The plan today was to freshen up the paint on the fruit tree trunks, which helps keep the borers away.  But, our paint had frozen over the winter and was no good so we had to put that off for another day.  Leif would have none of this and insisted that he paint SOMETHING this morning.  So, we set him up and let him go to it.

He’s very proud of his work and plans to display it on his wall once it’s dry.

Hello there!  And welcome to our third week of travels.  We continued to explore around the Boulder area, including the areas right outside our home.  Leif made fast friends with the neighbor’s little boy, and they played in the yard almost every morning.   They share a love of construction trucks and were wowed by the big compost truck that drove up one morning (Boulder picks up trash, recycling, and all of your compostables!!  Isn’t that awesome?!)

We drove into Denver one rainy day to explore the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  We spent many hours there and still couldn’t have seen half of it!  We started with a 3-D IMAX movie about Lemurs, which we all loved, then went on to the dinosaur exhibit…

…the kids hands-on areas…

…learned about water and land formations…

…and saw a mummy exhibit, learned about Colorado wildlife, and more!

We took a day to drive out to Eldorado Springs to swim.  The pool there was part of a resort that opened almost 100 years ago and is fed by natural springs.  So, it’s very cold!!  Set up against the Eldorado State Park, the view from the pool is amazing.  The kids enjoyed the super long slide and floating around the pool for a bit, but it was a wee bit too cold for our southern blood (I admit it… I didn’t even get in).

Our third week of travel has also been our most trying so far.The kids were getting a bit tired of exploring, so we spent some days just going to a park or watching a movie.  Also, when you spend 24/7 together you can easily get on each other’s nerves. I found myself a bit jealous of Toby, who got to go to work three days during the past week.  Yes, I know it’s work, but it’s still time to yourself  🙂  I thought it might help dynamics a bit to get the kids apart for a while.  So, Friday night, I took Kaia out for dinner, just to two of us.  We drove to the sweet town of Lyons and stopped in at the Lyons Fork restaurant.  It was nice to get out of the city and chill a bit by two aspen trees.  I don’t know if I’d ever seen an aspen before this trip.  I do love the way the leaves shake when the wind blows, and the trunks look so wise with the ‘eyes’ on their bark. (Kind of reminds me of the weirwood trees from Game of Thrones.)

Kaia and I had a decadent meal with truffle fries… (yes, she is really enjoying her root beer!)

and grilled salmon over parsnips and asparagus, topped with a pesto sauce!  YUM!!   We finished it off with a white chocolate creme brule and drove home very happy.

This morning, we packed up and finally headed back out on the road.  Our friends were such amazing hosts.  I can only imagine what it’s like to have a whole family move in and take over your space for almost 3 weeks.  On top of that, they have a young baby and just moved to Boulder a few months ago!  Wonderful people!

Tonight, we are in the Sunflower Lodge.  I was lucky enough to stumble on this place through the grand ol’ internet.  The kids were so excited when the owner’s kitty came out for some loving (we miss our fur babies)!  She’s not spoiled, is she?

We headed to the Cave of the Winds (ok, how many of you are thinking of farts right now??  Tell the truth!) for a little exploring.

You drive up a handful of switch backs to get to the main house where the view is gorgeous.

Once inside the cave you’ll find an old rope ladder from the original explorers.

Leif loved calling out the names of the formations when he saw stalactites or stalagmites, popcorn rocks, or crystals.

After the tour, we headed to dinner at the Airplane Restaurant!  The restaurant is built around an old Boeing KC-97 tanker!  Though there is a restaurant attached we actually got to sit in the plane for dinner.

And do a bit of flying. 

Tomorrow starts our final week of travels.  We have a lot of wonderful things planned (including two train rides!), but I think we are all a bit home sick.  It will be nice to sleep in our own beds and snuggle up the animals.

Toby had such a wonderful time hiking towards Apache Peak that he had to take the kids and I back… and it was breathtaking!

The kids were most excited about the snow!  We saw a bit at the bottom of the trail and a bunch at Isabelle Lake!

I took lots of wild flower pictures.  Many I’d never seen before and the colors were so rich!

There was a little bit of complaining about going on a long hike, but attitudes changed pretty quickly once we got going.  It reminded Kaia and I of our time in the Ponderosa Pine forests last year.  The air was cool and crisp and smelled of conifers.  So refreshing. (This is the lower lake, Long Lake.)

Can you see the slithering “S” back and forth on the snow?  Snow boarders have hiked into crazy areas to snowboard down!

I love the vibrant colors in this picture!

Isabelle Lake still had a good bit of snow around her.  On the left is what looks like a snow damn coming off of the lower side of the lake.

(Yes, I am wearing my Chacos.  I wear them every where and didn’t even bring another pair of shoes on the trip 🙂 )

The river on the right was flowing down from snow melt up above.  It punched a whole through the snow and fed into the lake.

Don’t get too close.  It’s a steep drop and a very cold swim under the snow!

This was the view from our lunch spot.  The water falls off the far side of the lake…

…And DOWNNNNNN to the river below.

Such a lovely day!!

We had another wonderful week in Boulder, starting it off with the Celestial Seasonings factory tour.  The tea factory is only a couple of miles from where we are staying, so how could we pass it up?  Our tickets were sample baggies of tea which the kids thought were fabulous.  While we waited for the tour to begin we filled up on yummy sips of different teas, read a bit about the history of the tea company, and looked at gorgeous tea pots and a lovely dress made of tea bags.  The highlight of the tour for leif was definitely watching all of the conveyor belts move the tea along.

We also hit the Butterfly Pavilion.  We loved hanging out in the butterfly room, but also learned a lot about other insects.

This is where the chrysalis hung until they hatched and were released into the butterfly room.

Leif got to hold Rosie, the Salmon Pink Tarantula, and pet a hissing cockroach (Kaia left the room) 🙂

We went on another factory tour,this time at the Schacht Spindle factory .  This is where my spinning wheel was made 25 years ago.  We got to put on our ear and eye protection and head into the thick of things.  All the parts for their spinning wheels, looms, and drop spindles are milled on site and put together by hand.

This is Bree putting together one of the looms (the Wolf Pup, I believe).  She showed us how it all fits together and we learned a bit about how it works.

For each spinning wheel there is only one crafter.  This man (Ben, I think) makes all of their Schacht-Reeves spinning wheels

I love the way the drips look on the drip rack.  Each piece of wood is coated with Danish Oil.

And this gorgeous picture is a weaving!!!  A weaving!!  I can’t even begin to imagine the detail and planning that went into this!  Such talent!

Of course, we also spent time at local pools.  We found one community pool that has 2 water slides, a lazy river, water play area for little kids, and a lap pool.  It was crazy!!  And it’s in the community center.  MAN!  Asheville seriously needs one of these.

Toby and his friend, Mark, headed up to Apache Peak for a hike.  Apache is over 13,000 feet tall!  They had such an amazing time that we are all going back next week.  We won’t go all the way to the top with the kids, but we’ll still get to enjoy some lovely views.

With all the rains they had in Colorado last year, there was still a good bit of snow on the mountain, and the melting snow created some pretty fast flowing rivers.

The lakes still had a good bit of ice on them.

The Marmots on the trail were super friendly.

Close to the top, there was so much snow that it covered the trail.  The guys tried to find a good way around, but the skies darkened and they decided to head back down before the storms rolled in.

On they way out they saw moose!

I’m super excited about going back!

We went on Banjo Billy’s Bus Tour of Boulder yesterday and learned a bit about the history of Boulder.

Today, we took a shorter hike around Settler’s Park.  The trailhead is just on the edge of downtown, but the views are amazing!

Yes, the kids have had some emotional times and some breakdowns, but all in all, at the end of each day we pretty much all look like this… happily exhausted.

No, my kids don’t get snow days off.  We still plop ourselves in front of the wood stove and get our school work done.  But THEN, we get to make maple taffy!  It’s an experiment, right???

First you heat your maple syrup to 250 degrees (the “soft ball” stage – hehehe).  We also put a small pot of honey on the stove to make some honey taffy.

When your syrup reaches 250, turn off the heat and have the kids head out in their long johns and fill up a bowl of snow…. pack it down firmly.

Drizzle the syrup into the snow.

Roll it up onto a skewer.

tap it in the snow a bit to be sure it’s cooled off and EAT IT!  YUM!

We got tired of rolling them up and just made plops in the snow.  We all liked the maple syrup flavor better.

I know, I know!  You don’t have to tell me that making pure sugar candies when the kids are snowed in isn’t the smartest of ideas.  I just couldn’t help myself.  It looked like such a fun and yummy experiment.  Now, I just have to shove the kids into their winter clothes and toss them outside to play!!

Like much of the rest of the country, we’ve been hit by an arctic blast today, so we thought we’d get outside (all bundled up, of course) and have a little fun with the cold.

First, we put some bubble fluid in small bowls and used straws to blow bubbles.  At first, they just froze and popped.  But as the bubbles tumbled out of the bowl we noticed that some of them were freezing to the side of the bowl or the table before they popped.  If you touched them, they would shatter like glass.  So very cool!

The aftermath looks like broken glass, doesn’t it?

Then we decided to fill up some balloons and ice cube trays with colored water and leave them outside to freeze.

These turned out so lovely. (We popped the frozen ice cubes out of their trays and put them all in water to refreeze.)

After taking pictures we put the ice back outside.  Tomorrow we plan to bring them in and use them to make ice paintings on thick white paper.

“b-e-s-t…best! Like ‘Mommy you’re my best friend!!'”

“f-a-s-t….fast! Like ‘The fire truck went really fast!!”

“d-a-m-p…. damp! Like ‘DAMMIT!'”

Hmmmm… might have to work on that last one

I don’t know why I love to see my kids writing so much.  Seeing their words on paper, that tangible, written expression of themselves, it really makes my heart feel warm and happy.

My first child can be a perfectionist.  She wants to know that what she does will come out perfectly before doing it.  This can be hard on her, since most things take a bit of practice.  Because of this she literally refused to read anything until she was 7, saying she “might pronounce the words wrong”.  I was worried about it at first, as many first time parents would be, thinking she might ‘fall behind’.  But, when she decided she was ready to read and write, she picked it up with such a vengeance that she now reads faster than I do.

With my second child, I am a bit more relaxed.  I know he will come to things in his own time, just as my first child has.  He, however, decided that he wanted to read and write from the moment he could understand the concepts.  When he was 2 1/2 years old he got angry with me for not ‘doing school’ with him, like I do with his older sister, and asked for his own “curriculum”.  I wasn’t planning on any formal schooling until he was 5 or 6 years old, but he was so motivated I decided to start him with All About Reading and Moebius Noodles.

He started reading simple words when he was three and now, at 4 1/2, is reading and writing simple sentences.  I’m so excited for him!  He’s launching into a new world of independence, exploration, and expression.   I LOVE seeing him plop himself down on the couch with a book, or write me a love note! (My ‘to do’ list last night was “Mom, Hug Leif!”)

Today, his dad came home from a week long trip.  Leif wanted to welcome him home with a sign that said, “Welcome home dad.  When you come in and put your stuff away, come and see my new legos”  🙂  I talked him into a simpler version “Welcome home dad.  Play LEGOS with me.”

In our home, even kitties do school… with their pj’s on…. in the cat tent 🙂

School has been going fairly well this semester.  It’s been a little harder with 4 year old energy around the house while Kaia and I are working on more advanced subjects.  She has a hard time concentrating with Leif doing anything in her vicinity.  If I sent him up with something fun for him to do, she wants to play along.  If I’m not doing school with him, he often gets mad, “Why don’t I have more schoolwork?!?”  🙂  I can’t complain that he loves learning.  He’s reading simple sentences and started writing short words.  This morning, as I watched him write, my mind flashed forward to him writing me a little letter, “Dear mommy, I love you!” or something like that.  My whole body feel warm and fuzzy.

Kaia’s semester is falling into place in a way that I hadn’t planned, but am very thankful for.  We’ve begun studying Einstein and his though experiments using the book Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids.  The experiments can be done with household objects and are fairly simple so Leif can enjoy them.  Kaia and I take them a bit deeper.

While we learn about the life of Einstein, we are also studying this same time period in history.  We’ve read Miss Spitfire, about Annie Sullivan and Hellen Keller, read a bit about Nikola Tesla and his inventions, and looked through If You Lived 100 Years Ago.  We just finished up a fabulous book about immigration in the early 1900’s called Shutting out the Sky.  Kaia has decided that she wants to take a trip to NY to visit Ellis Island and the NY Tenement Museum.  (She has come a long way from wanting to visit NY because of the American Girl Doll factory.)  We’ve just moved into The Unsinkable Molly Brown  (Titanic) and will go from here into discussing women’s suffrage and WWI (A Time for Courage) and WWII (Number the Stars).   I may be enjoying the history reading even more than she is!

The kids and I have been having a hard time following any history curriculum.  It seems like there are too many names and dates and too little hands on experiences.  We find ourselves yawning.  So, we put the curriculum aside and decided to do some living history.  We’ve just wrapped up the American Revolution and are now learning about Sacagawea.  The book we used was mostly about what her childhood might have been like, with a few chapters at the end about her travels with Lewis and Clarke.  The book discusses basket making, salmon spawning, leather working, fire starting, and other skills that are fabulous to work into a homeschoolers day!  We watched a great video on the life cycle of salmon, and I may pick up some salmon to cook over an open fire, or even try drying into jerky.  Kaia was most interested in leather working.  So, we got some scraps and she created different types of pouches.

She made a simple circle pouch:

And Leif helped me make one for him:

Then Kaia did a flap style purse out of some buffalo skin:

She and I both love how this one turned out!

They also worked in a full afternoon of playing in their teepees, ‘hunting and fishing’, and trading with the tababone (“white face”).

We wrapped it up with a fish craft:

Next week, basket weaving, fire starting, and a documentary about Lewis and Clarke!

Leif is very interested in his alphabet.  He’s often telling me things like, “Hey, Mom, fish starts with ffff, fff, ‘F'”.  And he’s super excited about writing his name.  He’s still young and working on his hand/eye coordination, and keeping a steady hand.  So, I started by writing his name on a chalk board and having him trace it with water (we used a little wooden stick with a sponge on the end that we got at a craft store).  The smiley faces helped him remember where to start his letter.

He noticed that we were writing his name in all capital letters and wanted to do it “the right way”.  Smiley faces didn’t work as well here.  So, I used little green dots as starting points instead.

Yes, it was a very exciting morning!

Leif is ecstatic about school this year.  Every day, including weekends, he asks me when we are going to do his school work.  He’s like a little puppy who needs to have a task 🙂

Today, I made him an ABC Game.  I spread out his ABC deck in alphabetical order.  Then he picked a card from out of a bag.  The cards were lower and upper case ABC’s.  He would tell me the name of the letter and the sounds it makes, then match it to the ones that were on the floor.  He LOVED it!  We even got the remote controlled cars into it, rolling the next card to him… Ahhhh, the simple things 🙂

It seems that every new school year Kaia picks a subject to rebel against.  Last year, she did whatever she could to get out of writing in any form.  So, this year, I’m getting super creative with her assignments.  If there is more to writing than just sitting down at the table and putting words on lined paper, then it holds her interest more.  Of course it would.  Most kids don’t want to finish an assignment if they are bored.

So, lately we’ve been doing Sistine Spelling (tape the paper under your table and write your spelling words a la Michelangelo.

Then there’s Invisible Cursive:

Write your message in white crayon on white paper.  Then watercolor over it to reveal the message.

Yes, Kaia’s secret message to me says “Hag but head.  Bla Bla Bla. Bye.”  She realized that she’d spelled ‘butt’ incorrectly.  It is a very important word to know how to spell when you are 8!

Leif’s hands were definitely not idle while Kaia worked.

Speaking of Leif, he’s been begging me for his own curriculum (yes, he used that word!).  So, we’ve started with All About Reading Pre-1  I wasn’t planning on starting any official schooling with him for a few years.  He’s not even 3 yet.  But he knows his alphabet and wanted more.  So far this is perfect for him.  Kaia likes to join in his lessons and be my assistant teacher, and they both love using their magnetic doodle writer thingies (what are those things called anyway?)

How do you get creative with your lessons?  I’d love to hear your suggestions!