Sunday, September 20, 2009

Fieldtrip and a nice walk

I went on an overnight fieldtrip with my 6th graders on Thursday and Friday...


We all piled into the yellow schoolbuses and drove to the camp...


We did some team-building...


...and a low-ropes course...it was lots of fun, and is a great way to get the kids working together; it's also a great non-academic environment in which teachers can get to know (and be known by) the students that we will be working with...


Some of the things we do when we're at this camp are amazing...in this picture, one student is directing a blindfolded student across a 30 foot wide climbing wall...it takes some doing...


The camp also has farm animals, which are always a big hit...


The kids love the goats...


The second day it was cold and rainy, so at one point I had to loan one of my kids my ridiculously big raincoat...


It was a great time, fun challenges with surprising solutions...


The kids wee exhausted, and most slept on the ride back to Lake Placid...


Yesterday, Ben and I had some reading time while Gail was working on her dissertation...


Later in the day, we did some chores and then took Penny on a lovely walk along a retired railroad bed between Bloomingdale and Onchiota...


Penny went for a swim, of course...


We all had a great time!

I'm heading up to do some more family reading time with Ben, and then we'll likely head out for another walk, or to meet a friend at one of the playgrounds around here...life is pretty good!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The Wild Center

Ben and I went to the Wilde Center today, and met Ben's friend, Connor, and his mom and sister for a fun playdate...


We had a great time in the museum, visiting the various exhibits...and running around...


After awhile, we went outside to the pond by the main building, where the boys watched, and poked at, fish foolish enough to come close...


We walked out to a great playground in the woods...


The boys had a great time playing and building forts...



Later on, we all took a walk down to the Raquette River on a nice trail...


The boys were hot and sweaty and tired on the way back, but we had a fun walk...

We noodled around a bit more inside, and then took a walk around the pond just outside the main building...




Their favorite thing all day was the fog machine in the exhibits area...it was a great day!

Monday, September 07, 2009

Ben's Birthday Weekend!

Saturday was Ben's 7th Birthday, and we headed down to CT to visit with my family...


We opened lots of presents, including this obnoxious and noisy tiny ghost toy...thanks Muz!


Ben got lots of Lego from us, and he has been having fun playing with them...



We had lots of presents, and ended up opening them in 3-4 batches throughout the day...


One of the fun ones was a game from Anti-Sarah...Cadoo!


After opening some presents, we headed over to the Goshen Fair, a longstanding Sheffield tradition...agricultural exhibits, fair food, crazy rides, carnies...Once we got to the Goshen Fair, we did some rides...Anti-Sarah and Ben liked THE SIZZLER!...enough so that Ben and I rode it again later in the day...


THE AVALANCHE was fun for both of them for the first 3 seconds, the 4 minutes after that were a little tough...


Ben and D had a great time on the bumper cars...



Ben enjoyed his first corn-dog, a hand-dipped foot-long monster, the complexities of which you can see him working out in the pic above...


While still working on the corn-dog, he managed to multi-task his way through a rootbeer float and some fried dough as well...


We worked through some of the ag-barns, including the awesome-tacular poultry barn, which is filled with types of birds that I had never seen before...


We visited the 4-H barn, which had some great exhibits made by earnest children...strangely, the informative display on cattle diseases was not crowded when we went by, so Sarah and I looked it over in detail, and gave it the attention it deserved...


Ben likes cut-out pictures...


There was a petting room filled with small barnyard animals and sweaty children...both of which made me want to bath after we left...the little piggies were a big hit, and were getting a workout running and squealing as clouds of kids chased them around the room...


Ben thought it was funny that this guy was standing in his waterbowl...


He tried to feed the wee-pig a bit of straw, but Franz wasn't having any...


There was a superb exhibit of sheep in the next barn, and they were just gearing up for a sheep-shearing competition...we jostled our way up to the front and had fun talking with this unhappy sheep who must have mistakenly heard that they were going to have a mutton-burger contest..it kept shouting and trying to work its way loose...unfortunately, when they started the countdown to the contest, they mentioned that the contestants would, "only have an hour" in which to shear the sheep...we fled the scene after wishing the sheep a pleasant afternoon...


Here we are pointing to the large pig in the foreground...Sheffields like bacon, which may explain our lingering attraction to the pigs at the fair...


We went back over to the games/rides area, and Ben tried out bungee/trampoline setup...


He and Gail then rode the Merry-Go-Round...


By this time, we had been out in the sun and the heat and the noise for hours, and even the really, really, really, really big pumpkins were not enough to keep a little boy's interest...he was hot and tired, so we headed home...


We opened more presents, including some cool underwear from Muz!


Later on, we went out for dinner at the Wandering Moose, and enjoyed a fun dinner and HUGE birthday carrot cake...


The next morning, we got out all of Ben's new Lego sets, and either played or categorized, each according to his/her needs/wants...


I made this little diorama , which includes a chef with a little pizza about to be assaulted by a convict with a pick-ax (note the jailbird's stripy shirt, hairy chest, and skullcap...dirtbag!) while a public safety officer rushes to the rescue...a bit too late...maybe in time to subdue the suspect and rescue the pizza while waiting for EMTs to arrive...


We played Cadoo, which is a brilliant game, we had a ball...


One of the best parts of the game is wearing the funky Cadoo-tastic glasses...


The above is not trick photography, Gail's hands actually were a blur while she molded the clay into a teddy bear as a part of the game...we had a fun weekend in Cornwall!

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

First day of school

Today was Ben's first day of 2nd grade at the Petrova school in Saranac Lake...


He was excited to go, and get back into his regular pattern of waiting for the bus in the car with Gail while reading...


He liked his 1st-day outfit, and loves his new backpack...


The bus was late, but got there eventually...


He rides on the elephant bus with a bunch of his friends into Saranac Lake...


He was ready to go, and had a great first day...when he got back, we celebrated by going to the beach for a swim...