Isn't our Princess absolutely beautiful? No one but a Princess could pull off wearing that beautiful dress on an Eco Field Trip to the Agape Center for her birthday (More on the field trip in this post).
I had decided it would be easier to just plan a field trip with all her friends, than to plan a specific birthday party, and it worked out perfectly.
Chris took the day off and he stayed with her age group the whole day; which was a double treat for her, not many field trips have specific activities for the younger ones and daddy is seldom the chaperon. At the lunch break we sang lit candles and shared cupcakes.
Then we went home and celebrated again with the family. The boys made us stay upstairs while they went all out decorating the downstairs for the celebration.
She was very appreciative of their efforts.
After cake we opened her gifts and they went straight to work acting out their first puppet show. An event I'm sure we'll see much of in the future.
She has matured so much in the past year. Her vocabulary in outstanding, she has learned how to entertain herself (and frequently others) quite well. She adores her brothers and mother's them quite well. She loves deeply and we love her deeply back. So thankful God blessed us with such a wonderful Little Princess.
October Amber side notes:
A few days before her big day Amber spent a lot of time making sure that Hunter was nicely groomed. He's such a good cat.
Since she knows her left from her right, how to count to 5, alphabet A-G and she is five, the Monday following her birthday she began piano
lessons. She was very excited! Chris and I sat in the room watching.
It was very cute. Miss Kathy loved her form (she's so great with all the kids) and we all predicted the length of her attention correctly (15 min.). So now, every Monday, she has piano lessons and dance lessons. There's nothing else to say but that they all just grow up toooo fast.
The Parays arrived on Friday. This is the first time tho whole family was able to come. Everyone was so excited to show Tito Denis around.
Our large group required we take two cars everywhere but that's the same reason we were able to go our first destination at a major group discount, the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Chris picked them up from the airport and met the rest of us at a spot outside the airport. We had gotten the fixings for sandwiches and lunch on the way. We put lunch together real quick in the back of the Beast, redistributed people between the cars and headed to the museum.
It was an absolutely perfect day to tour the museum; the weather was sunny and cool, and the school buses were all leaving as we arrived, so it wasn't crowded. Sophia had wanted to see a zoo while she visited so I thought this was a great compromise of science and animals; while being a lot closer than the actual zoo. Ironically, my family had never gone on the walk to see the animals, so those exhibits were new to us as well. With the cool air, all the animals were active; bears, wolves, lemurs, snakes, skunks, opossum and the butterflies had just been released that day so they were abundant and striking in color. We let the older boys go off and explore on their own but we came back together from time to time. There are just so many hands-on activities to enjoy, there was plenty to entertain everyone. We left just a little before closing to avoid traffic and headed home. The boys grabbed pizza from Harris Teeter for dinner on the way home and we settled into the business of getting reacquainted.
Saturday we laid low in the morning. Lance had baseball practice and unfortunately Matthew had homework. We met Lance and company at the field toward the end of practice and headed off (by request) to the Farmer's Market, and quick surface tour of NC State. We of course got cookies and then headed over (by request again) to the NC Museum of Natural Science downtown. Once again we let the big boys explore on their own and we all got back together to eat dinner in the cafeteria. We closed down the cafeteria and headed out to do a walking tour of the sights downtown.
We explored the capital and all the statues. Sent the boys off to figure our which of the four corner churches was the oldest, then walked over to the governor's mansion. So many beautiful architectural spots to see and a nice way walk-off our dinner.
Sunday, was their departure day so we hung around the house most of the day; walking the neighborhood again, talking and catching up on life. There is a limit to how much you can share across the miles, in person is far superior. I had planned the itinerary backward so we could do what we wanted and get them to the airport on time. We started with a late lunch at Red Robin and then drove up to take a walking tour of Duke University. We had passed part of it on the way to the Life Science Museum. I thought that was all there was to see. I was totally blown away (as we were all were) at the visual beauty of the main campus. What an architectural delight!
It's nestled along Duke Forest and looks like a castle from Europe. We needed a public restroom so we asked a student where to find one. We were directed to the library. This is the library entrance.
I expected Juliette to come out any minute. It reminded me of the Boston Museum of Art more than an college campus library I had seen. As a bonus, the chapel organ was playing during our visit too. We missed the bells but we'll be back. Unfortunately, we needed to leave so our friends could catch their flight home.
Though we did a lot, we still found plenty of time of reconnect and relax. I believe we are all much better for the time spent together. Hopefully, we will be together again soon.
Today, we loaded up the kids, plus one friend and headed to the Duke Lemur Center. There we met up with our homeschool group of about 24 people. It was drizzling out, as the rain bands of Hurricane Matthew were approaching, but we all came ready.
First, they showed our whole group a video about the history of the Center and its inhabitants. I had told the kids about being courteous when they mentioned the inevitable. Unfortunately, it was my friend and I who snickered out-loud when the video said the founder of the center had "confirmed that lemurs had arrived on Madagascar 30 million years ago on a raft", that was too much. Was she there? Did she find 30 million year old lemur poop on a raft? How exactly did she confirm it? But I digress.
Due to the size of our group they broke us up into two groups. My sons chose to go with Miss Amanda's group, which left Chris and I alone with Amber. The facility is nicely laid out and landscaped. The incredible number and variety of lemurs is apparently unparalleled outside of Madagascar. It was interesting to learn how different many of the species were. Though we only got to see the animals in the cages, there were lemurs in the "wild" also, in multi-acre lots. With this information came two interesting stories of breakouts and recaptures. One group of lemurs were captured by the students of a nearby elementary school by leaving a trail of fruit into the library and shutting the door. The other was captured in a person's garage, that was quick enough upon seeing them, to close the door. We also learned that though they look cute and cuddly they are quite the opposite, one relative even has a poisonous bite.
Since the tour was all outside we were thankful the heavy rain held off till we were done. It is a very remarkable facility and well worth the trip to visit.
We had an extremely busy but productive rabbits today. Chris and I were up early doing some much need weeding, the hot summer and out busy scheduled had put us behind. There is plenty more to do but at least we got the weeds to stop strangulating our plants. After our traditional Sunday French Toast breakfast we brought the kids out to help. Titus and Amber weeded a bit with us and then Titus went to join his brothers. The boys had a blast challenging each other to see who could pick the most duck weed in 10 seconds. They cleared out my Elderberry saplings and gave tons of food to the hens.
It was time to plant our fall garden. Last year we completely missed the window to get our plants in the ground. This year we missed the window for seeds but managed to get the plants last weekend. We bought a variety of cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, spinach, radicchio, bok choy and strawberries. Chris furrowed out the eight rows for me. As he did so, he, Amber and I picked out grubs with our hands and threw them to the chickens; my girl may wear taffeta in the garden but she's no girly girl. After a while, the chickens were making quite a ruckus begging for more. Then Amber and I planted the plants and the boys shoveled and delivered the mulch for between the rows. Now I just have to remember to water the plants.
Chris found a neat snake in the mulch pile and kindly installed a fence to keep out all enemies foreign and domestic. Speaking of domestic the dogs did exceptionally well today staying in the yard so they got to have a great time too.
Jared had theater practice from 2-4pm so that was our clean-up alarm. While he was gone Lance set up a plinking range with dyed water and all. It had been a while since the boys had out their guns; it was a nice time of bonding for them. So thankful our neighbors love watching the boys as well.
Update: In the theme of farming, on October 5th I harvested my first wild mushrooms. Actually, it was our neighbors idea, he was going to be out of town so he told Lance where they were (behind the Oak Tree you see above) so we could get them. We ended up harvesting 3 pounds worth (along with a smelly centipede and a startlingly large spider I could have done without). The mushrooms are call "Hen in the Woods" (among other things) and have a myriad of health benefits including curing cancer. Their most import feature to me was that they have no poisonous look alikes. Chris and I ate them in scrambled eggs as suggested for three days and were still here. We also froze some so our neighbor could enjoy them when he returned. The extra pieces I placed around our Oaks in hopes that we'll get our own mushroom colonies growing in the coming year.
