Our first Muffin Tin Monday ....er.... Tuesday!

Since today is officially our first, back to the books, day of school, I decided to wait and have our first Muffin Tin Monday lunch today.

The kids really enjoyed the presentation of their lunches. I didn't think it would be enough food for them, but it seemed to be the right amount. This week's theme was - No Theme! I think I will enjoy having the themes. I like a little inspiration to get me thinking creatively.



If you want to liven up your Monday lunches, check out this site for a little inspiration.


And can I just say AHHHHHHHH! I am so glad that we have finally returned to our school routines! The house was lovely and calm, the kids were smiling, everyone was focused and happy. After a long, wet summer of indoor play, we really needed to return to our school activities and routines. I love homeschooling!

Searching for fun on our first day back to school - homeschool style

We celebrated our first day of school today, Labour Day, as my husband was home and wanted to take part in the day's activities. Tomorrow we will get back to a more structured routine, but today was all about having fun!

We began the day with a daddy cooked breakfast of Dutch Babies. These particular babies were made with eggs from our very own chickens and maple syrup that we made from our very own maple trees. If you have never tried Dutch Babies, (also called German or Puffed Pancakes) you really should give them a try. They are delicious!



Next we moved on to some intensive fortress building. And they say Rome wasn't built in a day!



Our family has become very involved in geocaching over the summer. We are up to almost 100 finds. It is a great sport and I love seeing my son glow with confidence and pride as he finds a cache all on his own. He can find many of them before I do now!

In keeping with our new hobby, I decided to create a geocaching event for our first day back to school. I created these little log books for each cache. Each one contains a quote pertaining to education.



Then I made several caches and filled them with new school supplies and treats. This morning while my boys were busy, I drove to a local park and hid the caches. I came back home and pretended to log onto the computer. Lo and behold, "someone" had just published five new caches at the park! We headed out as quickly as we could to be the first to find. I called my mom ahead of time to meet us at the park.



I gave the gps to my son and let him try his hand at narrowing down the hiding place.
Can you see the first cache?


Here is find number two - he didn't even need the hint.


Baby brother found find number 4!


The log on the last cache said we hoped he has a great first day of school and that we love him and are proud of him. I had to let him in on the fact that I had created and hid the caches just for him. Here he is as he figures it all out.



The final cache was a new lego kit for him called Crazy Contraptions, and water balloons for his brother.


A quick stop to the playground,


before heading home with new school supplies and treats!


As we were walking out of the trail system he gave me a big squeeze and said "Thanks mom, that was the best day ever!" Just the thing a mom needs to hear every once in a while :)

Finally!

We finally found our first egg! We were worried that our new chickens, "the girls" would beginning laying while we were away. But they were so thoughtful they decided to wait until we returned! This first little beauty was a wee bit soft yet. One of the girls even allowed me to watch as she laid her egg. Funny to say, but I got such a kick out of it. If only child birth could have been that easy.

The last great days of summer

We recently spent a week at the shore. It was colder than normal for the last week in August, but we still had a great time swimming and playing on the beach. We managed to get a few geocaching trips in as well. It was great fun seeing how people in other areas hide their caches.

Strong winds made for a great day of kite flying!

We drove out to the point to visit a lighthouse and find a hidden cache.



Back at home we enjoyed a wonderful day on the miniature trains. This train is a steam train run on coal! A local group of train enthusiasts volunteer their time and money to create this amazing experience. And all they ask is for a small donation. They just love to see the smiles on the children's faces as they ride the trains - and the adults too! Can you ask for better than that???

The steam engines even pull up to a water tower and take on water!

Geocaching - our latest addiction

The new school year is definitely looming and I'm going to try this blogging thing again. I don't know why I cannot commit to this. Another year, another go.

I would love to show you all of the fun activities we have participated in this summer. But, in all honesty, it would take too much energy to resize photos and come up with catchy tag lines. So I'll just say that we camped, we swam, we explored, we dug, we cried, we loved, we built, we learned, we laughed, we got wet, we made new friends, we drove, we snuggled and much more. It has been a summer of rain and mosquitoes, and a summer of discovery and fun.

One of our favourite new activities this summer has been geocaching. What a great family activity. We now have 50 caches to our name and my kids beg to go out at least once a week. We have pretty much exhausted all of our local caches and are now finding ourselves creating reasons to go on little trips to find other caches.

I love to see my eldest make a find and the confidence that he exhibits each time he finds one. We have created a little routine each time we find a cache and my youngest child knows that the first thing we do is "sign the log"! He is a bouncy ball addict as a result of our geocaching habit, and we now have bouncy balls hidden throughout the house.

For our first day of school this year I plan on hiding several caches in a local park with "Peabody's" school supplies. He will be in charge of the gps and finding each cache. The final cache will be a new Lego kit that I purchased specifially for his first day of school.

We have a week at the beach and another few days camping before we get back to school, but I'm just itching to get out and do this with him. I know he is going to have so much fun with it once he figures out the caches are all for him :)