We spent the second half of our trip in Tiftonia, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. We really didn't have much of a plan as to what we wanted to do, so we just took each day as it came. We always seem to enjoy the simple spur of the moment things the most. It really seems those things make for the best memories in the end. (The boys outside our hotel in Tiftonia / Chattanooga, TN) I recently started cooking with cast iron (best cooking decision ever!), so I was excited to learn the Lodge store and actual factory were nearby. To our surprise, the Annual Corn Bread Festival was happening when we got there. We didn't enter the gates, but we enjoyed the free smells! (The annual Corn Bread Festival in South Pittsburg, TN) It must have been our lucky day, because factory only does tours during the festival. The best part?! The tour was free! It was a neat experience, and the boys enjoyed it, too. (They think my cast iron is cool. Ha. Love them!) (The hanging pans were Mr. Sunshine's favorite part) We spent another day at a park near downtown. Mr. Mustard Seed read about it in a brochure, and it sounded like a lot of fun. We enjoyed walking across a bridge that was built in 1908, and also enjoyed some yummy treats from a street vendor. (It was neat to hear this big tug boat pass by!) We enjoyed some street musicians. And some yummy treats... The boys thought the icees were the bees knees, because they got to mix all kinds of crazy flavors. That about sums up our trip to the park!
In my next post, I will share Rock City with you. You don't want to miss it! And, I totally forgot about our surprise trip to the Space Museum in Huntsville, Alabama. I'll be sure to share that in the near future, too!
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It's been awhile, hasn't it? We are set to finish our school year in the near future. We'll take a mini summer break before starting year round school. I hope to come up with a productive schedule for myself, that allows for blogging time each week. That way, you won't end up missing me when I'm not here. (You have been missing me, yes?!) In April we took a very fun family road trip. We spent a week in beautiful Cape San Blas, Florida, and a few days in Chattanooga, TN. I look forward to sharing parts of our trip with you. Up first- Cape San Blas! Cape San Blas is a very remote area on Florida's "Forgotten Coast." The landscape is made mostly of gigantic sand dunes and palm trees swaying happily in the warm coastal sunshine. You won't find any high rises here! (Just the way we like it!) Our townhouse was huge and beautiful- we hardly knew what to do with all of the space. Our Night Owl got super sick on day 2 of our trip, which resulted in a midnight trip to the ER. (Note to self for future: pack a thermometer and have an emergency plan!) While Night Owl was down and out, Mr. Sunshine enjoyed making a bunch of "Secret Agent" movies on his camera. They are BEYOND cute. I hope to share a few of them in a future post. It was great to see how well he entertained himself (thanks to his amazing imagination) He even made supper one evening, because we were busy tending to Night Owl. My heart is blessed to be a mama to such compassionate and helpful boys. Love them bunches! Some of our favorite moments include: making sandcastles (Mr. Sunshine especially enjoyed this!) exploring the state park (which is known for it's remote beach and huge dunes) flying kites, watching dolphins in the sea (daily!) playing some beachy football, walking the shore... the sand was so sugary white and so very soft... watching beach mice in the evenings (cute little things!) writing postcards while at the beach, eating on our patio nearly ever meal, and watching Netflix at night. Oh, and of course, watching Mr. Mustard Seed attempt to start a fire on the beach. (keyword: *attempt!) The boys were cute in telling him, "It's okay. You're like Charlie Brown when he couldn't fly a kite." But, enough of my chatter! Let's get to the pictures, shall we?! And a few pictures of Night Owl trying to dig to India. He used every bit of might he could muster up. Before giving up, he yelled "HELLO!" into the hole. I enjoyed watching this! Well, thanks for stopping by. I'll be sharing our time in Chattanooga in two parts. The first part will focus on our time downtown, and the second part will be our time at Rock City. (One word: AMAZING!) I also plan to write reviews on our curriculum for the past year, as well as share the curriculum we will use for the upcoming school year. Are ya'll looking forward to any exciting adventures this summer?! Share! I'm going to keep the intro brief, considering it's nearly midnight, and if I'm not careful, I just may end up turning into a pumpkin! We've been very busy cruising through history. We recently learned about Early Egyptians, mummies, pyramids, Stonehenge, and Abraham. The boys enjoyed making each other and their stuffed animals into mummies. A few of the books we read... And a notebooking page. (The question marks mean we don't know the exact date) I decided to start each Monday with a fun review game. This was our first week trying it, and it went really well. The boys earn pennies for answering correctly... (and pennies could taken away for any whining- which didn't end up happening- yay!) It was pretty fun! Waiting for the game to begin! ...a few of the questions! In science, we learned about the bird's digestive system. Both boys continue to do well with spelling. (I recently added spelling to BW's subjects- and it's his new favorite subject!) Yay! AW has 25 words each day, and BW has 8. Math also continues to be a beloved subject. Lately BW has been helping AW by entering his answers into the TT program. I love it. BW continues to rock his Calculadder math facts! We spent some time playing this awesome game I scored at a local thrift store. The boys have been asking to play it every day because it's that fun. Really. It's a cool game, and you should totally get it! We play with real coins, and get to keep what we earn at the end. Lately we've been switching back and forth from our Peregrina Bible study to our Draw to Learn the Psalms book. Next week I hope to add prayer journals to our afternoon. Here's a peek at the boy's Psalm books... BW (left) AW (right) (Doesn't Jerusalem look beautiful?) BW worked on memorizing The Caterpillar by Christina G. Rosetti. This was part of his First Language Lessons book. To make it a little more fun, he made this cute little caterpillar. First Language Lessons 3 is going really well for AW. We skip some of the repeating, just because it's not our style, but over all, I'm very impressed with it- especially the workbook. Some of AW's cursive: AW started a journal this week. He's been having a lot of fun with it. I love reading it. (And love how he spelled cabbage (cabich) and carrots (carets)) Cute. Cute. All of this journal writing made BW decide to start a journal of his own. He quickly filled about 20 pages in a composition notebook. I paged through it tonight, and laughed so hard I actually cried. It's SO CUTE. Take a peek: The picture on the right is just a tad bit closer... There is a word before the first "Sed" but I cut it off in the photo... It says: "sed to Bryce wt you don. Wot emi doen. Eaten dygtn sed BW. Yeed." Translation: "said to Bryce what you doing. What am I doing? Eating (mystery word) said BW. The end." (Yes, "Yeed" translates to "The end." So sweet. "The" was a spelling word last week, so he KNOWS it... but just must have forgotten as he was busy speed writing!) And one more mystery picture I found lying around our house: Now if this cute picture doesn't make you smile, the prancing husband on the beach photo magnet must! Future school updates will be less lengthy, as I hope to start posting weekly instead of biweekly. I know a few of you have been patiently waiting for a blog post on my vintage kitchen. I hope to do a full post or two on it sometime soon... for now, here's a tiny sneak peek at a few of my favorite treasures: Top L - R: Susie Sad Eyes doll (pre Blythe- love this doll because I love Blythe! She's actually on my address book- but that's another story!), vintage knife holder, vintage Planters peanuts container from the 1930s filled with retro cookie cutters, a letter holder, another letter holder (skeleton keys hanging), a cute deer from an estate sale, an old wooden peg person, sweet canisters (perfect for holding artsy stuff!) A really old photo box. Love this! It's filled with a bunch of old photos... yes, I collect other people's memories. (I hope that doesn't make me a creeper!) The two photos pictured are two of my favorites... they're just so... happy. On the right- the bottom chest is actually a vintage tea shipping chest - more details on that another time... the middle green is a picnic basket (holding rubber stamps) Top left is the photo box, followed by a Coca Cola tin, and a vintage Whitman's Chocolate tin that says "Loveliness." All of them are useful and holding various things. Top left- just some random vintage stamps. I couldn't spell much with the ones I found, but I could spell hugs & kisses! These are sitting on an old wooden utensil holder that I turned into a wall hanging decoration... (It will make sense to you someday... when I post more!) Underneath the Xs and Os are some of my fun bowls and a sweet casserole dish that a friend actually mailed me (you know who you are! Totally knocked my socks off! LOVE IT!) And the right is a little sign that hangs in my kitchen/dining room. I actually have bunches of them hanging together, but I believe this one is my favorite.
Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to catching up with you again soon. |
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