Farmington Fair 2016 and Other Happenings:)

After the honey extraction on Friday, we headed out for our day at the Farmington Fair.  The weather has been poor this week, but the rain stopped in time for us to get in a nice visit to the fair.  New this year, all of the kids got to milk a real live dairy cow AND ride on a Segway!

This week also brought closure to our pool, 3 weeks past the normal closing time though, so we were happy about that.  Ben took the last dip which was cold and brief.

I was rushing the kids out the door yesterday morning to get someone somewhere on time.  I sent whoever was ready out to get into their seats while I helped the others get ready (not anything unusual).  This day it happened to be Ben and Audrey.  Usually the worst thing that happens with the two of them being the first in the car is that one of them starts fighting with the other because someone isn't getting buckled in a timely manner... not this time.  I opened the door to see Ben crouched in the back seat with a pen, Audrey looking over his shoulder.  Ben says to me in a super proud voice, "Hey Momma! Audrey and I were just drawing aliens!"... My honest first reaction (in my head) was, "at least if you had drawn on the walls we could paint over it".  I tried to remain calm and explain that we only draw on paper all the while freaking out in my head that we will never be able to sell the car. Of course we were late and I remembered using alcohol swabs to take pen out of my pants at work, so I grabbed the hand sanitizer and quickly got off what I could. Later in the day, when I became more rational, I made Ben come out to the car and scrub off what remained.  It is mostly off now... at least it is better... I am sure by the time we are ready to sell in several years someone else will do something even worse.  They are cute aliens;)

Paint Day and Honey Extraction

I guess the paint day is becoming an annual start of school thing.  The kids were really looking forward to it (who wouldn't, I guess) so we had to find a day that Gabe was at work and wouldn't come home to any part of this mess;)  Audrey still only wanted to be peripherally involved, but she had just as much fun as the boys.

On Friday we had our first honey extraction. We started both hives of bees from Nucs in the spring, so we expected very little if any honey this year since the bees had to work so hard to draw out the comb and fill their hives first.  But, thanks to one of the hives being super productive (read: aggressive) we ended the season with 30 pints of honey!  We don't use honey on a regular basis, but we do now because it tastes so good.  It was neat to learn with the kids how the extraction process works.

Bugmania 2016 and the Titanic Exhibit

So far the theme of this homeschool year is "field trips".  The Titanic exhibit has been at the Portland Science Center since last spring.  I just figured we would skip it since it seemed unlike a topic the kids would be interested in.  Well, it is still around this fall, so I got a few books on the Titanic and thought we would read a bit about it before we went.  I was completely wrong about this being an uninteresting topic for the kids.  We have spent the last few weeks living and breathing the Titanic.  The kids have really taken hold of this story and have started exploring it in ways I would never have imagined.  We currently all feel like Titanic experts right down to the latest scientific theories about what really caused the ship to be such a large disaster.  Needless to say, the kids were beyond excited to get to see the exhibit.

A few days later the Maine State Museum in Augusta hosted its annual "Bug Mania" day.  The kids all tremendously enjoyed the Bug Man, especially when he let them hold the tarantulas.  In the bottom picture Noah has a really long fiber of silk from the tarantula stuck to his finger.  New this year there was an edible insect table.  The kids had read about people eating insects and been theoretically interested in trying some themselves.  As it turned out, only Noah and Audrey were really brave enough to try some crunchy crickets;)

School is Starting!

Things have been a bit wild here so we have been slow to officially start school.  Despite the looks on their faces they are excited to get started with this school year;)  Noah is starting 4th grade and still really wants to attend the Naval Academy. James is starting 2nd grade and still wants to be 1/2 lobsterman and 1/2 inventor when he grows up although he seems to be wavering of late on this.  Benjamin is starting Pre-K and goes back and forth between wanting to be a policeman or a fireman.  Audrey is starting Preschool and wants to be "a Doctor like Daddy".  We are all looking forward to another exciting year of homeschooling!