The Great Lake Kite Festival

Calosoma Scrutator Beetle

Sunset Silhouettes: May 5, 2014

Babysitting Coco: April 2014

Cold Water Challenge: 2014

Passing Time: April 27, 2014

Lake Superior Shipping: April 23, 2014

Alaina Turns 6 Years Old! April 11, 2014

4th Annual E.U.P. Homeschool Fine Arts Festival

          On Friday, April 11, Autumn and Alaina participated in the 4th Annual E.U.P. Homeschool Fine Arts Festival. The evening started at 6:30p.m. with finger foods, socializing, and looking at all of the different art and school project submissions. Autumn submitted a sketchbook that she put a ton of effort into and a crocheted scarf, and Alaina submitted six of her ballerina drawings and a crocheted scarf. There were paintings, clay sculptures, reports, lapbooks, knit and crocheted items, hand sewn dresses, and all sorts of interesting things to looks at.

          At 7:30p.m. the talent portion of the evening began. Alaina and Autumn recited "The Nations of the World." Alaina had been practicing it about ten times a day for two weeks straight, and she got up on stage and totally nailed it. The sad part is that I didn't get to video tape her because I was busy throwing blow up globes into the audience for the crowd to bop around while the girls sang. It was really cute, (but the audience got a little noisier than I had anticipated...I think that idea destroyed any hopes of a "sophisticated" evening...what was I thinking??)

          Autumn recited "The Porcupine" by Roald Dahl. Steve and Alaina both played little parts in it, and she had the whole audience laughing. I was really proud of her performance. Well, I was proud of EVERY kid that got up on that stage. I was shaking with nerves for all of them just sitting in the audience. Other talents that were shared were karate, dance, tumbling, piano, singing, reciting bible verses, acting in skits, playing instruments....it was an inspiring night, and a long night. The last performance was around 9:20p.m!

Here is Autumn reciting her poem:

Our Weekend: April 5-6, 2014

            This Saturday we went skiing in Canada at Hiawatha. It was a bit windy in spots, but the sun was out and the tracks were fast because of the icy snow we received the day before. We managed to ski the entire Pinder system and still have time to take off our skis and explore a bit near the waterfall, which was still frozen.

            When we got back into the states we did something very naughty. We were all extremely hungry and so we decided to eat at West Pier. The girls both had bacon cheeseburgers, and Steve and I had the double cheeseburger.  These burgers are enormous, and considering we haven't purchased or cooked meat in months it was a very naughty thing to do.We also went for the fries and onion rings...  I still feel guilty about it (but they were really good).

            On Sunday we went to church, and when we got home the girls immediately put on their snow gear and went out to play in the woods. A little while later they were joined by two of their neighbor friends, who invited them to go snow tubing on the lake. Their dad had hooked up tubes to his snowmobile and was pulling them all the way around the lake, which he said was getting pretty slushy. This was definitely the highlight of their weekend.

           With temperatures predicted to be up into the 40's all week, the snow is going to melt fast. This could very well be the last weekend we ski this year. :(