Family Time at the Park

Over the weekend we went to the park twice.  Once to play at the playground and again to walk through the woods.  Playground time was all about the big metal slide.  The kids came prepared with small fleece blankets to slide on so they could shoot off the end like rockets (which works really well).   When they weren't shooting down in a blur, they were climbing back up.

Annoyed with the camera following him around and hearing, "Stop moving!"

This beautiful cosmo garden was across the street.  We stopped to mingle with the lovely blooms and harvest a few seeds so we can grow these next year.  Some were taller than the kids!

Our next day out, Evan and Todd brought bikes to trail ride.  Chloe and I went on foot.

We always stop to admire Big Maple for a while.

After staring at it for a bit, Evan asked Todd if he could climb it.  Todd told him he didn't think there was a way up unless he wanted a boost.  So....

Chloe was a bit too nervous to get in the tree.  Some things really scare her, like being up too high and feeling like she might fall.  However, she is not afraid of snakes.

We watched this four foot long beauty slither over the path and up a huge hill.

The kids each staked out a private area (aka "secret hideout") and played in one spot for quite a while before we turned around and headed back out of the woods.  We really love these sorts of family times.

Revived

Car City is a battleground.  I thought the kids were never going to play here again after many false starts, but this past week it has been all this and little else.  Evan and Chloe have been up and out the door early, and it seems we're dragging them in at night for books and bedtime after a very full day.  It must be the recent cooler weather that is perfect for playing without sweating because Car City has been revived.

They each have their teams set up in parking lots, but a few main players are stationed out front to play with.  Spiky mud bombs, cannonballs, and bricks are all the ammo they are using for this silly war between the police and the idiots (that is what they call them).  There was such laughter and loudness coming from this special little place in the dirt all week.  It has been like the old days around here with kids in the mud patch all day.  I found myself just sitting alongside listening and watching and always memorizing these very special and fleeting moments.

Maps

Evan and Chloe sat at the kitchen table yesterday and made maps for several hours, and we are amazed, as always, at the treasures within our children that choose to bloom at their appointed time.

It all started with Evan trying to tell me about a part of his Lego Star Wars game that was really challenging. He decided that it would be easier if he just showed me, which is exactly what I do for him when I draw maps of the park, or the streets we've walked on, or to show how many stoplights we go through on our way to the mall.  I loved that he was excited to try out this skill.

Drawing from memory the boards of a game he plays only once a week for about 90 minutes.

The more he drew the further he kept taking it, then he started labeling things.  Before he even realized how much work he just did, it was finished and he was really proud of what he had made.

He said, "I can't believe I made this!  And I don't even like to draw!  Or write!  And I made this!"  Suddenly inspiration struck and he went to grab another piece of scrap paper.

Evan never wants to draw or color anything.  He despises handwriting and has been known to shed several tears over a simple thank you note.  We have always said to him, that when you really need to learn a skill you will and it will even seem fun because it is now useful.  This was entirely true as he spent more and more continuous time at the table.  Even he was surprised at his sudden endurance for handwriting.  "Mom, I can't believe I'm still sitting here writing and it's fun!"

I know the photo quality here is awful but you get the idea.

You knew Miss Chloe wasn't too far behind on this idea, right?  She loves to draw and write, but she had never tried a map (although she has watched me make so many).  She plays a computer horse game called Spirit maybe once every couple weeks or so, but she had the map in her brain she put it on paper really accurately.

Evan's third map was his biggest one.  He spent almost an hour just on this one alone.

There is so much patience involved in unschooling and so many things the camera can't capture, but it is magical in every way and it works.  It's not that we don't teach our kids anything (we do!) but we prefer to expose them to a richly creative environment and constantly open doors for them to see what they will grab onto and run with.  I wonder what it will be next?

Pretty Things

Over the weekend we enjoyed a really pretty day outside.  Among other things, the kids did their usual hunt for cicada shells.  Our new favorite place in the neighborhood to walk past is 'Sunflower Alley.'  Chloe is really into gathering seeds and seed pods (wonder where she learned that ;-) so we got several of her favorites, pictured above, to grow next year.  That night we just couldn't concentrate on bedtime books when the sky was glowing outside my bedroom window.  Instead we just went out and watched.  It was the most amazing neon display we've seen in a while.  Things around town seem much prettier to us all since we've started purposely looking for beauty.

I Love His Laugh

Since Evan was little, he has found it hilarious to have a ball whipped at him really hard.  He even used to like it when the ball hit him on the head, but he'll laugh if it hits anything really.  So, Todd does it a lot, just to hear him laugh :-)

Collecting

Over the weekend, we took a super long walk to enjoy the weather and look for pretty things in our city neighborhood where we sometimes forget things can be pretty at all.  That's when the search for empty cicada shells began, and I think it will continue as long as we hear them singing outside.  It really does feel like a treasure hunt, except that what you're collecting looks like a crusty alien life form with it's brain split open.  To each his own, right?
At the end of our walk that day, we stumbled upon a newly emerged cicada with it's body and wings still bright green.  A few hours later Chloe and Evan talked Todd into going back out with them to get the empty shell that was left behind (which he did).  They love collecting these things!

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We thought what had happened that day was pretty great, but then yesterday the kids collected even more shells. Once again, toward the end of our walk, something amazing happened.  Chloe discovered a nymph that hadn't emerged yet but was still living!  This thing had to come home with us.

Last night, way past bedtime, with our new little friend safely harbored in our bug habitat, it emerged and we got to see almost every step of it.  Wings unfurling slowly, body parts stretching, abdomen emerging at last from the exoskeleton remains.  It was perfectly beautiful.

Just amazing.

This morning, since the cicada's wings were fully hardened and darker, the kids admired and handled  it for a bit and then released it into our backyard where it took off flying.  Even as I am typing the kids are getting shoes on and begging to go out collecting yet again....  Who knows what we'll find next.

Weekending

We had a wonderful long weekend.

We played catch as a family with the sprinkler in the middle and all of us around it.  It was messy and drenching and we laughed a lot.  Then we just left the sprinkler on and the kids played even more.

Chloe spent nearly her whole day Sunday working on her clay project from Granny and finished it!

We took our longest walk ever -- an especially nice walk with Todd joining us.  The kids made it into a treasure hunt for cicada nymph shells.  They each found 19!  Plus a dead cicada and a moth in perfect condition.  This is thrilling stuff to us :-)

The shells stick to everything and they make great shirt decorations!

The big bouncy balls are the highlight of playing outside every day, but sometimes they fly into unexpected places, over all the neighbors fences, up on our pergola, or even on Todd's trailer roof as was the case this weekend.  No problem for these two capable kids.

To finish off the weekend we went to the beach to let the kids play for a few hours in the water and to watch the sun go down.  It was so pretty.

On top of all our together time, I still managed to keep on top of all my vegetables as the summer influx continues -- filling the freezer with good things and making lots of tomato sauce.  Perfect.