In September, we managed one trip out of the house with a new homeschool group, affectionately called GAH. We went to one of our favorite parks, Yates Mill Pond for an interactive class on pond ecology. In addition to touring the pond, the children were able to take samples from the pond and bring them back to the classroom to chronicle all the different types of life they had found.
In October, we finally made it to the Mordecai House in downtown Raleigh. This is the second home in a series of founder home tours. We had visited his fathers home last year, The Joel Lane House. The group we went with was so big they had to break in two groups; one taking the trolley tour first and the second (ours) touring the buildings first. Our guide was very engaging, we learned a lot about the family and their involvement with some of our founding fathers. The trolley tour after was fun too, getting a quick glimpse and history of many of the other historic homes in the downtown area.
Early November, was our families annual trip to a Corn Maze. This year we incorporated it with a birthday celebration for Lance's friend Matthew, since Lance had missed his party. We decided to return to Naylor Farm this year. Naylor was the farm we first visited when we moved here. The kids like it best because of the complete lack of rules and oversight, i.e. freedom to do what they want. This year they had added a neat nerf ball battle fortress, in addition to the maze, duck races, hay ride and corn pit. We broke into three teams for the maze race and this year Jared and I were the clear winners, Matthew and Lance second and Team Otto coming in a close third. On the hay ride, we were all able to pick one pumpkin. Amber picked one too big to carry but she rolled it to the trailer and got the driver to put it in for her. The rest of us did pretty good too as you can see. Our chickens are in for a big pumpkin season. Especially after the 3 huge pumpkins Titus and I had so much fun picking up on a road side stand last week. After the hay ride Chris and I took up resident on a picnic table and let the kids run and explore; we joined in from time to time on the bounce pillow and the air fight of course. We'll definitely be back again next year.
The second field trip of November, was to "Historic Oak View Park" an old pecan and cotton plantation in the middle of Raleigh. We went with a large group of homeschoolers to tour the plantation. Ironically, our guide was the same as the field trip we took the to Mordecai House and she remembered us as well. Titus and Amber were full of answers to her questions and offers of help to run the Cotton Gin. Before the tour we gathered a nice bag full of pecans (Titus is quite the pecan finder) and visited our friends the Nubian Goats. All in all we had another great visit to the park.
As Chris was leaving to take the boys to a travel ball tournament in Fayetteville, the brakes went out on the Beast. Thankfully, by God's grace Chris was only a mile from home and going really slow so he only tapped the car in front of him. The break system replacement let to us finally getting around to replacing the broken radio. To save money Chris did this repair with his three helpers; Titus, Amber and Hunter. I was very impressed they all managed a successful replacement and we can all enjoy our favorite music in the Beast again.
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