With Shelby off to NYC this weekend to visit Dusty, the kids and I had a friend filled, fun weekend. Dusty had Adidas following him and his band around with a camera crew and outfitted them for their Friday night show, so there may be some kind of deal in the works and Shelby wanted to watch the magic first hand. He left Friday morning before we got up though and had class last Thursday night, so essentially, this meant I was alone with the kids for four days and nights. The kids haven't seen him since Thursday afternoon at lunchtime and by now are missing him terribly. Mia has cried once and Lennon asked for him last night at bedtime. That's about as sentimental as it gets with Lennon at this point.
Friday morning we got up and got most of Mia's school work done for the day before running into Matues and Bianca, who had just returned from a month long vacation in Oregon. Right as we saw them though, we had to run out the door and go babysit for Anderson and Theo for an hour at Sue's house for her to go see the eye doctor. The boys had fun playing and riding tricycles on Sue's street. She lives in this great little, quiet neighborhood where you can actually let your kids play in the front yard and ride bikes in the street without worry of them being hit by a car. You couldn't even dream of letting the kids step into our front yard on this busy street.
When we got home we invited the Lima kids over to participate in our history related craft project. We were learning about ancient Phoenicia last week so we made our own purple dye out of cabbage. Let me tell you, the smell of that boiled cabbage will never leave my memory. It was sooo awful! Our book tells us the smell from the boiled snails they actually used to make their famous purple dye was much worse, but I have to say, this would be hard to beat. I've been burning scented candles almost around the clock for three days to get rid of that smell. The project was fun for all, but didn't yield such a great outcome. The pasta we dyes didn't really take on too much of the purple color and the kids ended up eating most of the necklaces they made anyway. Afterwards, we threw a dish rag, a couple of pairs of socks and a pair of Mia's underwear in the dye to try that out. I've been letting those all sit and need to wash them in cold water to see how they turn out.
Here is the un-dyed pasta on the left and the dyed pasta on the right. You can tell it's been dyed, but it's not exactly purple
After all the crafiness was done, we all headed out to meet up with Krissy and her three kids at a park we have dubbed "diarrhea park." It's a great park, but trust me, do not go in the water. At the park Krissy invited us all out to watch some fireworks in Arlington near where they live. I hadn't planned on my kids being up late, so I was leaning towards saying no, when Claire offered to pay for me to take them all out to dinner before hand if I would take her kids too. I agreed.
The fireworks were sooo great! The fireworks we went to see on July 4th never happened, so my kids had missed out on fireworks so far this year, so it was extra fun. It was also Aidan's birthday and was a really fun way to celebrate with a friend. Aidan turned 8 and he is who Mia is currently "in love" with. After fireworks we all ate mini cannoli's which I bought ahead of time, in the car on the way home. The kids crashed as soon as their heads hit their pillows.
Saturday morning Mia had her second week of fencing with Tyson. The Moore's all came this week, so Osheta and I got to hang out and chat during class and Lennon played with Trinity and T.J. and we also got to meet and chat with another mom of a couple kids in class who had a sweet little boy with similarly long, curly hair like Lennon. Lennon declared that the boy was "super funny," so I think there is going to be a play date in their future. Afterwards the Moore family all came over for lunch and play time. There was hardly a toy in our house that had not been given attention by the time they left and we headed over to town day. At town day I let each kid choose one carnival ride and we all shared a fresh squeezed lemonade. There were some pretty popular bands playing, though I couldn't tell you their names. I recognized the songs from radio, but I don't remember now. The kids got some free samples and played with Ella and Diva at Town Hall Park before we headed home to watch the Mickey Mouse Halloween movie we checked out from the library. I didn't get any pictures all day. Wah!
We had planned on going to church this morning, but with all the excitement of the rest of the weekend, I think the kids were exhausted and they didn't wake up in time for us to make it. Instead, after breakfast we headed up to New Hampshire to go to America's Stonehenge. I just started doing the whole envelope budget Dave Ramsey thing, so I checked my "field trips" envelope and decided I had enough for a fun little day trip with the kids. We packed some snacks and got on the road. On the way, I got a call from Sue about a yard sale down the road with great clothes Lennon's size. I stopped in and got a great pair of shoes, winter jammies and four different, long sleeve shirts for the fall/winter and walked out having spent only $15.
America's Stonhenge is a 4,000 year old complex of man made rock formations and caves. It was really like little huts essentially, but made out of stones and apparently dating back much farther than anything else of it's kind ever discovered in North America.
The kids at the little diner we stopped at for lunch called "The English Muffin."
This is where we had our second breakfast of the day.
Mia was brave and walked into the first cave by herself. Lennon was hesitant as there was no lighting and not too much information about what there may or may not be in the caves.
It's hard to show exactly how cool all this stuff was. This was the front of a three room chamber. All of the chambers had little nooks in them for possible storage or ovens. No one really knows.
This was inside the biggest dwelling on the site. It was called Oracle Cave. It had a possible bedchamber, chimney, "ancient couch," which the kids are pictured sitting on, possible "closets," for storage and other shelf areas. It was really cool to be in there and think about people so long ago having stuff/things they needed to store. It's hard to imagine what life must have been like so long ago for people.
Ancient "closet" Not sure why Mia wanted to flash us a peace sign in this picture, but...she did.
At this point the sun will set on the winter solstice. There was a tower, newly constructed, from which you could see the entire astonomical chart made from stone here. It says that most likely when it was originally put together, there were no or few trees on the grounds so it was all easier to see and read. The tilt of the Earth has changed in the past 4000 years, but even still many solar/lunar events can be charted using these rock formations. Pretty cool.
Kids digging for archaeological finds
It was a very fun weekend and we are all looking forward to Thursday when Hillary, Jackson and Baron are coming to visit us! Yay!!!!!!!!
