Family Time - Walks, Hikes, & Beaches

I still marvel each year that our summer is actually the end of August through the beginning of October. We've been taking long walks on the weekends as a family; this particular afternoon Colleen pulled her roller skates out.

 

Family hike on a Sunday afternoon - it was a short hike but steep up to the gazebo at the vistapoint.

 

 

In lieu of a chia pet, we just grew chia seeds on a wet paper towel. Amelia set up an old phone with a timelapse setting over the course of a day to watch the effects of phototropism which we had studied earlier this week.

We've been getting the kids extra climbing time in throughout the week.

Roko came over one afternoon to play games with Austin.

Colleen working hard on her quilt.

Amelia takes care of her own pointe shoes now when she needs a new pair.

We started this 2000 piece puzzle, anticipating that it would take us a few weeks to finish. 

We have been watching the History Channel's shows on military dogfights as Austin learns more about airplanes. (We are all fascinated!) so Austin and Colleen end up pretending dogfights frequently.

Our friends lost their 2 year old son last year and invited various families to spend a Sunday afternoon at a new-to-us beach to celebrate his birthday. The kids played hard boogie-boarding and in the sand.

 

Back into School Mode

Goofy night with friends

Mom and Colleen ice skating time

 

Puzzles during morning time

Amelia painted Kinsley & Colleen's nails after school.

They set up their own badminton set.

Our homeschool group started up our Tuesday park days.

 

I took Amelia & Roko to a SB Audubon Society talk on the language of birds. It was fascinating.

Austin read a few books from the library on regrowing veggies from kitchen scraps. He started successfully regrowing multiple veggies, like this romaine lettuce.

One afternoon the big kids both had activities so we invited Jedidiah to come over with plans to build a giant fort in the living room. Even though it was pretty warm in the house, they had a blast building their fort.

 

Heat Wave Survival

We only get a few weeks of significant heat a year, and one of our heat waves came through over Labor Day weekend. We originally were going to meet Weston and his mom, Nicole to go bowling, but the Bowlero was unexpectedly closed. They invited us to go swimming in their community pool; Colleen was tickled that she went swimming in her clothes.

We hosted a Middle School game night for our homeschool group. We ended up with 12 boys and 1 girl coming over to eat pizza and play board games. They had a great time and were so well behaved.

More bowling with Dad

Colleen came with me as I watched Jedidiah, Samuel, & Enaya one evening. She and Jed had so much fun all evening.

 

We are really enjoying the air conditioning at the bowling alley and using our summer bowling passes.

Patrick took Austin & Colleen to the beach for an afternoon.

 

Colleen started her ice skating lessons and really excelled.

Extracting DNA from strawberries as one of our first Botany experiments.

 

We started our art history with a unit on Frank Lloyd Wright. Google told me that he designed a house about 15 minutes away from us so we took an impromptu field trip. (Car AC for the win!) There happened to be a geocache across the street that Austin found for us.

 

Then we went to the SB Art Museum for more air conditioning in the worst heat of the day. The kids love when they identify an artist we've studied.