Our first camping trip and a pirate ship?

A pirate ship in Arizona you ask? Well we went on a homeschool field trip today with our group. One of the mom's met a man who said he owns a pirate ship and does tours for free. S we called him up and decided to go for a trip. We really didn't know what to expect as I have never seen a pirate ship. I was thinking a wooden ship. This thing was so cool! There was so much detail you could spend an hour in there just looking at all the stuff. It was a smaller version of the real thing. There is even a captains quarters with a bed. At the end he took all of us outside and talked a little bit about pirates and what they did and also some of the names of their tools and things.



Here is Avery standing by the treasure.


The kids by the map (which the guy said they didn't call them maps they were charts)

Here is the whole gang with the captain

Captain Mike

A side of the ship

The map

The captains bed

Some of the kids in the captains quarters. The kids had a great time and it was nice to do something different!



Also this month we had our first family camping trip. I was the only one who had ever been camping before! It was a little different camping since of course here we were camping in the desert. It was blazing hot but we still had a good time. We all saw our first scorpion and also a few people saw a rattlesnake. This was a trip with Keith's work and we also got to go out on a boat for the day. I think that was everyone's favorite part.

Here is Avery sittting in the tube. She didn't actually ride in it but just wanted to sit!




Kaylee decided she would try a ride with dad but then ended up crying and wanted off!

Our family

This is the boat we went out on.

Here is Kaylee hanging off the back watching the tubers

Zack rode with another little boy and had fun. He never did fall off!

Here is how Princess Avery likes to ride on a boat

This is our new tent!

The kids all had a blast playing in the lake.


Zack of course dove right in (after we assured him there were no alligators in the lake!)


We have been having a great time enjoying the weather. We went to a local lake and I took pictures of the kids for their "school" photos. We have finished up school for the year but we will still work on lapbooks and we are going to make an animal notebook this summer.

Updates!

Zack finally had his first baseball game! He was so excited and was the starting pitcher. He did his max of 70 pitches and had to be swapped out. One inning he only threw 12 pitches! He managed to strike a few people out.




Here is Avery in her new floaty she picked up from a garage sale this weekend. She just had to try it out in the bathtub of course!

These are some pictures of the kids when they did their clean up for earth day. They all got shirts and wanted to wear them right away. They were all picking up a lot of trash (mostly glass) and even found a t-shirt someone threw out. Avery even picked some up although she liked to ride in the stroller and point stuff out to the others. She also of course had to pick a dandylion.





Zack also had his pinewood derby race. His car had a bum wheel and so his car didn't do too well in the race. He did have a good time though and then he received his bear patch and three arrow points. He has been doing such a good job in scouts and really enjoys all the boy time! He will move up next month to the weeblos. The next thing he is looking forward to is the father son campout on the 16th.





I will update again soon! On a home schooling note the older kids have both finished their math books for the year. We will probably finish up all schoolwork next week and then we will continue doing our lapbooks. We just did one on the coral reef and our next one is desert animals and then the state of Arizona. This summer we will be doing an animal notebook where we will do one animal a day and put them all in a binder.

Updates!

Yes we are swimming in April!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!











Well we have just been keeping busy around here. The weather has been so nice it is hard to keep anyone indoors to do schoolwork. That is the joy of homeschooling! Zack has just finished his 4th grade math. Kaylee has two more lessons in here 1st grade math. She also only has 2 more lessons in her phonics book. I can't believe the progress we have made even starting late. Kaylee has also really taken off with her reading. I am so proud of how far the kids have come this year. Next year we will be adding Avery to the mix! I didn't focus too much this year. When she wanted to we did some work. She is only three! People take pre-school too seriously. We have also still been enjoying our lapbooks. Right now we are working on a butterfly one. Kaylee really thrives in learning this way. Our next one is on coral reefs.
The kids also finished up their swimming lessons. They all passed! Avery's teacher says she is awesome and got the forms down really easily. I was very impressed with all of them.
We also took another field trip with our homeschool group to the phoenix zoo. The kids had a great time as always!
This week is astonomy week and we have been doing thigs all week to celebrate. On Saturday we went to the astonomy club at the lake and we got to see saturn throught the telescope. It was so cool! You could even see the rings. We have went to a few things at the library also. On Saturday we will be getting up early to go to a park to clean up for earth day.
Zack's boy scout pinewood derby is tomorrow along woth his meeting where he will get his bear patch and a couple others. He is a little sad because he will be missing his first baseball game! I will try to post pictures of that!
Ashley

Happy Birthday!

Today is my firstborn daughter's birthday! It is so hard to believe she is seven. How I hate to see my children grow but it is so sweet to see her turning into a such a nice young lady. And when I look back and say "where did the time go?" I will know because we have spent them together. Kaylee wanted a dog party this year. It was a lot of fun. We dug up dog bones in the sandbox, painted dog figureines and played doggy, doggy where's your bone. She had a lot of fun playing and laughing with her friends. She had a cookie cake with pawprints on it. After her party we went to Outback to eat and as I type they are watching a movie she got for her birthday. It was such a wonderful day! So in honor of my baby's 7th birthday here are seven things I love about Kaylee:

1. She is cute as a button!
2. She is very caring and always takes care of her siblings and friends.
3. She loves wearing dresses and lip gloss, but also plays in the dirt.
4. Even when she is scared she will put on a brave face and try.
5. She loves to read and learn.
6. She always writes me little notes to tell me she loves me.
7. She loves to laugh!

Happy Birthday Kaylee and I love you!

Fun times!

Well it has been fun times around our house this week. We got to enjoy daddy home for Thursday and Friday so the kids were excited about that! It was also a restful week since for the public schools it was spring break. Most things were cancelled so we didn't have to run around as much. We still had gymnastics and baseball. On Tuesday we went to the library for a presentation on Lewis and Clark. The man brought lots of artifacts and even dressed up in costume. Zack really enjoyed that. After that we went with some dear friends to the park and had a great time in our 70 degree weather. We celebrated St. Patricks Day and last week we did our St. Patricks Day lapbook. We learned a little about Ireland and some of the legends. This week we also went to the mall and listened to a bagpiper play. On Wednesday we had our homeschool group day and Kaylee made a pysanky egg. That is the Ukranian egg decorating with hot wax and dye. It was very cool! Zack was more interested playing with his friend (a boy) since all of the kids doing the project were girls. Zack's allergies have been really bad lately so we have to go to an allergist next week. He is going to get retested to see if he has new allergies. When he woke up the other day one of his eyes was swollen shut. I had to give him zyrtec and benedryl. We also went to an egg hunt and they had fun with that and of course got some candy! Well we know Zack is growing up but his latest news caught me by surprise. He told me he had a crush on a girl on his baseball team. Every night he would say how much he liked her and then he said he wanted to get her a necklace. I wasn't sure what to say to that! I told him that he could but he was too young for having a "girlfriend". He picked her out a necklace at the mall and even got his sisters something! He has such a tender heart! Last night he gave her the necklace after practice. She just kind of looked at it. Then later some other boy showed up and then she started being unkind to Zack. My heart just broke for him because he was so crushed! I had a feeling this would happen but I had to let him do this on his own. Yesterday we went on our first real hiking adventure. We went to the dells which is a rocky area next to the lake. It was a tough hike going up the rocks but the kids had a great time. Even Avery made it to the top. We took our picnic up there and were just sitting down to eat when the wasps came out. They were huge! I am always fearful for Avery since she had a reaction to a bee sting. So we packed up and went back down and then went to the park to eat. It was such a great day to be together as a family. Well I hope everyone has a blessed Easter! We will be celebrating at church in the morning and then having fun the rest of the day!