High Bridge Trail

 Our Mothers' Day adventure this year was to the High Bridge Trail, which is just outside of Farmville.  We had a perfect day for it, since it was sunny but not terribly hot.  A lot of the trail is in the sun, so a hotter day could have been tough.  We started at the Rice Depot parking lot and ended up riding just about 9 miles. 

The history of the railroad was pretty fascinating.  It was built pre-Civil War, and had a wagon bridge below the railroad tracks. 

We saw four large black snakes sunning themselves in the grass.  It was one of the first warm days of the year, so I guess they were glad to get out!

The little man was pooped!

 

Rudy was wearing down fast toward the end of the ride.  James tried to be helpful and give him a little push.  It was a bit too much, though, and Rudy crashed.  The next day at school, the assignment was to write about an OUCH.  This was Rudy's submission:

 

Mothers' Day

The boys and James made these awesome sign posts for Oma, Nana, and me.  Each is personalized with some of the places we've traveled and the miles from our homes.  Pretty cool!

 

Rudy's card for Oma also made me smile.  In the middle it says "Eanormess flower", with a note pointing to a tiny guy at the bottom who is labeled "tallist man".

Zoo field trip

The spring first grade field trip was to a local zoo.  The trip had to be postponed originally because of torrential rains, but the new date held perfect weather.  Warm enough to be comfortable outside, but not so hot that the zoo was terribly stinky!

Rudy's class had extra chaperones, so we got to have Mary Emma in our group for the day.  Hanging with these two kids makes for a pretty fun day!

With the prairie dogs.  I'm not sure you can really tell, but there is a tiny baby prairie pup in the second picture...

Can you see the orangutan in the window behind them?

Giraffe feeding.  I didn't think to bring any money, so we couldn't buy the cups of animal food.  These poor kids were picking up the kibble that fell on the ground to feed the giraffes.

Same story with the budgies...Rudy happened to find two sticks with birdseed on them that someone had left behind.  The kids would have spent all day in this little aviary, if I'd let them.

Good and smart

It's teacher appreciation week, so the kids wrote letters to a few of their teachers.  Rudy's first sentence says it all:

"Thanks for teaching me good and smart."

Sunday cookout

We promised the kids that if they could help us get some chores taken care of around the house, we could cook hot dogs over the campfire for dinner and then they could watch The Amazing Race finale with us.  They were thrilled with the deal!

Sleepy

Stinky leather

I packed cold milk and cereal in the kids lunches yesterday.  Of course the milk spilled and we spent the afternoon and evening out and about, so the lunchboxes didn't get unpacked until this morning.  The smell was unfortunate. 

I asked the kids if they wanted to buy lunch today, and I would wash the lunchboxes because they were stinky.  Rudy said, "yeah, I think it smells like stinky leather that someone peed on." 

Well then.

Take me out to the ballgame

Baseball is a tough sport for taking pictures.  Every time I take a movie of a kid at bat, he strikes out.  Seems like the only time they hit is when I'm not filming!

Rudy is playing machine pitch this season.  He hits beautifully at home, but doesn't seem to have as much luck in the games.  He typically plays outfield, but doesn't seem too bothered by that or at all interested in talking to the coach about a chance at infield.  I think he really only tolerates baseball as a sport, so is pretty happy to not see a lot of balls!

Brady started off a little rusty this season, but has shown some interest in practicing at home.  He's been practicing his batting swinging a golf club at ping pong balls and he's actually started getting a few hits at games.  Of course, he's a smart kid and I think he's figured out that the statistics are in his favor if he watches most pitches; he is perfectly happy to take a walk and then steal his way to home.  He's actually a great base-runner!  He plays outfield too, but usually sees more action in minors than the outfield does in rookie.  He has a good arm, so is easily able to make a good throw to the infield. 

 

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!