A fun field trip

Just wanted to let you know that I've posted about a fun field trip to Enchanted Forest this week on the homeschool blog.

  

Field trip: Enchanted Forest

I decided yesterday (Wednesday) that we needed to go somewhere that we hadn't gone in at least 3 years by my count.  It may have been 4.  In any case, I found out that Enchanted Forest opened this week for the spring/summer season, and really wanted to take the kids since we hadn't been for so long.  So, we ditched the school work and headed out for the afternoon.

It turned out to be beautiful!  The weather is just starting to get nice around here, and we were so excited to hit Enchanted Forest on such a perfect day.  The kids loved it.  They are hoping to go back again this summer.  As far as theme parks go, it's pretty old fashioned.  But, my kids are happy with it, and I like that it isn't all over-done like Disneyland.  I kinda like it's antique feeling.  Don't get me wrong, I still want to take my kids to Disneyland someday, but I'm so glad that we have this close to us.  It's all we have for a theme park here in Oregon, so we'll take it.

Just as we arrived, they were pretty excited to see what this place was all about (April only remembered a little, and Aaron was just a little guy last time we went, and of course the little 2 had never been).

So, here's the low down on Enchanted forest.  It's like a huge storybook land.  There are a number of different classic children's stories, and nursery rhymes all throughout the park.  We started out walking through a castle that you could walk through some tunnels and find different characters/stories in.

The top of the castle with some beautifiul sunshine starting to peek through the trees yay!

 

Then we continued down a path that took us through Hansel and Gretels house, past Mary had a little lamb's school house, past Humpty Dumpty, and through a tunnel to Alice in Wonderland.

After Alice in Wonderland we walked further along this pretty path to Snow White and the seven Dwarf's house, and finally to the witches castle.  They of course get to walk through the dark tunnels of the witches castle, and up the stairs which leads to a slide.

This is the entrance to the witches castle.  I had to go in with the 2 littlest ones, they were kinda scared at first.

 

But, then they saw the slide and all was good.

This shot shows on the left the entrance, and the right is the slide.  It is set up nicely so they can go up some stairs to keep going down the slide over and over again.  Some even chose to keep going through the witches mouth over and over again..."I'm not scared!" they would say.

 

Alex just couldn't get enough of this place.  He loved looking at this little scene from snow white after the witches castle where the seven dwarfs are waving bye to snow white after she is rescued by her handsome prince :-)

Then we came to Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Here's Goldilocks in her bed.

Alex is watching the three bears through a window...

...here's the scene where the 3 bears are telling the story about how their porridge had been eaten, and their chairs had been sat upon.

Up next...the crooked man's house!

 

There was a crooked man,

and he went a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence 

against a crooked stile;

He bought a crooked cat, which

caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in

a little crooked house.

 

They loved the crooked house.  It really is a little cooky to walk in.  You feel a little "crooked" :-)  Here they were being really silly trying to walk on the crooked floor.

Then to Little Red Riding Hood, and the old lady's shoe which the kids could slide out of.

Now we're in western town.  Walking through the old west.  There are some fun things to look at and do here.

This horse girl loved the opportunity to pretend to rope a steer.

 Aric decided to give it a try too.

That took us to the ride area.  Aric rode the bumper boats.  Alex really wanted to do this too but he was afraid to go to the guy that was going to help him into the boat.

April and Aaron rode the bumper cars.

Then I went with the 2 little ones on a train ride.  This is the little elf world.  It was cute.

April and Aaron waiting for us.  Probably laughing at how funny Mommy looked squished in that kiddie train :-)

Aric said hi to a chipmunk.

April rode on the log ride all by herself.  She loved it.  We ran out of tickets after that so we continued our journey through the park.

We're almost done!  Sorry about all the pictures.  I just loved taking pictures of everything.  We walked through a little village that had these fake people talking out the windows as if they were gossipping/chatting like they would have done back in the olden days.

 

Then there was Pinnochio and Geppetto talking as we walked through Pinnochio's playhouse about Pinnochio becoming a real boy.

And, finally, to finish it off there's a cool little water show to watch.

The kids had such a good time. There was a lot that we didn't do as far as rides go, and we missed the theatre production of Cinderella because we didn't want to hang around for another half hour with a cranky toddler (the older kids really wanted to watch it).  But, it was a fun little trip, and much needed getaway for us this week.

Desiree

B is for bandana and bread

 I sure can find a lot of things right now that start with B, but for this week I will stick with 2.  On Saturday I finally put together the bandana table cloth that I've been planning to make for a while.  It's just random colors of bandanas, but I think it's fun.  It'll be great for BBQ dinners, and other fun meals.  Ever since I read this blog post from Chocolate on my Cranium about table cloths at the dinner table I am determined to up my collection of table cloths.  I would love to get to where we use them everyday, but right now we only have 1 or 2 good ones.  I really love the idea of using them, and it really does cut down on spills making it to the floor, and clean up time (just taking the table cloth outside to shake it out is my kind of clean up).  I also love how it adds some color and feeling to a dinner (or meal).

My next 'B' is bread.  I have really been disappointed with bread lately.  The store bought breads are just not as good to me anymore.  I don't know if it's my tastes that have changed, or the recipes from the bread companies.  Anyway, we stopped in the Bob's Red Mill store when were driving around up in Portland yesterday.  Their sign that said fresh bread made us decide to go ahead and check it out.  We were hoping for a tour, but those only happen in the morning at 10am (we will go at 10am some day to take the tour!).  They had some yummy breads to choose from.  We bought the potato rosemary bread, and the honey oatmeal bread.  It was so yummy!  I love finding places with delicious bread like this!  Hopefully someday I can get good at making bread on my own on a regular basis.

 

A is for a lot of eggs!

We haven't even gotten to the warmer longer days yet, and our chickens are laying a lot more eggs in just the past month than they were in the winter.  We are up to 207 as of today.  It'll be fun to see how many eggs we get over the next few months and during the summer.  Last summer our chickens didn't start laying until about July I think.  I expect the eggs to be coming pretty good now for a few months.

Desiree

P.S.  I am blogging through the alphabet here too, but for chicken updates.  I'd like to share more about my chickens, but just don't know what to share.  Hopefully this will get my thoughts going.

A is for awesome husband's birthday

A shot from his birthday dinner at Red Robin last Saturday.  An awesome family tradition.

It was my awesome hubby's birthday yesterday (Thursday the 21st).  We didn't do much.  We had some awesome yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  The kids gave him an awesome skylander character.  We tried to find him some other awesome presents, but really he's just a hard guy to shop for.  So, instead of buying him something else I'm going to write a list of all the great things that make him awesome:

~He cooks some yummy food!  I love when he cooks, and that he loves to do it as well.

~He fixes things.  Especially things that I would have thought were not fixable.

~He does awesome things with the boys like fishing, and shooting.

~He loves to dance.
~He's a genius.  Seriously, smartest guy I know.
~He provides for our family.
~He takes us on fun adventures.
~He builds lego sets with the kids.
~He loves to be home with his family.
~He can make the best BBQ ribs I've ever tasted.

Happy Birthday awesome Daddy!



I am blogging through the alphabet to hopefully bring some more interesting things to post here on this blog.  I'm excited about this, and hope to make it through each letter!

 

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: March 22

 

In my life this week...I have decided that I need to take a huge step back from facebook.  I'm getting frustrated when I get on there to do one thing, and it just sucks me in.  Before I know it I've wasted an hour (or 2 or 3).  I really want to get back to blogging more.  I'm pretty sure facebook is also the reason I have neglected my blogs so much.  I really want to get more of the great stuff we do posted.  It's not only the time issue with facebook, I have other reasons that I really just dislike it.  But, then at the same time I love keeping up with friends and family.  Ugh! 

In our homeschool this week...My 4 year old surprised me by doing this adding page all by himself.  I love how much he has been counting and adding things randomly all day long.  I was very happy to see this, and that he gets the concept so well. 

We started reading Pagoo.  April started reading Black Beauty.  We did some math.  We finished the  chapter on ancient China in STOW.  Not a whole lot was accomplished though.  I might just call that our spring break :-)

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share...start your day with classical music if you have boys or kids that need some focus and calming down.  Sometimes we even start with listening to bible songs, or sing-alongs.  I recently figured this out, and since we've started it has helped immensly.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...we went to sky high on Monday for homeschool day, and the kids jumped on trampolines for an hour.  Thursday we went to the Salem, OR Capitol building for homeschool apple pie day.  Friday morning was spent at the library playing on the computer for the little boys, and for April she joined the homeschool group art time upstairs.

My favorite thing this week was...finding some great deals at a thrift store up in Portland.  April found some skirts, I found some books and decorations, and Aaron found a fun lego planner.  I loved how cheap it all was too.

My kiddos favorite thing this week was...I think they liked apple pie day a lot.  They were all so excited, and loved going to see the capitol building.  My 4 year old even said on the way home that it was the best day.  (even though we had to leave early and miss the rest of it)

Things I'm working on...busy bags.  I have a busy bag swap coming up so I'm working on making 20 of these clothesline busy bags.   I'm excited to see the fruits of this labor, and have 19 new busy bag games for  my little ones to enjoy!



I'm cooking...3 apple pies, tacos, Ikea style meatballs and mashed potatoes, and a birthday cake.  That's most of what I made this week, I think. 

I'm grateful for...this week being over, and looking forward to a new one.  

I rewarded my kids this week by...letting them play skylanders on Thursday and Friday night.  Usually they only get to play on Saturday.  Thursday night was Daddy's birthday, and Friday night was because this has been a long week :-)

Something I am ogling or have my eye on...my Hubby has been looking at boats.  He wants to get a boat for family outings.  It is something that I have always thought would be fun too.  Of course I'm not ogling over this as much as he is currently...so we'll see.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...these guys sure love skylanders at the moment.  They love to play with the characters all week long, and dream about when they finally get to play the game on the wii on Saturday.

To see what others are sharing in their homeschool journals visit iHomeschool network.

Desiree

A field trip

My cuties at the Salem Capitol building today.  Come see what we did today at the homeschool blog if you want to know the full story.