A Visit From Davis

It was so nice to have Davis back home, if even for just a short time.  He flew in last Friday and headed back out Tuesday afternoon. 

Haydn was so excited about his official Army dog tags that Uncle Davis brought for him and loved wrestling around!  Of course, you'd hear me pipe in often with things like, "Easy Davis!  He's little you know!" or "Yikes! Be careful with him!"  You can't blame me for worrying!  After months of combat training, I think Davis forgot that he was wrestling with his nephew and not the enemy!  Haha!

I will admit, I had to wipe the tears from my eyes as I watched him drive away and begin his 23 hour trip back to Colorado.  I'm sure he was sick of hearing me tell him to drive safe, stay out of trouble, and to let me know he arrived safely.  I just can't help it!  I'm sure I won't be any better the day my children leave home! :)

Archaeological Dig

For social studies this year, I am using a book called The Story of the World.  Our first couple lessons were designed to help the kids understand what history is and how we learn about history.  So, to help the kids understand how we learn about history, we had our own archaeological dig in the garden. 

I buried several "artifacts" that were clues to the kinds of people that lived in our home long ago and what kinds of things they did.  Haydn was really getting into the dig with comments like, "I found a Lego!  There must've been kids who lived here long ago!" and "I found a potato!  This means they must've eaten too!"  But, my favorite comment by far from the kids was when they found a toad in their dig site.  Rylee exclaimed, "Holy Toledo, Mom!  They had toads just like us too!" 

Alas, a fun lesson had by all!

Rylee using her archaeologist tools to clean off
her discovered artifact!



"Is this some kind of old tool
or what, mom?"





You know McKay is thinking hard if
the tongue comes out!



Kia! Karate Warrior!

Today was Haydn's first day taking karate.  He is taking lessons twice a week at PKSA in Trenton training in the Korean Martial art of Tang Soo Do.

He was fascinated by the "mirror wall" and did a great job learning basic skills.  The best part of his day was getting his name on Miss Tonya's Challenge Board.  He could choose from a variety of exercises to perform in one minute.  Haydn chose to do push-ups of all things.  In one minute, he did 30 push-ups (ok, so they looked more like wet fish flops by the time he reached 15 or so but his teacher still counted them :)).  Since he did the most in his group, he won the push-up challenge!  Check out our push-up champion!

Haydn has tried a couple of team sports in the past but hasn't really been excited about them.  Today, we saw excitement and pride in his face! 

A Fun Day in Put-in-Bay

We started our trip out to Put-in-Bay by boat, but the waves were just a bit too ferocious.  So we turned around and made the trip by car and rode the Jet Express over to the island.

Though we drove golf carts all day, toured Perry's cave, visited the old candy store, rode the carousel, played at an arcade, and ran like crazy around the park play set, the kids still had the most fun mining for gems.  Haydn thought he would surely find enough gold for us all to be rich!

First Day of School!

Our best smiles!

Well, summer is quickly coming to an end!  Our three little monkeys began their first day of school today!  Haydn is proud to be a first grader, Rylee is so excited to be a preschooler, and McKay . . . well, we say he is in toddler school! 

We started the morning with breakfast cake (a healthy cake of course) and special back-to-school presents.  This week we'll be working mostly on learning routines and rules to help make our school time fun and productive!