science project day at the park, exploding capsules, dry ice bubbles, chromatography and lots more
more pumpkin patch fun with friends (slide photos taken by my friend Teri)
celebrating Diwali at the Hindu temple with music, dancing, rangoli (chalk painting) and good food followed by fireworks
creating Halloween costumes: Minecraft black and orange cats
carving pumpkins with family
at the park
collecting leaves and punching leaf confetti with fancy hole punchers
holding snakes and other reptiles with friends at a Halloween party
picking apples in our yard with a long armed picker
sorting jelly beans (thanks Gma and Gpa!)
night swinging
game playing (new favorite this time: Above And Below)
hike for me (with bonus elderberry picking & subsequent cordial and syrup making)
bookshelf assembly with Dad and decorating for Lilah
silly dinnertime fun watching reflections in the window
supermoon through our skylight lit up the hallway
phone for the kids to share means lots of cat & owl photos and videos, and lots of texting
the texts are wonderful and fun, especially so if I am not in the room with them and get to decipher who is writing to me at any given time. So far, I’ve been right about which kid I’m texting with.
park time (I read some poems to the kids and then Gavin picked up the book for more)
civilization (Gavin is playing as China and Lilah as …)
an epic story being acted out, and then they realize they are being documented and give me a pose
We’re between trips, trying to catch up with friends and relax between heading off out of state again.
We went to the Utah State Fair with friends. We saw bees and asked a bunch of questions about bees living in a big glass case. We saw butterflies, caterpillars and pupas of the monarch species.
We saw calves, tiny piglets, chicks just hatched and very small goats and were able to pet some of them.
The kids went on rides after rides with friends, thoroughly enjoying themselves until we bowed out, happy and tired.
We hiked up to Cecret Lake again, to spot salamanders and to enjoy the mountainous beauty of Utah.
It’s such a calm place except when the pikas start calling out in their strange squeaky voices. This one ran right out between us to perch above us and watch us.
We went to the park with friends to bike and play and hear from a man who keeps bees in his living room.
We drove up to the high mountain where it’s cool already to see lakes and smell pines. We were incredibly lucky that day… Lilah spotted a porcupine! We watched it clamber through wild raspberries and rocks to a hidden spot underneath several large boulders. She was so, so proud that she spotted the porcupine first! (I often am pointing out wildlife.) The kids started telling me about North American porcupines and African porcupines and how they differ. I think they learned about them on Wild Kratts, a favorite tv show of theirs.
We continued on our hike, passing meadows filled with colored leaves.
We hiked further than the kids have gone before to new lakes and enjoyed discovering new places and coming up with our own names for some of the spots we found as well as referring to the map we had on my phone.
On the way down we passed the hiding spot of the porcupine and it was still there, so we quietly, slowly observed and then continued on.
At the bottom of the descent there’s a lake filled with pond lilies so we went to look for salamanders which were all over at our last visit but we didn’t spot any this time. Lilah was asking why they are in some lakes but not others in the same area so we talked about possible reasons. I suspect elevation and depth of the lakes make a difference. And then, as Lilah is looking at the lilies, I spotted a beaver, diving, eating lily roots, twenty feet away at the edge of the water. We watched for a while and then headed home, happy.
We played some games. Here’s Gavin playing Ghosts with me.
We biked.
We visited the library.
We’ve been looking at new houses and thinking and dreaming about what we might find and how things might be the same or different in a different space. The kids are ready for their own rooms now and are very happily planning what their personal spaces will be like. After much looking and dreaming we fell in love with a house only a block away from where we are now. It has the yard, the deck and the privacy I’ve been dreaming of, the office Chris has been wishing for, the bedrooms the kids have been asking about and many more things to exclaim happily over. We made an offer and negotiated and are under contract for a house with an apple tree with hundreds of yummy apples to harvest. (Gavin has been asking for an apple tree in the yard for years now as it’s his favorite fruit.) We are even allowed to begin picking now!
We played at our nearby park.
We spotted a caterpillar in our garden and the next day it seemed to be getting ready to change form, hanging upside down.
We drove to a new friends’ house and the kids played nerf gun attacks, played in the pool and played MineCraft together. They had a great time. Gavin was super excited to ride this mini motorcycle with his friends instructions and encouragement!
We went roller skating for the first time all summer! It was fun. The kids wanted to play in the bounce area and climbing area so I asked them to clean the living room and in return I would pay extra for them to do those things. We all skated for a bit and then the kids went to climb and bounce and I skated a bit more myself.
Chris and the kids went bowling with their Scout group. They had a good time and Gavin had a good game of it. The last time we went (a year or so ago) he was frustrated by his gutter balls.
We went up to Silver Lake for a picnic, walk and a climb. It was lovely and cool up there. The kids climbed this rock and looked down on us. On the other side of the lake there was frolicking.
We walked to the library and checked out some more graphic novels for the kids. Gavin knows right where books about MineCraft and Lego are and Lilah is well acquainted with the non-fiction animals shelves.
Lilah’s been folding tiny origami things, mostly animals.
Gavin celebrated his 11th birthday last week with friends at a playgroup, again with friends out for miniature golf and more bowling and then the next day with family for games and love. Wow! After hanging out with grandma and grandpa and aunt and us, he chose to go out for his favorite, Thai food for dinner.
We went to the water park and enjoyed cooling off in the wave pool and lazy river and occasionally taking shady breaks to lounge in the tubes.
We’ve been watching lizards in our front yard. There are at least two, skittering around under our plants and occasionally showing their stripey, blue tinged selves. How fun!
Gavin and Lilah made things from a tinker crate and from Gavin’s birthday loot. Gavin made a robot and Lilah made a racing car.
Gavin asked for a big set of colored pencils for his birthday (Anytime the kids ask for art materials I pretty much drop everything and run to the store. Haha!) and has been enjoying organizing them and examining how the pencils are organized by their numbers and trying them with some drawings.
The kids have been watching Pokemon, jump-started by playing Pokemon Go and telling me all about the Pokemon universe and its inhabitants. Lilah even decorated a balloon as Pikachu.
We’ve been enjoying the water park most weeks this summer. This week Gavin went on his first water slide with my sister who joined us. He was so excited!
Eleven years old! We even got to talk about how “teenage” usually refers to the numbers with “teen” in them though the set between 10 and 19 obviously go together in their own space and what a “tween” is.
We’ve been so busy this summer! It’s one of those things I struggle with; finding a balance between enough time with friends and things to do and enough time to sit, relax, wonder, read and be at home. My personal inclinations are often along the lines of more time unscheduled at home but since we’ve been forming new friends and community we’ve been doing so many things to facilitate that. Sometimes I am tired of doing so much. Always I am grateful for the opportunities we have to go out into the world and spend time with people. Many weeks I am thinking about how much to do. I think we will speed and slow with the weather and seasons probably, as well as what stages the kids are in.
Here are some of the fun things we’ve been doing.
We spent a weekend at a cabin in the mountains with my parents and some moose and the best swing in the world. It was quiet and the air smelled like pine. Mmmm. I dream of a time-share in a cabin in the woods, in the desert, by the sea.
I found a new favorite toy: an app on my phone called prisma that alters pictures into new, artistically styled versions. The kids love it too. Yesterday Lilah spent a good 45 minutes filtering on photo over and over.
We went the local aviary and visited with lots of birds in exhibits and also a few there of their own choice. There were some barn swallows hanging out in the bathroom building, one on the hinge and some others in a nest in the back. This is the bird Gavin wanted a photo of.
We took the kids to some MLS soccer games, one with fireworks on the pitch afterward. They enjoyed throwing streamers, chanting support songs and watching fireworks.
The kids and I drove up into the Uintah mountains to an area full of lakes and explored. There were salamanders in the lakes and water lilies, wildflowers and also lots of flies (which were quite obnoxious). There’s an area there where there is floating grass that will very slowly sink into the edge of the water if you stand on it so I showed the kids that. It was fun for me but they were nervous. Some of the salamanders were striped and some had frills on their necks. I’m not sure if there were multiple species or just different ages and sexes. The kids tossed rocks toward the lake edge and a butterfly kept landing on Lilah’s skirt and trying to find nectar.
Some of the salamanders were striped and some had frills on their necks. I’m not sure if there were multiple species or just different ages and sexes. The kids tossed rocks toward the lake edge and a butterfly kept landing on Lilah’s skirt and trying to find nectar.
Here’s Lilah watching the butterfly coming to land on her skirt:
All four of us took a hike with the local unschoolers group. That was really fun to do with friends. The kids chatted all the way up and encouraged each other. Lilah and some friends tossed dirt in the air in puffs at the top. Gavin and Chris and I sat on the rocks and watched the water ripple under the wind and the chipmunks scurry around looking for hiker’s snacks.
We’ve been enjoying walking and biking to our neighborhood library, checking out lots of books. The kids have both very much been enjoying various books of poetry by Shel Silverstein lately, which is really fun!
Lilah made this friendly looking cat…
that changes into this fierce creature!
We went to a farm that makes essential oils and watched their process and afterward visited a fish hatchery to hear about what they do there, which is grow and tend fish until they get big enough to release into lakes and rivers in the area. They had rainbow trout this time.
Lilah wove a tapestry, a Doodle Crate project. She loved it! I think there will be more weaving happening.
We tie-dyed with friends. We dyed towels and a shirt for Gavin, a dress for Lilah and a shirt for me. They came out beautifully! Well, except my towel which needs another round of dye. It’s hard to get enough dye into an absorbent towel tied up! The heart Lilah has been wanting to accomplish for years came out so nicely. Gavin researched techniques and settled on a “sunburst” pattern for his shirt and a “crumple” pattern for his towel.
We’ve been playing Pokemon Go on my phone, walking to find pokemon and balls to catch them in, collecting pokemon, feeding them candy, evolving them. The kids have been interested in pokemon for years so they are pretty excited about the game. I get to ask them all sorts of fun questions as we play. We figured out the different types of pokemon you find have to do with the local terrain, like water pokemon are near lakes, ice pokemon in cooler places. Here’s the first one we caught and a favorite:
We’ve been biking to the library, playing games, taking care of our pets, playing with friends, going to the water park,
celebrating three friends’ birthdays in a week’s time, listening to Polly Horvath’s Mr. and Mrs. Bunny– Detectives Extraordinaire! and Lord and Lady Bunny– Almost Royalty! We loved both.
We’ve been visiting an elk ranch where we fed elk and learned about them and saw lots of beautiful elk plus a blind lamb that loves to eat weeds,
making dinosaur paper dolls for one of our friends.
We’ve had long conversations about big news stories with the kids, trying to give them information about the world we all inhabit together. We watched a short video about consent as explained by cups of tea. (You can offer someone some tea, but if they refuse or can not answer or don’t answer positively, then you must not make them drink the tea.) We’ve been talking a lot about the presidential election and candidates and process of choosing a president. We had a great conversation about vitamins, what they are and where they come from and what they do for our bodies and conversely what happens to us when we don’t get certain vitamins.
We’ve been hiking,
picking strawberries from our garden,
watching hummingbirds collecting spiderwebs and drinking nectar.
Gavin went to a birthday party with biking and water play while Lilah, Chris and I decorated stacking dolls. Lilah’s are two cats and a mouse, Chris’ are aliens and a human and mine are a bear, a bird and a cat.
They played in a big tube that my sister found for the kids. Grandpa helped them explore possibilities.
We talked about the fact that it’s the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the kids asked when the light started and stopped so we looked up sunrise and sunset and calculated how many hours and minutes of light (sun up) there were: 15 hours and 7 minutes.
That’s a brief and very truncated peek into our last week or so. There’s always something to explore, enjoy, wonder about!
Gavin read poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein to Lilah. He stopped to eat a bite of pancake and Lilah immediately requested he read more.
Lilah and I made some fairy wings and skirts for our May Day event.
We tested out a new giant bubble recipe.
May Day/Beltane festival with our unschooling group including fairy and knight dress up, boffer weapon making, sidewalk chalk drawing, flower crown designing, may pole dancing and singing. Lovely!
We’ve had friends over for Lego building and restaurant pretending and snack eating.
I dug holes for some lilacs to create a hedge in our back yard and dug up the garden in anticipation of planting vegetables.
Gavin and I played Chess.
Lilah saved up for a new Lego set and the kids put that together after a great discussion about how Gavin could help but in a way and amount Lilah was happy with.
We saw the first oriole of the year and put out nectar for them.
Gavin and I made a boffer sword (foam covered for play without injury) so he could meet friends who had boffer weapons for a battle at the park.
A new tinker crate arrived and the kids put together an earthquake table and buildings to test on the table with much gusto.
Lilah drew a lovely cat.
We watched documentaries about owls and hummingbirds.
Gavin mowed the lawn in order to save up for a Lego set he would like.
We planted most of the garden. The kids picked out potatoes, corn, chiles and helped plant those. I also planted tomatoes, eggplant, squash of various kinds, tomatillos and lemon cucumbers. Still to be put in are carrot seeds.
We met friends at the farm and enjoyed antique machinery, climbing trees, animals and a large pile of hay bales for a slide.
having time & curiosity & joy enough to spot the amazing little things everywhere in the world like pockets of apple blossom petals on the ground to use as confetti.
experimenting in MineCraft with new buildings and animals and researching how to make machinery that functions in the game,
loving the kitten,
painting Lilah’s wolf mask from her Doodle Crate gift,
reading,
building with Legos (Gavin’s been doing a lot of research and then designing and building. Here he has built a house with a hinging wall that opens, and four poster bed, book shelf, lamp and dresser inside. The next day he added another level with a balcony.)
We’ve been puzzling,
spending more time with friends,
waiting in terribly long lines to participate in the caucuses in our state,
watching flowers begin to bloom in our neighborhood.
Lilah asked me about Hindi after we talked about languages other than English and how a language with different characters works and we’ve made a plan to do some learning in that area.
We went to a Hindu temple in our vicinity for a celebration of Holi, a Hindu spring festival which involves throwing and wiping colored powder on each other. It was so much fun and the kids loved it! I have fond memories of the Holi celebrations I took part in in India many years ago and it was so satisfying to share with my family. We’ll definitely go again!
At my parents house we dyed eggs and hunted eggs and enjoyed each others’ company on Easter.
We listened to Rolling Thunder In The Mountains by Scott O’Dell in the car and enjoyed that quite a bit and I’ve been reading The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle to them, a chapter here, a chapter there. It’s one that’s new to me as well as the kids, which is fun.
We went to the hot springs for a soak and a swim. It was rainy today and when we got into the pool it began to hail! We’d brought an umbrella and so we huddled under that in the warm water and enjoyed watching the hail stones plop and splash in the water and make bubbles. After the hail let up the kids went into the cooler pool and there was lots of splashing and chasing and floating on pool noodles.
The kids played with mixing up some gooey substances with their latest Tinker Crate.
We’ve been busy, with all the little things and a few big ones.
We’ve been
swimming with friends in the hot springs
finishing our audiobook The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
picking out legos from bulk lots
learning about elections in the U.S. and talking about the process and the people involved
playing Minecraft and building and dreaming so many ideas up for it together
playing soccer with Dad
playing Connect Four and Carcassonne and Exploding Kittens and WildCraft and Race for the Galaxy and War
working on making a mask from a doodle crate gift Lilah received recently (I think she’s making a wolf mask) with a plastic mask base you shape, then cover in foil and plastic, then cover in paper mache and finally she will paint the dried paper mache mask
visiting a brand new library just blocks from our house!!! The kids each got their own library card and checked out books. Gavin brought home a Lego idea book and Lilah brought home a book about rocks.
We’ve been celebrating Grandpa’s birthday with Gavin creating a game for him and building it and writing up the instructions with Dad and then trying it out with Grandpa. He made a board out of cardboard and used little plastic army men and a purple die that he got at the skating rink for this very purpose.
We’ve been playing with friends (human and animal) at the farm
practicing gymnastics
cleaning our house
building a house for our cats, refining it, observing the cats in it, adding toys and stickers
creating new lego designs based on books and otherwise
enjoying the first warm, sunny days of the year at various parks and gardens, with and without friends. They’ve been having opportunities lately to play with much younger kids (being the oldest) and that has been both fun and challenging. I’m so glad they have these kinds of opportunities!
We’ve been practicing a play at their scout meeting
doing the important work of playing, navigating challenges with differing degrees of confidence and happiness and enjoying each other and the world.
At the moment I write this, the kids are setting up for a game where each of them has a pillow and an umbrella in their bases and they try to hit the other’s area with a squishy ball.
the texts are wonderful and fun, especially so if I am not in the room with them and get to decipher who is writing to me at any given time. So far, I’ve been right about which kid I’m texting with.
