Ditching School for Mushrooms

Yesterday morning Brian and I decided to keep the kids home from school, load them in the car, and drive to the Blue Mountains to go mushrooming.  We got doughnuts from Viera's Bakery to start the morning, which, in my opinion, is a very fun way to start the morning.  Brian and Ethan both found mushrooms within thirty seconds of stepping out of the car, and after I had Becca dressed warmly, I found two more after taking about ten steps.  Alyssa was the one who found a group of them all in the same area.  It was so fun to hear her yell, "Found one!  Two.  Three!  Four!  Five!  Six!  SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE!!!"

We wandered through the trees near Brian's parent's cabin for about four hours, then stopped at the Oasis in Milton Freewater (Muddy Frogwater) for dinner, then headed home.  The best part about the Oasis, besides its yummy, yummy food, is that it has a treasure box for the kids to pick a prize from.  It's filled with all sorts of goodies from the Dollar Tree, and each of our kids ate every single bite of their dinner to be able to pick a prize.  That was nice.

Alyssa took a picture of Becca and me, because I'm always the one taking the pictures.

Ethan saw that I was taking a picture of him, so he did a strong man pose.  He was also hopping around, which made capturing the strong man pose difficult.

Three of the four

Number Four

Alyssa pointing to a mushroom she found

Here's some of the mushrooms that Alyssa found in a group.

Can you find the morels?  There's two in this picture.

Brian kept sharing that blueberry sucker with Rebecca.  She loved it!

In other news:

1. Brian bought "The Phantom Tollbooth" for Alyssa to read, and she is loving it.  She read it on the way home yesterday, and she kept taking breaks to tell us about all the funny things in it.

2. Our big backyard projects for the year are almost done.  We planted some arborvitaes behind the rose bushes, to help add a backdrop for the pergola.  I'm still dreaming about the fountain Marcus and I saw at Lowes, but I don't know if we have enough money in the budget for it.  We have one more flower bed that we've gotten edging stones for that we need to work on, but even when we finish it, we probably won't plant anything in it until next year.  Today I'd like to get outside and take the dirt that piled underneath the pergola and put them into our boxed planters, finish putting the ground cloth around the arborvitaes, and then take pictures of it all.  It's almost all ready to just sit back and enjoy for the summer.

3.  Our other big project, or really, my big project is the school room.  I put a second and third layer of yellow paint on the walls last week, and now I think I need to go around the edges one more time.  I can't tell if the faint blue coloring is because it needs another coat, or if it's just a reflection of the blue painter's tape.  Anyway, I'm excited to get some stripes put in, but I don't know exactly when that will happen.  Painting with a baby is tough.  I don't normally let my painting projects sit for so long.    I really want to get things finished before school get's out, because I have some fabulous ideas for summer school.  I have service zones (chores) planned for the kids to do each day, I have a ton of ideas to put in the kids' work boxes that are both education (math worksheets, writing assignments, etc.) and fun (have Mom read a book to you, play a game on the computer for fifteen minutes, etc.), and I have ideas on how to spend our afternoons like going to the library or going swimming or going to the park.  My plan is to do summer school for June and July as kind of a practice run for home school in the fall, and then we'll take August off completely.