Almost ready for a schedule

It has been nice to not do preschool during the summer, but I think we are all ready to jump back in.  Here are my ideas for the rest of the year, of course only very loosely planned out. I need a little help for September. I don't want to do a "back to school" theme but that is the only September theme I can think of. I thought about doing something with apples. Maybe we still will. But for now all I've got is a bunch of alphabet catch up since we slacked for the last few months.  Anyway, feel free to make comments or suggestions or if you have any fun ideas/crafts/treats/books that would fit with my plans. We'll see if I can finish out the year strong!!

September - Apples - homemade apple cider, applesauce, other yummy apple things. Visit an apple orchard maybe, talk about fruit trees, etc.  A few cute apple crafts.
Letters - week 1 M and N, week 2 O, week 3 P, week 4 Q and R.

October - Scarecrows and Pumpkins. visiting the Big Red Barn (for their pumpkin patch, but they also have an apple orchard so I might go there in September for the apples and then pick another patch to visit for October. Not decided yet) learning harvest hymns, making scarecrows, reading a children's version of sleepy hollow - or watching it. Halloween, of course. My kids have chosen to dress up as a Utahraptor and a pig. Letters S and T

November - Pilgrims and geography. I haven't yet ever really introduced maps, etc. so I thought this would be a good time. Maybe make some pilgrim costumes. we will learn some gratitude hymns and learn in the scriptures about Christopher Columbus (I know he was not a pilgrim, but it still fits) and scriptures related to America. we can make some boats (Mayflower). Letters U and V

December - Astronomy (mostly Stars) and Christmas. I think stars would fit with Christmas pretty easily. Christmas hymns, of course.  Also "I am like a star, shining brightly"  constellation dot-to-dots, glow in the dark stars above their beds and rewards, and a lot of star gazing (we live in the perfect spot to see a gazillion stars every night! Letters - week 1 W, after Christmas we'll zip through X, Y, and Z. With X we can do treasure hunts.

And that's what I've got. Last year we didn't do anything for September because we were busy packing, moving, and unpacking. October we were settling in and had a vacation, November we exhausted the Turkey theme, and December was so busy we just "worked" on Christmas the entire time. I'm excited to get back. I feel almost ready to start working again. I think now it's just a matter of laziness. If I can get planned and get going, everything is going to go great.

2 fun days

Yes, all we do is have fun. We never work. We never have tantrums. We never fight. Ever. And we never have down time. Wouldn't life be great (exhausting) if it really was exactly as it looked on our blogs.

But the last two days we actually have only been having fun. Here are the highlights of what we did.

Bridal Veil Falls 

It seems like this is a tradition, to take the kids to the waterfall once a year. It's not that far away but does require a special trip to get there. When Joshua was 1 we went with Grammy. When Abigail was 1 we went with Michelle. And this year (Lukas is still just 6 months) we went with Charlotte and her two boys (YEA! I'm so glad your back, Charlotte!). I was having too much fun talking to my friend that I didn't really "play" in the water that much. Plus it was freezing.

After playing in the water with our friends we had a picnic in the grassy park area. The kids gravitated towards the dirt and somehow while I was totally absorbed in the fascinating adult conversation, I missed seeing the dirt actually hit Abigail's face. I know, I'm awful, but I made her stand there until I could get a photo of it. She survived.

Spanish Fork Swimming Pool

I love this pool. And I always forget how much I love it until I finally take my kids there at the end of the summer and we all have a fabulous time and I start kicking myself for not bringing them here sooner. *sigh*. Next year I suppose. The pool is already on it's "Fall" schedule - which means we won't be back until next summer.

Ideas for "pre-school" during next summer: Spend the ENTIRE summer learning about water with different books, experiments. Freezing water, hot water, evaporating water, etc. Just everything you can find. And every time you go somewhere that involves water, spend 2 or so random minutes reviewing the things you've been learning and maybe learn a few more things (like why there is chlorine the pool, why the waterfall water is so cold, why the ocean water is salty but the lake water is not, what a reservoir is used for, etc.)  I had this idea at the beginning of the summer, but in a way, it was a really hard summer and I had to take a break so we'll just do it next summer. It would have, however, been awesome, because here is a list of all our water activities we did anyway.

The hose in the yard

The splash pad fountain is SF

Sun Lakes in WA

The San Juans in WA (It's not the Puget Sound, it's not the strait of Juan de Fuca, although we saw the strait, and it's not the ocean, so what is it called?)

Pineview Reservior

SF Swimming Pool

Bridal Veil Falls

Mapleton Creek hike
The Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia River

perhaps more I can't remember.

I feel like I missed a good opportunity, but we can always do it again next year.

Highlights Of Our Vacation

The last 48 hours we spent doing the following:

Camping

You would think from this picture that we all slept so peacefully that first night... and you would be very very wrong.

George Eccle's Dinosaur Park

You have never actually seen a child so totally uncontrollably giddy with delight unless you have seen Joshua walk into this Park. This may have been my favorite part of the vacation - just watching Joshua's face!

They had dead dinosaurs - Joshua's favorite, the Allosaurus

And live dinosaurs - Abby is not very impressed.

It's pink, so of course it is hers

Swimming and Canoeing in Pineview Reservoir

She took her swimsuit off herself. There was no point in fighting to get it back on.

But she refused to take off her sandals!!!

Visiting a Monastery

We went inside the chapel to hear the monks sing but I didn't take photos of the monks and my photos of the chapel and stained glass didn't turn out

These are the graves of the monks who have lived here. This used to be a self sustaining monastery. But now there are only 15 monks left and 11 of them are 80 years old or older.

Campfire and S'mores

Awful quality photo - fabulous quality time.

A PINK marshmallow. This may have been Abigail's favorite part of the vacation. She had about 4! (mallows, not smores)

Hill Air Force Museum

Derek and I have wanted to come here for a long time but it is always too far away to drive in just one day. This museum, however is AWESOME!! And it is free. Very very well done. This was probably Derek's favorite part of the vacation.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

On our drive home Joshua asked why our vacation had been so short. Wow. I don't know. I'm pretty beat. It was so much fun. You know it's a good vacation when you were only gone 48 hours but you feel like you've been gone all week - and when you were only 2 hours away from home but you felt like you were miles away from all your troubles. Thanks to the Christensen's for the invite.