The First Day of School

I think MiniM.E. and I were equally nervous about the first day of school this year since we are both starting out on this homeschool journey together.  Oddly, even though she knows her teacher and her classmate, MiniM.E. still seemed anxious.  I have been thinking and rethinking and planning and revising and preparing for today for months and my anxiety level has been pretty high.  But today we both just started out excited. 

I really don't think the day could have gone much better for a first time homeschooling mom and a first time homeschooler.  MiniM.E. was super excited to start and was really receptive to everything we did.  We got to take lots of breaks and had lots of playtime, and even then we were done by 2:30.  Homeschooling for the win!

I won't be posting about all the things we do at school here but if you are interested, I plan on posting at least some of the coolest things we do at school here.

And then to celebrate we went out to ice cream with our friends who start school tomorrow and Thursday.  Doesn't get much better than that!

The Last Week of Summer

I can't believe it is already September and Labor Day is this weekend! The summer really flew by with all of our activities and trips. As much as I love summer, I'm sure you know by now that fall is by far my favorite season. Back to school, cooler weather, apple picking, foliage, pumpkin flavored everything... doesn't get much better.

The girls and I couldn't think of a more relaxing way to start summer than by spending it in NH with Gram and Grumpy, the pool, hot tub, trampoline and zip line.

I don't have a lot of photos from our trip because I was just trying to enjoy the girls. It really was just the break I needed because next week MiniM.E. and I both start school.  MiniM.E. will be in kindergarten and I am going back to teaching after my six year stint as a stay at home mom. The good news is I still get to stay at home with the girls because we are homeschooling MiniM.E.! The start of a new adventure for both of us!

Raspberry Picking

Today we met some friends to go raspberry picking.  I haven't been raspberry picking since MiniM.E. was a baby and we haven't picked other berries in a while either because MiniM.E. just wasn't into it- a lot of work for me and a lot of complaining for her.

But we were invited and I love raspberries and we didn't have anything else to do...

And I was so pleasantly surprised! Both girls loved picking berries and picked for more than an hour!

Time for raspberry crumble!

A Week Back At Home

It's always hard to get back into the swing of things after a week long vacation. With all the excitement, late nights, short naps and general lack of sleep paired with the disappointment of being at home and not at the lake, the girls were in rough shape. We tried to take it easy this past week while we adjusted to being back home.

MiniM.E. met a new friend whose grandparents moved in across the street

we rode the carousel

LittleL.G. held Baby G.

The cats went to the vet

the once a year MiniM.E. gets to hold Metzger

we took some neighborhood walks

A Week at the Lake: What a Nice Vacation

The rest of our week at the lake was just relaxing and fun.  

A few trips to Hunter's Diner:

And lots of swimming and playing in the rocks and digging in the sand.

We even made it on the news!

We all had such a great time we will definitely do it again!  See you (hopefully) next year, Owasco Lake!

A Week at the Lake: Day Trip to Rochester

We set out for Rochester after breakfast yesterday morning.  Sadly, LittleL.G. has been under the weather with a cold and both Daddy and I woke up feeling less than 100%.  But we weren't going to let that ruin our big day!

First stop, The Strong National Museum of Play.  Since having kids, I've heard it is THE museum to visit.  Oddly neither Daddy or I visited when we were in school in Rochester for so many years.

It certainly didn't disappoint.  The museum was huge!!- taking up an entire city block!  With lots of different areas to play, we didn't even see everything in the six hours we were there.  The only negative I have is that overall, it was dark and I didn't bring the right lens to take good low-light photos, so the evidence of our trip aren't quite the stunning pictures I'd hoped for.

Of course, our first and favorite play area for LittleL.G. was Sesame Street.  We started there and she and I would venture back whenever something else caught MiniM.E.'s interest and LittleL.G. got bored.

on the steps of Sesame Street

playing the pipes

counting Bert's pigeons

driving the monster taxi

putting on a show

 There were so many things to see and do it was hard to keep up with MiniM.E. as she explored everything.

flying a plane

 Another huge hit with both girls was the train ride:

on the train

fun with fairy tales

 LittleL.G. took a catnap while MiniM.E. explored her favorite area of the museum, Berenstain Bear Land.

Molly Bear

pulling teeth

After lunch we did the pretend Wegman's.  It was by far the BEST part of our trip to Rochester.  Kids get their own mini carts, shop for super realistic looking food, then scan barcodes and print out receipts for their items.  Both girls could have shopped all day.

We also saw all the "mostly looking" exhibits and a few more rooms of gadgets and gizmos to play with.  This photo op was pretty fantastic:

scaling a tall building like a superhero!

Stop two on our Rochester trip was R.I.T., where Daddy and I went to school.  Things have changed a lot since we were there eleven years ago so we took a very circuitous route to the bookstore which had changed locations.  It was nice to see the campus and fun that it was move in weekend because we didn't feel so out of place.  The girls posed with the tiger statue before we ended our walk and actually had to DRIVE to the bookstore to buy orange tiger sweatshirts for the girls.  And maybe a few things for Daddy and me too.

We stopped for dinner at one of our old favorite restaurants and made it home late after a drive full of much crying.  It was a really looong but also really fun day.  Good thing we have almost a whole week left to relax!