Heat Wave

The weather is scorching hot here. Last weekend we disregarded the heat and went to pick grapes at a vineyard about an hour's drive away. Actually, we hoped to pick grapes, peaches and apples. But turned out that peaches were all killed in the late spring frost and apples weren't quite ready for picking.

But the grapes were excellent.

We picked a lot of grapes and also had some grape slushies. These are always great!

The entire last week we mostly stayed indoors. This weekend we thought about going to a lake, but it's been record heat today, so we tried staying indoors as much as possible. Except, of course, at some point we went to Target and got a slip-n-slide, which was, conveniently, on sale.

So the rest of the day was pretty great. We set the slip-n-slide in the shade and ran it for a little while. I think Chris and I enjoyed it just as much as M did.

Star Wars Playdate

It's been super-hot here every day this week and we've been trying to stay indoors as much as possible. But Monday wasn't too bad which was great 'cause that was our official Star Wars Playdate day with our homeschooling group.

Let me just say, the mom who came up with the idea did an amazing job organizing the whole thing. They even had time to bake Star Wars cookies!

We all got together at a local park. Everyone was encouraged to bring their Star Wars toys and dress up. M finally had his dream realized - all his friends brought their light sabers and were allowed to have as many battles as they wanted. Aside from almost non-stop light saber battles, there was some hard-core jedi training. It included Nerf gun practice, insignia making, light saber crafting, learning to navigate dangerous fog-filled jungles of Dagobah.

The capstone of the event was an epic battle - all the little kids against 2 teenagers who volunteered to be the bad guys (in exchange for a chance to handle dry ice).

It was super awesome! It also helped that a day before the playdate I scored this paper mask of Darth Vader for $0.25 at a Kids Exchange Sale. M was so thrilled. He put the mask on right away and walked around the house, breathing noisily and humming the Imperial March which is, of course, Darth Vader's theme.

He wore the mask as the playdate as much as possible, but insisted on being on the side of good. You see, his Vader is a rehabilitated one who's nice and even "helps Mama wash dishes".

The Lighthouse Family

It's a title of one of M's most favorite Recorded Books (books on CDs). He listened to the Lighthouse Family: the Storm too many times too count. He also pretend played the story with me being Pandora the Cat, himself - Seabold, the Dog. Also, as I'd take him to our favorite local seafood place, we'd look at the framed prints of lighthouses and tried to choose the one that looked most like the lighthouse in the story. But he'd never seen a real lighthouse before.

Needless to say, he was very excited when I told him that while at the beach, we'll get to see (and climb) a real life lighthouse. Just the kind that Pandora lived in. Hooray!

And so we went there, the three of us and my second cousin, A. M was absolutely thrilled to see a real lighthouse and even more so 'cause this lighthouse was red, M's most favorite color (yes, still). He couldn't wait to go inside. But we had to stay in line which was difficult with two impatient kiddos. So instead we left Chris to stand in line and I took the kids into a gift shop. There I made an unwise promise which seemed like a really good idea at the time...

You see, the brochure said that there were 214 stairs to the top of the lighthouse. I was a bit apprehensive about M climbing them without my help. And I really didn't feel like carrying him up or down, especially in the narrow and steep part of the spiral staircase at the top of the structure.

At the gift shop M was so taken with the little model of the lighthouse and wanted it so very much, that I promised to get it for him IF he were to climb up to the very top and down again without asking to be carried. His cousin wanted a little toy wild horse and a similar promise was made to her except the condition was she had to "behave" (yeah, rather nebulous, but she's 7 so I think she knows by now what it means).

Then we climbed all 214 stairs to the very top. The 360-degree view from the top was amazing! Except (and that's where "not so wise" part of my promise became evident) the kids were in such a hurry to get their toys that they didn't want to stay up and enjoy the scenery. Instead, they wanted to hurry down and into the gift shop! Still, we managed a couple of pictures. I must say, A behaved and M climbed every single step, just like he promised! So both got their gifts (and I got a mood ring for myself 'cause I wanted one after listening to Judy Moody Predicts Future 100 times, another of M's favorite Recorded Books).

We then walked over to get some ice-cream for the kids. This was a good move since it allowed us about 10 minutes of sitting in the shade quietly enjoying the views.

That day M carried the lighthouse toy with him everywhere (did I tell you, turned out it had a little battery-operated light and so was even more amazing). And he listened to The Lighthouse Family while in the car.

Later that night, before going to bed, he wanted to play the Lighthouse story. So we invited A. to join us. She wanted to be Laila, the little Mouse. And the three of us had some awesome lighthouse adventures - several severe storms, a wild horse that showed up and became Laila's pet, and a sudden appearance of Luke Skywalker on the island.

And the next day we went back to the lighthouse. Except we didn't climb it. Instead, we walked over to the Wild Horses Museum. Turned out, they had a "paint your own wild horse" activity going for kids. So M and A got to paint little horses. A's horse turned out all pretty and very real-looking. She spared no details and worked very diligently on painting it. M's approach was different. He worked in bold brush strokes, laying thick layers of paint. I was afraid it was all going to turn "the preschool slime brown" color, but he stuck to the pallete of red, orange, a bit of brown and lots of pink and it turned out kind of sunset colored.

Finally, we walked on a nature trail all the way out to the Pamlico Sound. M was in a terrible mood 'cause he was very tired and just wanted to go back to the house. But we'd have none of it. The Sound was too beautiful and just a few steps away, just past a forest of reeds. Fortunately, after reaching the Sound, M felt a bit better and even joined in on the fun of dipping his feet into a very shallow and very warm water.

I love this picture. Am I not married to like the most handsome guy ever? Just thought I'd brag.

Grandparents Visit

Finally, my parents found time in their busy schedules to visit. Yeah, I'm complaining! Mostly because they promised to be here for 4 days, but then changed everything to just 2 and a half days. So I feel that I'm totally within my rights here to kvetch loudly.

I dunno about your folks, but when my 'rents are in town, they tend to be very busy along the gender lines. My mom takes over the kitchen and the garden. My dad takes over the yard and the couch. This, by the way, is not a complaint, but a sincere appreciation.

I mean, c'mon, here are two senior citizens (at least by Kohl's standards) who first barrel down I-95 (Dad's always behind the wheel and he tends to interpret "95" as the speed limit), then unload a ton of goodies (mostly food stuff, but this time also a mattress and a couple of very heavy IKEA bookcases). Then they spend 1-2-3 days working before climbing back into the car for a return trip. But not until they write us a check (I s'pose for time well-spent).

Anyway, this time around Mom brought lotsa plants for the garden, mostly herbs. So we planted those. And Dad spent the morning hours (when it wasn't too hot) cutting down the bushes 'cause that's where we want to put our expanded veggie garden and a fruit "orchard" next year.

We also made shashliki, a summer-time Russian tradition. As most other Russian dishes, it's extremely labor-intensive. This is no burger-flipping! This takes time, skill and patience - from marinating the meat (no store-bought marinade either) to building a fire, to actual roasting.

Consequently, no drinking happens while the process is, well, in process. Here you see my hubby is taking a beer break while chatting with his favorite mother-in-law. And his favorite father-in-law is patiently explaining the finer points of the roasting process to M. M loves this and is all ears. Cooking on the open fire is quite possibly his biggest love (after Star Wars that is).

While M is too little to rotate the skewers, he's contributing to the work process by using some fresh herbs to sprinkl the meat with some white wine (yeah, I know, this sounds weird - white wine with lamb, but it does work).

Another thing we did was picking blueberries with Grandma. We went to Smith's Nursery on a very hot day (after helping Grandpa with cutting down the bushes). Luckily, they loaned us a little wagon for M (it's a bit of a hike to the blueberry field although of course if you want to, you can drive there as well, but where's the fun in that?!)

Archemedes said "Give me a lever long enough and I'll move the world". To which I say "Let my parents visit long enough and I'll finish all my unfinished projects" (which, if you were to take a peek at my to-do list, is way more impressive of a feat than moving the world. For real.)

Messy Art Again and All the Rain

This last week has been a very busy one for us. At least I remembered to take my camera with me, most of the time.

M asked to do a Big Messy Art project! Hooray, this has never happened before since he'd rather do almost anything else than paint. But this time he asked, no, insisted, on doing the "blow-dryer art". Remembering lessons learned the last time we tried this project, I prepared a couple of ping-pong balls, paint thinned with water, and a piece of paper securely taped to the box.

Also this week - we've had quite a lot of rain, but in between all the showers and thunderstorms we managed to go pick some mulberries. Actually, we got to go a couple of times, once with Chris and then, during the week - just M and I. For that second trip I got an old trike out of the attic. It's an old Kettler that I picked up at a Kids Exchange sale a year or so ago. I thought I got a good deal on it, but turned out the bike needed new set of tires which meant that the entire rear wheels assembly had to be changed. So for right now it's running as is and I'm just counting on M outgrowing his trike soon enough.

Big surprise this year - turns out, M can ride a trike all by himself... on a smooth surface and preferably on a slight downhill slope. Anything rough or uphill requires too much work, so he stops pedaling and asks me to push him. But boy, he loves riding downhill, going as fast as he can. Except that he keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure I'm not holding the bike. And when he does this, the bike swerves widely which scares me a whole lot since the breaks aren't all that great either.

Still, we managed to get as far along the Art Museum trail as the Two Mulberries. You see, the mulberries at the trailhead get picked a lot. When we got there, there weren't that many berries within easy reach. But most casual walkers don't go far enough into the woods and runners and bikers don't care about stopping and snacking. So it's left to us, serious berry hunters, to pick and eat them berries.

With our bellies full (we also had a mini-picnic half-way to the mulberries), we started heading back, but got caught in a downpour. So M pedaled and I pushed and panting we got to a little pavilion half-way to the car. It's a very nice pavilion with sweeping views of the entire Museum Park, but we never before made it there.

Another thing we did this week was testing our water wall. I saw this idea here and liked it 'cause it looked so simple. Besides, I already had all the components - a big piece of left-over peg board and lots of containers. So I took the next step - handed it all to Chris and told him that, when put together properly, it would make a terrific water toy (yes, he is a very patient and understanding man).

He set to work. Turned out that the bolts I had didn't match the holes in the pegboard. Nothing some drilling couldn't fix though. M seemed to be interested mostly in getting a hold of the drill. Once the wall was assembled, he showed remarkably little interest in it. Hmm, back to the drawing board since he generally likes everything that is remotely like a marble run. I might try PVC pipes and clear tubing instead.

At the end of the week we made a great discovery. We found a new (to us) park not far from the house (15-minute drive). The awesome feature of this park is its slides. They are built into the slopes. Somehow this makes them a lot more attractive to children of all ages (and to adults as well). M and a bunch of other boys from the local homeschooling group spent close to 2 hrs on these slides! Or rather on the rubberized slopes. There's something very compelling in being able to slide down the hillside.

Strawberry Picking

Ah, finally, it's strawberry picking time. Admittedly, the season has started in mid-April, but with all the crazy weather and M getting sick and all that we are just now getting around to it. So a couple of weeks ago we went to our favorite strawberry place, Smith's Nursery. We've been going there for 3 years straight. It's a bit of a drive for us, 30 mins or so, but it's such a beautiful farm! Yes, it's more than just a big open strawberry field. There are plenty of things to do and see there, from admiring flowers in the nursery to checking up on the goats to having a picnic by the fish pond. There are also two playsets for kids and it's a very lively place in general.

The first thing that M said after he saw the field, breathed the aroma of ripe berries and saw all the bright red berries peeking from under the leaves, was "Let's stay here ALL DAY!" To which I thought "Hooray! I finally get to pick without any hurry". Right... Let's just say that after about 10 minutes M's mantra changed to "Let's go back to the car RIGHT NOW!" My fault really.

I told him not to eat unwashed berries and instead wait 'til we would get to the car, wash them and have a nice little picnic eating berries with slices of fresh bread I took with us for a snack. I think the only three words that M retained out of that lengthy explanation was "picnic, bread, snack". He figured that since we had enough strawberries for a picnic, what was the reason for staying out in the heat any longer?

We did manage to pick 2 buckets of berries though. Smith's has just about the largest strawberries of all the farms we've been to. And they generally smell great and are delicious. But the place is far, as I've mentioned.

So that's why I was so happy when, driving around picking up some free stuff posted on Craigslist, I found a smallish strawberry field only about 20 minutes from us. What's even better, we make it half-way there at least once a week since the Farmers' Market is on the way and Lake Wheeler Park is too. The place is called Porter Farm. And it just might become a contender for the title of the most favorite strawberry patch. It's just a strawberry field, no extras (they do sell some other produce and locally-made ice-cream). But the berries are delicious with a big "D". They aren't very big at all, but exceptionally sweet, even the ones that don't seem to be fully ripe yet. The berries also keep very well.

So both times we picked 2 large buckets of strawberries and I've made various deserts with them. No strawberry-rhubarb crisp though 'cause for some reason this year the grocery stores here don't sell rhubarb. And I'm yet to plant my own (yes, yes, next year).

I also tried dehydrating strawberries and they turned out yummy. Like sweet-tart strawberry chips. I plan on drying more for snacks and granola. I'm also making some strawberry jam, the one that everyone seemed to like so much last year. So we'll be doing more strawberry picking, most likely at Porter Farm (gas prices, you know). But we'll most definitely go to the Smith's Nursery at least once more, that one weekend when the strawberry field is still open and the blueberries and blackberries are ready to be picked as well. Irresistible!

Math At the Arboretum

This past Tuesday we finally joined other homeschoolers for a Math Trek quest. It's a weekly math adventure for homeschoolers of all ages. The idea seems simple - we go out looking for math and when we see it, we take a picture of it.

The reality proved more difficult, but also way more fun. This week's Trek was at the NCSU Arboretum. It's just minutes from our house, but the last time we went there was well over a year ago. And M hated it back then. He simply couldn't get out of there soon enough. This time, however, everything was different. First, he loudly proclaimed that he loved it there and that the garden was just so very beautiful. Then he said that we should stay there for a long-long time. And so we did, for almost 3 hours.

But back to the math part of it. We were all given printouts with scavenger hunt-style math clues. There were lots of things to look for - spirals, Fibonacci sequence, right triangles, examples of infinite sequences, polygons, Platonic solids, boundaries, simple machines, and representations or models of the Universe, among other things. Not all Quests are this intense, but this was a Super Quest.

Of course, since M is only 4, I had to limit the quest to a few of the simpler concepts. And so we walked around the Arboretum, oohing and aahing over all the beautiful plants and exploring all the little pathways and nooks and crannies of the gardens. And while we were at it, we kept our eyes open and the camera ready for great math discoveries.

One of the first things we found was an example of a simple machine, a lever in our case. There were many more examples later on 'cause that particular day a group of volunteers was busy with landscaping chores, shovelling mulch and carting it off in wheelbarrows.

This was M's independent discovery. He noticed this one rock that was red (the rest were whitish-grey) and said that it was obviously a Martian rock.

Later on we came across a beautiful spiral path...

... and a long and mysterious-looking infinite sequence with a limit (a tree tunnel). So we ran along its entire length.

We stopped at a small pond with koi fish and frogs and watched them. M wanted to catch fish, but I had to explain that these are not for catching. So he just sat there looking for the largest and the smallest of them for a while.Another unexpected zomatical (zoologically-mathematical) find was this little lizard that we spotted. I mentioned how both sides of the lizard's body were symmetrical and we talked a bit about this lizard's line of symmetry.

Then we walked around some more just enjoying the gardens. And then it was time to go back to where we started - to another koi pond with a big waterfall. And so we found another one of the clues - the boundary between two states of matter (in this case - solid and liquid).

When the rest of the trekkers all got back, there was a short discussion of the trek and then we all made a right-angle triangle (since I guess none could be found in the arboretum).

How much of this all stuck with M? Ok, the Martian rock and the spirals did, but the rest - I'm not sure. But you know, it's ok. This was our first Math Trek outing and we both loved it. The main idea was to discover all the beautiful things around us and to not be afraid of connecting them with mathematical concepts. Who knew math could be this relaxing!