week 7

Last week was a whirlwind of activity. I'm sure if I didn't write things down I'd not remember half of the fun we had together as a family!

(Monday was posted on the last blog entry.)

Tuesday we took another bike ride, another swim. Seems to be a new habit now. Then worked in our workbooks and read some stories about Germany, finished reading Haunted Waters. And we started our 50 State Study this week. We're beginning in Maine. I have a bunch of WhichWay USA books from Highlights for Children. They include a map of the state and all kinds of info with the puzzle book. As we study each state we'll put together a lapbook style book to hold all the info, short reports, pictures and tidbits we come across. The back of the lapbook will list all of our resources. I'm 3-hole punching the folders so that we can hold all of our lapbooks in a binder (more likely several binders!)

Wednesday we went as a family for our daily bike ride and swim. After lunch we went to the Orlando Science Center. We had a lot of fun! They have a special section on the first floor for kiddos under 48" and even though my two are taller than that they just had to see what was going on in there. We looked at Florida's water system, a replica of a sink hole, (scary thought), saw some sea turtle eggs buried in the sand (fake of course) and listed to the ocean in some shells. On the way out they have this wonderful water table set up to play with. DH and the kids played there for about 30 minutes! The table was set up with a slight decline to aid the flow of the water from one end to the other. DH challenged the kids to come up with a way to make the water flow in such a way that it went against gravity, back up the table. It took them a bit and a little help from dad, but they did it! I finally had to drag the three of them away. :D On one of the other floors they had a hurricane simulator. I couldn't stay in it for very long, the wind made it difficult for me to breathe. But they all had fun with it.

Thursday we got up and had our ride and swim. When we got back DH made his special breakfast for us. This is a weekly event and our kids look forward to it. This week instead of omelets, we did scrambled with some steak, hash browns and biscuits with jam. They ate up every scrap! We spent the day doing some shopping and went to Coldstone Creamery for a treat. What an experience! If you haven't been to one you really need to take a field trip. If they have exceptional employees the experience is well worth the cost.

Friday was our anniversary and DH had arranged to trade with another guy at work so he could be at home with us. We took our morning ride, but this time took the truck and hauled the bikes to the beginning of the trail and rode our bikes home (about 6 miles) and then picked up the truck later. We went for our quick swim and DH tested the kids on their surface dives. DD is like a fish in the water, but DS needed some extra practice. He still doesn't like the feeling of the water going up his nose. Can't say I blame him, really. :D Then we pretty much spent the day watching season 10 of StarGate SG-1 and just relaxed.

DH went back to work Sat and the kids and I stayed home and just played around. We didn't get our ride/swim because of rain. But we still had a pretty good day. I worked on costumes for Halloween, the kids played some video games, watched some movies, read magazines. A pretty normal, lazy weekend.

Sunday night after church we took some friends and their kids to Coldstone Creamery for some fun. Their kids were entranced with the oodles of choices for them to put in their ice cream! It was so much fun to watch them flit from one side of the line to the other trying to decide. :D

And now we're back to Monday! What a week! :D