making banana bread

There are so many every day moments that I'd love to capture, share and perserve, but I'm not sure why taking the time to photograph the boys isn't always my first project.  These photos were from the other afternoon, Dan was at a meeting and the boys and I had some homeschool assignments to do, so we started off our afternoon with baking banana bread.  I think everyone would say this was a successful learning opportunity.    

First Day of School

The boys, on their first day of school... 3rd grade for Ben and "second year of kindergarten" for Josh (those are his words, the child likes people to know he did homeschool last winter and he's back for more fun and games as a mature kindergarten student).  Precious little people.

Homeschooling, August 2013

The last day of August... and what do we have to show for our summer?  While school doesn't start in the class room till Tuesday for the boys, we've been busy doing some homeschool projects over the last 10 days.  So here are the many faces of homeschool.  Josh, top left, baking in the kitchen- I love when I asked him to get out 3 eggs from the egg carton he replied, "But mom we have 11." The top right is part of social studies restaurant blog review, bottom right is Josh drinking a healthy green juice, which he loved (and even helped pick the apples for the juice).  And the bottom left is Josh, with a happy face, working on some writing.

The many faces of Ben and his schooling, I wish I could say that every lesson at home went beautiful, but there have been a few meltdowns along the way.  But, I'm so touched to say that Ben has become engrossed in the Origami Yoda books and has read 3 of them cover to cover in the last fews days.  The photo in the middle was part of the baking lesson and the photo on the right is a trip to the local radio station, where Ben joined me so I could record an ad for the Chamber of Commerce.

South Yuba River with the cousins

I can't believe summer is almost over....  well thankfully our kids don't start their classroom studies till after Labor Day, so we're squeezing in a few more play days before we hit the books.  We had the Murrarys come visit us from Denver, so we took the family down the South Yuba River.  All summer I've been hearing folks talk about this certain swimming hole downstream from Edwards that was previewed on a local news station last year and I kept going, "not sure I know the one..." and when I mentioned this to my mother she laughed and enlightened me that it was the one we went to all the time growing up.  So, to refresh my memory, I dragged the kids downstream and they loved it!

Nevada County Fair

The boys have been gone for so much time this summer (a week camping on the coast, 2 1/2 weeks in Canada and now they're off camping again), so in their brief visit home I took them to the Nevada County Fair.  Here's a link to some of the other goodies we saw at the fair.  Ben was especially interested in finding the disgusting cake exhibition.

Debra, Part 2

A few more photos from Debra.  The top photos were from a sailing adventure with Jake and Donna, the boys found hiding in the cabin to probably the most exciting part of the adventure.

Summer camp fun, photos of Dan driving Woodstock, Ben and Josh in the tube, Dan Abrams sailing the sunfish and Josh sporting a vintage life jacket from my youth.

These photos are from the Black Hole, which is this amazing little pond the beavers have created.  Jake and Donna invited us along, so we put the canoe on the top of the motor boat and drove over to that part of the lake and then carried the canoe a short distance to the start of the Black Hole. Great to see the rocks, the lily pads, the beaver lodges and the black water.  

And a parting series of photos of Dan and Ben jumping off the dock.  The boys have all stayed in Debra, while I came home to work, so I'm sure there are more fun and games happening, sad not to be there to play along.

Debra

After many hours of traveling (a cancelled flight, a delayed flight, a 3:30am wake up call, 3 flights and 2 very well behaved children) we arrived in Debra.  We settled in, went grocery shopping, bailed out some boats, received Megan & Dan and hung out.

A trip to the Desbarats Farmers Market, love that Dan brought along his New Zealand New World grocery bag.  Ben and Josh enjoyed driving down the Debra river in the Woodstock.

And some water skiing fun, thanks Barsy for lending us a boat to go and play.  The boys tried knee boarding, Dan and I waterskied for the first time in decades and D2 showed us all how it's suppose to be done.

And no trip to Debra is complete without a jump off Whiskey.  Megan and Dan paddled over to rock with the boys in the canoe and jumped off.