May Phone Dump

Whenever the chickens are free, this is an occurrence.  She sings to them and swings.  And they like it.

Big cheeser

Don't you stick your sucker in your hair?

This is frequent.   They sit on top of here, cut things up and "make soup."

The chicken run is coming along!  The door is almost done.

Adelyn wrote this story and drew the picture.  She wrote the initial story with no help and then we went through and made corrections.

 

Sleepwalking Adelyn.  Always a fun time.

We went to the park and they wanted to be spun around.  This is my best attempt at a picture of them mid-spin.

Doesn't Thor come and do math at your house?

We were laughing hysterically.  HYSTERICALLY.  We were at a friend's house, by the fire pit, and all the sudden we hear the gator go roaring by with Lincoln crying.  He didn't know to let up on the gas and nearly ran into the bush.  So he just goes flying by, wailing and nearly crashes.  Once he got to the bush he wised up.

Sleepy boys

Our first trip to the beach.  The water was freezing but the kids didn't care.

 

Somehow when we put the chicken coop where the garden was, I ended up with a bigger garden.  Eric and I are still scratching our head about it.

Wah.

Daddy had a golfing tournament so we went to Wolfgangs and the Fulton Street farmer's market.  Humph.

A, rather large, garter snake came into the chicken run.  I was rather curious if the chickens would eat it.  They just chased it out.

We went to Hemlock Crossings on our bike.  Eric was all creeped out by the teepee's in the woods.  I thought they were cool.

Apparently Lady Slipper Orchids are native to this area.  You learn something new every day.  They are beautiful.

Homeschool Field Trip::Dairy Discovery

We were SO excited for this field trip.  We had heard lots of great things from public school groups and homeschool groups.  It did not disappoint.   Dairy Discovery is the educational side of Swiss Lane Farms.  Swiss Lane is a commercial dairy in Alto MI that supplies milk (and other things) locally.  Dairy Discovery does many different educational group things throughout the year.  

In the play area, they had a cow set up to milk.  It was (obviously) a wooden cow but it did have udders and water came out of the udders.  Joelle's face just cracks me up.

Then we got to tour the farm.  This was the chute the cows walk down to the milking area.

Our group.  We had one or two random homeschool families join us and some random people did too.  We ended up being quite the group.

Bebe and I.  We had to make some random side walks so someone didn't disrupt the tour.

We got to (attempt) to feed the cows.  Some were more skittish than others, so some of us succeeded and some did not.  At this point they showed us how the cows were fed and also showed us the automatic poop cleaner.  It runs on a chain throughout the building.  I need one for my house.

 

B-diddy succeeded :)

 

We got to go on a hay ride.  We learned a fun fact right away.  Hay is green, straw is yellow.  We were actually going on a straw ride.

Another fun fact.  They use a big dump truck to mix all the cows food.  They have different bins of different things and it all gets dumped in a dump truck which has a big monstrous kitchen-aid type mixer in it.  This is ground feed corn.  I also did not realize when they do feed corn for animals they grind everything.  The stalk, the leaves, the husk and the corn.

The milking area.  Each cow gets it's own washcloth that they wipe the udders down with, they test each cows milk once a month and they have a vet that comes to the farm every day.

Then we got to bottle feed calves.  Oh my word.  Sooooo fun.  They were so cute.  I want a baby cow. 

This was one of my favorite tours....and our last tour of the year!  So informative about where our food really comes from.

Fishing with Papa

The kids have been begging (and begging) to go fishing with Papa.  Dad decided he could go with all 3...if I came with.  Mom watched Lincoln and off we went.  We went to Pine Lake.  Papa had been fishing there a couple times already this year and supposedly the bluegills were on their beds.  To which I always raise my eyebrows.  I've had rare experiences where the fish were biting well.  I love to go fishing but the fish have to be doing something.  I get bored when they aren't biting.  I've read many a book on the boat.  My dad could park himself out there all day and just hang out with his pole in the water not doing anything.

Alas, we got in, found a spot and the fish were biting!!  The kids were elated.

Joelle caught the first beauty.

 

B caught the next one!!  We found out my casting needs some serious improvement.  But I can still put a worm on and take a fish off like a pro. 

Adelyn caught the third one!  They were some beauties.

Initially, today was supposed to rain.  Then it was supposed to be really cloudy all day.  So I didn't bring sunscreen.  (My dad normally has some on the boat also)  We get out there.  And it's supremely sunny.  After an hour on the lake I was really starting to fret for my children's skin.  And Dad's sunscreen is missing.  A couple days ago we went to the beach and Joelle and I got really burnt.  So there was that too.  So my dad dropped me off at the Marina that wasn't finished and, therefore, not operational.  So I had to run up the road a quarter of a mile and go to the store.  Thankfully there was one.

We found a nice shady spot for lunch and while we ate, Dad did this.  Because this is how well the fish were biting.  We did catch quite a few small ones, which is kinda annoying, but I did not care because it was fun and keeps the kids entertained.

THAT is a nice one.

Then we saw some turtles.  And had to go turtle hunting.

There were quite a few.

Always a great time fishing.  When the fish are biting.  We were out there all day and nobody dumped nobody else overboard AND nobody had to pee AND we didn't have to do emergency surgery on anyone because they got hooked.  Winning.

Last Day of HC2

Adelyn celebrated her last day of HC2 today.  Last, last.  Next year she will be going to Hamilton for a day a week.  We were SUPER sad.  We will miss the teachers greatly.  

This is Mrs. Klingenberg.  Adelyn's all time favorite teacher.  She had her both years and is the absolute sweetest lady.

We had to celebrate with something special.  So we whipped up some GF cake pops.  YUM.

The Big Dance Recital

Adelyn has worked really hard at her recital all year.  We were so excited to see the showing!  It was a lot of fun seeing all the dances the girls put on.  If I had to make one change, I would get a sitter for Lincoln.  I managed to make it through Adelyn's performance but then missed the last 2/3 of the recital.  After I gave him his 8th Dum Dum sucker I headed out.

  This is the Saturday before the Sunday  recital.  You are not allowed to take pictures or video during the recital...but can at the practice.  Note to self::charge the camera batteries before you go.  I was so mad.  So these are all with my cell phone.  Wah.

It was hysterically cute.  They all look at each other to see the next part that they are supposed to be doing.  Between them all, and the teachers dancing to the side and behind the curtains, they did great :)

The day of the recital.  Oh my word.  She is adorable.  Can I just mention how much Adelyn hates ballet buns?  HATES.  Her hair is so long and I have to wind it so much, she hates how tight it is.  But we arrived at this and she deemed it "fine."

 

After her performance we had to snap some pictures.

They are the cutest.

Grandma and Adelyn

 Papa, Nana and Adelyn

Me and my sweet girl 

We make some cute kids.

Again.  Real life.