Spring Violin & Last Day of School- Boston!

Noah has completed his first full year of 4th grade violin.  The concert was impressive to see how much they have learned in one year!

We have finished up our school curriculum for the year!  For our last day of school we spent the day in Boston taking in some sights of the Revolutionary War to close out our unit on it.  The kids and I drove to Boston as soon as Noah's concert was finished, pulling a U-Haul trailer.  Our first stop was Ikea to pick up new beds for Noah and James.  This was a bit later than I had expected, but the kids held it together to get back to the hotel. I think Gabe was super glad he had to work for this adventure;)

Our first stop was the Boston Tea Party Museum.  This was a very well done interactive historical experience.  The kids got to participate in a town hall meeting to plan the tea party.  They also were able to throw tea crates into the harbor after exploring a cargo ship.  

We hopped on the subway and had a snack on the Boston Common while we waited for our tour of the Freedom Trail to begin.  We had a fantastic tour guide named Jeremiah Poop (that's right, not a typo).  He was so entertaining and tolerant of the barrage of questions from our kids.  They did a wonderful job throughout the tour despite the adult nature of it.  It was the perfect time to do this kind of tour right after studying the Revolutionary War.  

After the tour we ate our bag lunches and unanimously voted to be finished and head home.  I am sure everyone was very tired after a late night and full day already!  We had a smooth ride home with a full trailer in tow.  We are all thrilled to be finished school for the summer... Hello summer vacation!!

Spring Chicks!

We are all recovering from our hours of driving! We had some fantastic caretakers of our house while we were gone and our seedlings, new strawberry  plants, and new raspberries look fantastic!  Our grass is growing amazingly where the pigs did all of their pooping during their last weeks with us.  We wish we had thought to spread it around the yard a bit more.  

Our baby chicks have arrived!  This year we ordered 8 new layers and 25 meat birds.  We have never kept meat birds this year, so this will definitely be an experiment.  Hopefully at the end of 8 weeks we will have a freezer full of chicken meat! This years names include: Feathers, Egbert, Chewbacca, Jill, FN2183, Darth Vader, Yolk and Jack & Annie.

May 2018 Road Trip Adventures- Lake Placid, NY

Today was a long day of driving, but it was beautiful driving through western New York.  We made it to Lake Placid , checked into our hotel room, did a little swimming and ate breakfast for dinner in our room.  We followed it all up with a stroll downtown and found some great deals in the shops.  We are grateful the weather continues to be gorgeous! 

Saturday morning we took on all things Olympics.  Our first stop was the ski jump complex where we watched the Canadian team practicing their jumps.  While there, we headed up the hill to the top of the 120m long jump tower. This was another gorgeous view from the highest point in the area.  Next, we visited the bobsled/luge track and had to walk to the top. Normally you would get to take a bus to the top, but since it was the off season and literally no one else was there, we were on our own.  The kids were troopers and it was really spectacular to see the whole track from the top.  I visited Lake Placid in 1998, I think, and this new track was installed in 2000, so that was a bit bizarre!  We got to walk down for a ways in the old track which was neat.

For lunch, we went back to the ski jumping arena to watch the Russian team practicing their jumps. Finding parking was difficult in downtown Lake Placid because of a few other events happening at the same time, so we ended up walking to the Olympic Museum from our hotel. This was a bit underwhelming, even for us, so we were glad we didn't make special plans to see it.  The kids loved the bobsled simulator in the stadium though.  We had a nice dinner at a local brewery followed by a ride around Mirror Lake and to see the actual Lake Placid (which is not the lake in downtown Lake Placid). The weather has continued to be warm, so we finished our trip with a stop for ice cream!  Heading back home tomorrow:)

May 2018 Road Trip Adventures- Niagra Falls

Thursday we left Toronto heading to Niagra Falls, Ontario, which turns out to be just over an hour away.  We didn't arrive until later in the day because we (I) just HAD to stop at Ikea.  Noah is too big for the playroom there, but the other three were still short enough and they had a ball playing while Noah, Gabe and I shopped.

It was unseasonably hot today, sunny and near 90 degrees, so as soon as we arrived at Niagra Falls we didn't waste any time.  We took the Hornblower cruise into the falls first.  It was warm, but very windy.  We had all gotten our rain ponchos on and were waiting on the boat when Gabe says to me, "Are we really going to get THAT wet?"  Having done this before, all I could do is laugh and say, "That is like white water rafting and asking if you will get wet!"  It is quite apparent from the pictures how wet we really got.

After the boat ride we walked along the river for some spectacular views of both falls.  This brought us to the Behind the Falls Tour.  We learned some of the cool science and history of the falls before getting a shower outside beside the falls.  By this time everyone was exhausted so we went back to the hotel for some dinner and swimming.  We all stayed up much later than we intended because, from our hotel room, we were able to watch as both sets of falls were lit up with changing, colorful lights.  Tomorrow is a one of our longer driving days as we head back to the United States and Lake Placid, NY.