September

September marks the start of the new school year. For us, this meant the start of home school. Although there are several reasons we chose this route and perhaps, sometime I will do a post on that, the main reason we have decided to home school this year is maximize the amount of time the kids get to see Manu. In July he started a new gym with a college and as with all new business it requires a large time investment. And as is the nature with gyms, the peak hours are before and after school/work.

One of the first home school field trips we enjoyed, was apple picking.

We had a follow up activity where the kids got to make apple sauce, apple juice, do some apple themed projects, listen Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," and try some apple treats.

In September we also closed on our new house and became home owners again.

August

In August we took at trip out to Nana's (I think she was worried Marama might forget her and since everybody loves Marama, we could not have that.) It also meant, that once again we have pictures, since Nana could now be the photographer. We had lots of fun and everyone ended up being quite spoiled. Among the activities we enjoyed were several beach trips. The kids loved playing at the beach despite that fact that even in August the northeast seems a bit cold for water play to all of us desert dwellers.

The kids also enjoyed learning about and seeing the abundant history to be found in the Boston area. Here are some pictures of the kids exploring the USS Constitution a.k.a old iron sides and the corresponding museum. 

Her nickname came from one of her early battles, when the British commander order his crew to fire on the USS Constitution. Her unique construction in combination with the thickness of the dense oak wood used, provided her with a hull that was near indestructible, particularly in comparison to the ships of the day. Consequently, upon firing an astonished British sailor observed the 18-lb. iron cannonballs, bouncing harmlessly off USS Constitution's 25-inch oak hull, and he cried out, “Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!” Henceforth, USS Constitution carried the nickname “Old Ironsides.”

And although history is foggy on if there was really a winner of the War of 1812, what is indisputable is that old iron sides went undefeated. Indeed after a few battles with her, the Brittish forces would no longer engage an America ship in battle unless they had multiple ships with which to attack.

 After visiting the USS Constitution we took a ferry ride to the downtown Boston.

 There the kids were able to see the old state house, which was the location of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's house and the North church (where the lanterns were hung to warn of the British movement). They also enjoyed some more modern attractions such as lunch and Mike's Pastries.

 Later they had another beach day

 And on another day we explored the liberty trail, including the North Bridge, Lexington Green and the Minute Man Museum.

Other outing included visiting the Boston Tea Party Museum and Boston Children's Museum, but alas, we do not have pictures from those outings.

July

In June, we were pleased to discover that we were expecting our 4rth. This, however, meant that by July normal life and picture taking had ceased. From looking at a friends blog I know the kids attended the summer reading program in July and I remember going to see fireworks for the 4rth, but other than that, there is not much to report for July.

June

June marked the end first grade for Teah. She had a great year and adored her teacher Mrs Noel. She achieved school awards for both academic achievement and citizenship (only one of which was given per gender per class). She also received classroom awards in just about every subject (except handwriting :) ). We are very proud of all her hardwork and the young lady she is becoming.

In June we also visited the zoo again, which in the summer months means spending a fair amount of the time cooling off at the splash pad.

In June Manu and I also celebrated our 10th anniversary. Some friends were kind enough to take the kids overnight for us and we enjoyed an evening in New Mexico. The next day they joined us with our kids and we participated in the annual Raft the Rio event. It is a fundraiser for the southwest environmental center and the idea is you build a boat/raft from recycled materials and float down the river. We had a blast and somehow out raft even managed to stay in one piece down the river. The greatest obstacle was that in some place there were sand bars that made the river super shallow. The sand bars both tried to tear apart our makeshift vessel and were exhausting to push the vessel through. Still it made for a great day and floating down the river in the deeper sections was quite relaxing (although the whole thing scared Marama quite a bit - apparently she did not think our vessel was very stable.)

May

In May we celebrated Xanders 5th birthday. He had a water party, which involved lots of water (and mud), water balloon launching, playing and finished off with a water gun fight. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the water gun fight because, well, everyone was otherwise occupied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April

April was a quiter month than Febuary and March both in activities and in pictures. We did however get some nice doggie snuggling pictures around that time.
 

 

 

The kids also participated in healthy kids day at the YMCA with some of their friends.

 

 

 

Merry Christmas

So there has appearently been some complaints concerning our lack of Christmas cardage - and for those of you who are interested, this is as close as it gets