud of himself too :)

June 2011 in Pictures

June was packed with lots of family fun…

We picked a whole bunch of strawberries,

took in a minor league baseball game,

had a blast at VBS {Gold Rush style},

had lunch at the library {three times},

watched our flower garden grow,

and finished up little league season with a trip to the All Star game :)!