Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mother's Day 2012

 Darrell surprised me by taking a picture of the kids this morning before church without me knowing it.  I like both of these...they turned out well!

Monday, May 7, 2012

Plants and Pillars Homeschool Coop - Final Day of School Year

 Today was our last day of the school year with our homeschool group.  The kids studied Physics this year and spent the last semester using their knowledge to design and create skateboard parks.  They also took a speech class, so for their presentations they had to use their speech and physics knowledge to present their skateboard parks to "investors" (the moms).  They all worked hard and did a fantastic job!  Here are Evan and Ann-Marie's groups.....
 After the presentations, they participated in Passport Day.  There were three speakers....one spoke about Isreal, another about Haiti, and the final speaker told about what Child Evangelism Fellowship does.  The speakers were all very interesting and the kids and adults that participated learned a lot.
 Lunch was an international potluck with dishes from places such as India and Italy.  We finished the day with award certificates and arts and crafts from the countries they learned about.
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this day come together!  We have a wonderful group of parents and a supportive community, which we are thankful.

Another school year almost complete.  We are ready for summer and are counting the days!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Hiking in western PA

 A beautiful Saturday with no soccer games just begs for a hike......so off we went to meet Darrell's sister, Maura, at  Slippery Rock Gorge at McConnells Mills.
 Evan handling a millipede....
 Maura, the closest in age sibling to Darrell, who LOVES to hike.....

 peering off a drop-off.....
 discovering cool places to climb.....
 a refreshing place to play and rest halfway through our hike.....
 we deemed Alec the "Super Hiker" for the day.....even hiked back with a bloody toe.....
 Ann-Marie needed a little rest and Aunt Maura gave her a ride.....
trying to imitate Tarzan.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Ann-Marie's 9th birthday

 Ann-Marie had fun-filled 9th birthday.  Since her birthday was on a Friday, and she has gymnastics Friday night, we celebrated in reverse order with breakfast (pink eggs and english muffin with Nutella) served on the special red birthday plate.
 We declared a no school day and headed to Chuck E Cheese.  We hadn't been there for 3 years, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that there were new games updated for the older kid crowd.




 We made "Sprouting plant" cupcakes to take to gymnastics that night...yummy but do they make a mess on the floor!
And Darrell took one of Ann-Marie's awards from gymnastics and added pegs and a hanger for her to hang medals from....she was very happy about this.