Nonfiction project

Brady has four teachers (3 classroom + TAG) and had 3 major projects due within 2 weeks!  He was a busy kid for a few weekends.  One of his assignments was to do a project about a non-fiction book he'd finished in reading groups. He chose to do a diorama about the Civil War.  I think James helped him cut the styrofoam for Big Round Top (on the right), but everything else was completely independent.

Checking in...

It's been a non-stop crazy sort of few weeks.  At the beginning of every week, I look at the calendar for the week and think, "if I can just make it through Thursday / Friday / Saturday night, then we'll be good."  Except that I get to that night, and the next week looks the same.  Baseball season is always worse than the other three sports season because there is no consistency to the practice and game schedule; this year seems especially nuts this year because the beginning of the season was rainy and snowy, so we have extra games smushed into the regular weekly games. 

(Rudy was supposed to have games M, T, F, and S this week.  Brady has Sunday practice and a Thursday game, leaving us with Wednesday open.  Which is piano night.  Sheesh.)

And I've had a busy schedule too, with several full days devoted to a new principal selection committee (fingers crossed for the right candidate!!), Educator of the Year committee, work meetings, and I don't know what else.  Definitely no complaints, since I'm happy to been seen as reliable enough to serve in all of these functions.  

Add the rest of life to the sports schedule...Brady has 4 teachers.  Somehow, those four teachers managed to assign THREE projects, ALL due the same week.  And I think we're supposed to be prepping for SOL testing, but haven't done so yet. 

Anywho...all that is just a lengthy excuse for why I haven't posted in almost a month.  I've actually taken almost NO pictures since the last post, which is astonishing for me!  I'll work on it though, and see what I can come back with in the next few days.

Jack Hanna

For Rudy's "6 1/2 and 3/4 birthday," we gave him tickets for Jack Hanna at a local theater.  I heard about it too late for the really great seats, but they had a huge projection screen up so everyone could see the animals.  Among the animals Jack brought were: echidna, clouded leopard, cheetah, penguin, two toed sloth, cockroaches, big poisonous toad (we don't remember the specific species), boa constrictor, armadillo, serval cat, Harris hawk, bald eagle, barred owl, macaw, fennec fox.

Jack Hanna is just as crazy and rambling "in person" as he is on late-night TV!

We stuck around after the show and got a chance to see the Harris Hawk up close.  The kids even got to hold it!  

Chores

Beautiful weather + helpful kid = good weekend!  We spent a lot of time outside enjoying the first real spring-like weather!

 

Ohio

The kids and I drove to Ohio for a visit over spring break.  Grandma kept us busy!
 
We painted glasses and "fired" them in the oven.  Brady chose a Percy Jackson theme, with a triton and an octopus.  Rudy painted an airplane. 

We drove to Amish Country for the day. We explored a general store, got enormous ice cream cones at a bulk foods store (appetizer), tasted ALL of the cheeses at the cheese factory (lunch), and visited the Amish Culture museum.  I'm not sure, but I think the highlight for the kids was a close tie between seeing the Amish families in their buggies, the children playing outside the schoolhouses at recess, and the cheese and ice cream!  The highlight for me was seeing a story from my ancestry depicted on the cylorama painting at the museum (the burning cabin in the lower left and the Amish woman begging for mercy from the Indian...the not entirely happy story of the Jacob Hochstetler's family in 1757).

We visited a Nature Center near Lake Erie, where the kids went on a Flat Stanley scavenger hunt and explored around the creek.

We explored around the farm.  The kids spent a lot of time in futile attempts to scare the Canada geese out of the pond.  They also loved the old merry-go-round still in the yard. 

We had dinner one night at Uncle Dick and Aunt Elaine's, with Jerry and Jane.  The other night we caught up with Uncle Don, Dawn, and her family.  It was a short visit, but definitely worth the drive!