Trip to Tennessee: to the farm with Poppy

We spent a week in Tennessee, to spend time with family and celebrate Madisyn's wedding.  We spent the first part of the week at Rick's and kicked off all the festivities at the farm.

I'm pretty sure this will be the last picture of Rick holding the boys.

I keep telling them to stop growing!

First stop, was the corn pits.  I think they would have happily played in the corn all day. It reminded me of all the times we would play in the silos at my Aunt Karen's as a kid.

Alison sliding down the hill:

Alison and Eli on the swings:

 

 We had a race through the corn maze.  Poppy and the boys were on a team and then Ben, Alison and I were on a team.  It was too hot to be stuck in a corn maze that didn't have an exit, but we survived and Poppy's team won.

The flower field next to the corn maze...wouldn't have minded getting lost in that field.

Zip lining:

The farm cat kept trying to bounce with Alison...it gave us all a good laugh.

My favorite part of the day was seeing Rick ride these tricycles with Colin.  It was the best!

Then Ben and the kids had a race.

 We split some apple cider slushies, which hit the spot on this unusually hot day.

We watched some pig races and saw lots of animals.

 

We stayed until the big event of shooting candy out of a canon. 

 

We ended our adventure at Sonic, because Sonic does not exist in California and some corndogs were calling our name.

She's just so pretty

This is school?

I had a random idea to set up a little tea party for the kids.  Alison had asked for pumpkin bread and thank you Trader Joe's for making that super easy for me.  When the bread was done, I made some hot cocoa and got out our china.  Then I turned on some "fall" music, lit a fall smelling candle and grabbed a book.  I called the kids in for our special snack time and they LOVED it.

I read ,while they dined.

Alison said, "I wish we were English and could do this everyday."  I told her that we could do it every day (just not with pumpkin bread), but reminded her that she doesn't like tea.  She said, "You're right.  I like our "Shearish" way better."

{It cracked me up how Maya could not be left out and laid their quietly next to us }

At the end of the day, the kids all said this was their favorite part of the day.  I said, "I'm so thankful to hear that school was your favorite part!" and Alison said, "THAT WAS SCHOOL?!?"

Goal accomplished.

Did you hear literature?  yes.

Did you hear classical music? yes.

Did you engage in a conversation about what you were hearing?  yes.

Then you just learned something and that my friends, is what we call "school".

I don't have a concrete goal for us this year yet...our fall is so busy that I might wait until the new year, but I do have a goal that they would enjoy learning this year; to break the idea that school fits in a box and is boring.  Even for myself, this is the first year that I haven't filled out a year long spreadsheet of what lessons need to be done when.  I've been doing this long enough that I know about what pace we need to take.  I left all those boxes blank and told the kids that it didn't matter how long it took to finish to books or how many chapters we got done, it matters that they learn it.  What point is it to fill out the pages but not actually know it?

We did have another tea party and continued on our reading.  This week, I'm going to have Alison bake some cookies (i.e. cooking class) for our tea party :)

Clearly busy

I promise we're alive...clearly we've been busy starting our new school year, as that's pretty much all I have to document of this last month.

Colin has some news.  He went on a date with Daddy and loved every minute.  They got hamburgers and milkshakes and then went shopping for some new clothes.

We make it a point to get Colin a hamburger and shake every once in awhile because he will devour it and it's kind of like our calorie insurance plan for him :)  I asked him what he wanted for breakfast the other day and he said, "I'll just take some carrots."

 Colin helped me cook dinner the other night and it made my day!

Lego Star Wars Imperial Base

Created by Eli Shear

This is a Lego Star Wars Imperial Base.

This is the landing pad.

This is the hanger.

This is the motorcycle parking and can also store stuff.

This is the shield generator.

This is the training room.

This is the meditating room.

This is the factory where they make weapons.  They send it to the storage when it's done.

This is the break room.

This is where ships park.

This is the prison.

The grey pillars are doors.

Humongous Star Wars fleet

Created by Eli Shear

This fleet contains a lot of old Lego sets, such as the Millennium Falcon, a Tie fighter, Obi-Wan Star Fighter and an Imperial shuttle.