Sunday afternoon adventures ...

Sunday, April 22:  It seems that Sunday afternoons lately have been my days to walk, walk, walk! I think (although I am not positive) that I walked FIVE miles this time because at the start of my walk I had one thing in mind, but then it turned out that the road I had hoped to explore was actually PRIVATE (although NOT marked as such) and there was this BIG dog ...

 So instead of exploring this one road that is a opposite of Blakely and is marked as a "Trail" I had to reverse my steps and take my course down Chauncey. The picture above, however, is right off Cannonsburg Rd, in between Chauncey and Blakely, on the south side of the road. It's PRIVATE too, but I did NOT tresspass to take the picture.

 The pictures above is of the little stream that leads to the dam that is off Chauncey. The building to the right of the picture is part of the old "Imperial Mill." It's a very pretty spot and the sound of the water is very delightful.

 I got it into my head that I would just walk the entirety of Chauncey Avenue, even when the pavement turns to dirt and it is designated an "historic scenic road", so I walked it all the way to FIVE Mile ...

 There isn't much color to the woods this time of year, but I can't help myself ... I just love being out in the woods when there are just birds and squirrels and other woodsy sounds. The color will come and with it will come mosquitoes, bees, and other undesireable insects--which usually keep me away from woodsy places.

 I walked all along five mile road until Petits finally shows up and then I just walked my very favorite part of Petits all the way down to Canonsburg. I saw some very lovely little scenes along the way ...

 I love this little farm ...

This just seems like a perfect place to me ... well, it would be perfect IF Lake Michigan was just beyond those trees ... 

 When I finally turned on Canonsburg once again, I was SUPER exhausted. My feet were burning ... but I kept telling myself that I only had about 1.5 miles to go ... so I just kept walking!

I made it home, safe and sound, after three solid hours of being outdoors in the beauty and fresh air. Hopefully, the walk was good for my health! 

My girls ...

Saturday, April 21:  Today ended up being a girls-only afternoon, rather unintentionally! The boys were at home playing video games on a wide-screen--going to grandma's just can't compete with that! So just the girls came over. The weather has finally broken and it looks like spring might just show up after all!

 Kaitlynn loves the outdoors. She has been itching to play outside for weeks. I'm so glad the weather will soon afford lots of outdoor exploration, etc.

 But today, it was bubbles ... lots and lots of bubbles!

 Kaity was into it 100% ... with a great deal of JOY too.

 I love her to pieces, this little pixy-girl.

 After a little bit, Emma came out and did bubbles with us too. Emma! How can you be this grown up? It was just a blink ago and you were Kaity's age ...

 Emma was super good at making HUGE bubbles ... because she was patient enough to learn the wind direction, etc.

 Kaity's goal was to pop every bubble in sight ...

 Kaity was using one of the wands as her "sword."

 It was super fun to be with these two. Ten years apart is quite a stretch, and especially at this age. Kaity adores Emma and Emma is ... almost sixteen and pretty weary of the antics of her sister. However, I know Emma loves her. 

 After being outside for awhile, we went inside and did our Bible story about "the road to Emmaus." The girls colored pictures as I taught. We had a very nice story time. The road to Emmaus is one of my all-time favorite Bible stories and it was really special to teach it to these girls of mine.

After the story was over, Kaity noticed that one of my placemats has the alphabet, upper case on one side, and lower case on the other with spaces to practice each letter. She asked if she could do this with me and I SAID YES!!! I was happily surprised at how much Kaity has learned at her Readiness Kindergarten this year. She wrote each letter and said each sound. I was SUPER pleased with the phonics thing and Kaity seemed very proud to show me her stuff. She even did the lower case letters and only messed up on a few.

 Kaity played with the trains too. We added our Playmobile horses to our story and had a good time together.

Such a nice few hours together! On the way home, we stopped by the high school parking lot for Emma to practice her parking skills. She is in driver's training now. She is already an excellent driver--I knew she would be. She is smart and careful and has a lot of respect for the responsibility of driving. It was very fun to see her at the wheel! 

Thursday's Child ...

Thursday, April 19:  Brendan brought over his battery-powered Brio engine tonight and built a layout especially for it. Brendan is a meticulous builder--I don't mess with him when he is designing how he wants his tracks to go ... because he simply does not want to be interfered with!

So this is Brendan's layout. He played and played with it while I was fixing our dinner and afterwards too. He makes great train sound effects and usually has a whole story-line going too about the trains de-railing or needing some kind of maintenance from our crane, etc. 

 Brendan is used to playing by himself. He rarely needs to be "entertained"; however, he is QUITE entertaining!

 Then we switched to the LEGO lighthouse and had another adventure with those guys and their ice-cream shop. It seems that the LEGO seal owned the ice-cream shop AND the lighthouse. The girls were only there visiting and ordering ice-cream.

 I love watching this little soul pretend and act out his imaginings. He is such a delightful little person.

When I drove Brendan home, I got to tuck him in and read him a story. We read about Ansansi the Spider (shocking, I know! ME? a spider story?!). Brendan enjoyed it so much I had to read it 2x!