Eno explorations

On Wednesday of spring break, we headed out to the Eno River to go for a hike with another family. I was a little wary of the ratio (2 adults, 6 kids, lots of nature) but it ended up just fine. While the weather was sunny, the temperature was drastically different than it had been just the day before - we had to pull out the warm clothes that I had actually made an attempt to put away! We followed the same path that Eliza and her class had taken back in November (also a freezing cold day!) It was probably lucky the weather was so chilly - it had rained all day the day before and the river was high. The cold weather helped keep the kids safe from the raging river! 

raging rapids for the Eno thanks to recent rain

 We headed out down the trail towards the foot bridge. The kids were in good spirits and all headed out with great energy on the trails.  There were a few trip-ups along the way, but they actually did pretty well navigating the bumpy terrain.

down by the river, racing to the bridge

4 of 6 kids, posing in front of the steps up to the bridge

starting to cross before putting the camera down to grab hands. the kids all did just fine on the bridge!

big kids headed out with no hesitation

view up the river from the bridge

After crossing the bridge, we headed up towards the group camp area. The kids thought the fire pit area was fun for pretending. Hayden tried to organize the group to put on a show with the tent flats as the stage. She had a lot of volume but her minions didn't want to cooperate. 

all alone after her minions ran away from her ministrations

Six kids, all looking at the camera!

After explorinng the camp, we headed down to the river to walk back to the log cabin. The kids had a BLAST running around the cabin. In and out of the rooms, circling the cabin, climbing in and out the windows. I don't know why the phrase is "pitter patter" of little feet because they sounded more like a herd of elephants!

sparkly river, even in the chilly spring weather

cabin! cabin! cabin!

peeking out a window

 After rampaging around the cabin for a while, we headed back to the foot bridge and back up to the picnic area by the parking lot. Even Molly wanted to cross the bridge on her own. And everyone walked back up the trail without much complaining. Lunch was especially delicious after all that fresh air. Much food was gobbled up!

Molly heads across on her own

view down river from the bridge

Lunch!

Lunch was pretty early (the kids were asking to eat at 11 am, but we managed to push them till after 11:30!) so we decided to do some more exploring. We headed down to the next parking area to the Few's Ford access. We walked the short trail down the the ford and discovered that it was a good thing we didn't need to ford the river - it was full! Even though we couldn't wade into the ford, the kids found that throwing rocks into the river was just as much fun. The pictures barely capture the glee with which every kid chucked rocks into the river!

Hayden helps lead the way

all 6 in one frame again, checking out the unfordable ford

pure delight at chucking rocks

heave ho!

After a sufficient number of rocks had been tossed, we did a little more exploring up to a nearby bluff to check out the view. Then we walked back to the car and headed home for quiet time. Despite worries of rainy weather and rowdy kids, we had a wonderful time. One of the highlights of our stay-cation!

Spring Break

We had a stay-cation for spring break this year. I tried to plan something fun for each day, which was good, but we probably could have used even more down time just at home! We went to a new allergy doctor for Eliza, went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, walked into the new development behind us to play at the new playground, went for a hike at the Eno, had playdates at other kids' houses, made cloud dough, swam in the indoor Y pool, and tried making our own pupusas. That makes me tired just remembering all those activities! We had a good time though - some of which was documented on film. And after all that, then it was the weekend again and we were busy doing Easter stuff like egg hunts, dying eggs and eating candy.

heading across the dirt to the not-yet-paved road behind our house (after walking thru woods). So looking forward to construction of a house here! (not!)

Early in the week, we went to the park while braving the arrival of a thunderstorm

laughter on the swings

she decided to squeeze her eyes shut when I went to take her picture - her current form of hiding

teeter totter - it works great!

Eliza in the bubble

Molly in the bubble

Blizzard didn't care about the playground on this visit

I thought this would be a cute picture but fitting 3 smiling kids in the bubble did NOT work out.

two fit okay though!

 mix oil plus flour and what do you get? Cloud dough!

feels like flour but can be molded into shapes

excited about ice cream at lunch with daddy after our museum trip

That's it on the photos. You'll just have to use your imagination to visualize how our pupusas looked. (For the record, they were okay, but not great. We'll need to keep working on them). And to see how the girls went down the polar bear slide over and over and OVER again at the pool. And to picture how prick tests on Eliza's back showed yet again that she is still allergic to cashews (but only cashews). But I do have pictures from the Eno - coming up next!

E is for Eliza and Eggs

As I mentioned in the last entry, Eliza had a field trip just before spring break. We got to go to Duke Gardens for a little educational program, have a picnic and do an egg hunt. Despite pouring down rain the day before, we ended up with decent weather and even all that soggy. Eliza and I both had a great time. I took my new lens to practice with and took lots of pictures - I've tried to stick to ones that have E in them for the blog, though sometimes that means they aren't the best picture to show what's going on. 

I loved the opportunity to watch Eliza with her classmates and see a little bit of how she is away from me. She was always up there at the front of the line as we moved from place to place, listening to whoever was talking and being fully engaged. We started out in a classroom in the welcome center where the educators (one of whom was my fourth grade teacher!) talked to the kids about butterflies and eggs and the like. 

E raising her hand to answer a question - she was eager to participate, even though sometimes she wasn't sure what to say

After the classroom part, we walked down to the native plants area. At the entrance, the educators demonstrated bird calls (with toy birds) and the kids were handed their binoculars they had made.  We then walked (somewhat) quietly up to the bird viewing area to watch for birds. The kids were actually pretty into it, though I'm not sure most of them really saw any birds!

must look thru binoculars IMMEDIATELY!

see any birds?

Then we headed down to the butterfly garden only to find that the butterfly garden was woefully behind in growing thanks to all the cold weather we've had. So no butterflies were seen but the kids acted out the lifecycle of the butterfly. 

no butterflies to be spotted

.... a little egg lay on a leaf....

skipping the hungry caterpillar we get to the chrysallis - that hangs!

stretch out your wings, you are a beautiful butterfly!

a beautiful tree nearby

After pretending to be a butterfly, it was time to feed the ducks! Lots of ducks were fed, no one fell in, and no one made a big issue about the very dead-looking turtle nearby in the mud.  Maybe he was just resting...

After the ducks were fed, it was time to feed the kids! We had a lovely picnic near the waterlily pond behind the welcome center. Nice dry stones to sit on and yummy food to munch on!

While the kids ate, the teachers hid eggs just down the hill. When everyone was done eating, the kids lined up and then they were off! They got to find one egg at a time, then bring it back to the basket. There was A LOT of energy in that area of the garden!

ready.... set.....

....GO!

look at her great form!

After all the eggs had been found (I wonder if they did find all the eggs, I don't know if they counted), the kids got their homemade bunny baskets and 6 eggs were distributed to each. Everyone went home happy!

comparing bunny baskets

showing off her handiwork

My car riders. One of E's best school friends is on her left.

Schools and Fools

We have been busy. Lots of activities, very little blogging. Time to catch up! Though we were on spring break last week, before that we had been having a lot of fun at school-related events. First, there was the Fun Run for Hayden's school.  I went to volunteer and even ran a few laps with her. The kids ran around and around the playground area and got beads for every lap - there were LOTS of beads by the end of it. I think Hayden ran 11 laps! She was very proud! 

ready set go! If you can find H, I'm impressed. I think you can only see her ponytail.

about half way thru - still running fast! She didn't stop for a water break till 7 laps!

carefully counting the beads

Second, we had fun celebrating April Fool's Day. It just happened to be the day that Molly was supposed to provide snack so I tried to come up with something tricky for 2 year olds. What do you think of my orange slices?! :) The teachers said the kids thought they were funny - one kid was kind of disturbed by them but couldn't stop eating them! 

speaking of Molly - this is how she hides sometimes these days. Just tucks her head down and shakes as she giggles!

 We also played an April Fool's Day joke on Hayden's class - but no pictures. She took in brown E's for snack. and brownies! She went around with a pan filled with E's cut out of brown paper - then subbed in real brownies after the joke had been played! I did one final joke on the kids' at dinner time. Watch and see....

Then right before spring break, we had a big day - a field trip for Eliza (to be covered in next entry) and Multicultural Night (MCN) for Hayden.  MCN was big for our family because I had signed on to be in charge of organizing food for it. So I was officially on the planning committee and concerned about the night's success. All kids were invited to create a display about a country. After going over the various connections in our family (Netherlands, UK, Germany, France, Finland), Hayden chose Finland. We found a sweet bread recipe (pulla) to make and then we went about researching Finland. 

 

We made the bread the Saturday before and it turned out beautifully! (alas no pictures). We polished off a loaf and a half and saved the other loaf and a half for sharing on Multicultural Night. For the display board, Hayden did an excellent job taking notes and helping pick out photos to put on the board. It was a fun project to do with her!

We were especially proud of the Finland connection part of the board that we were able to put together thanks to a letter from Granddad. Here's what it says:

Hayden is part Finnish! Her great-great grandparents were born in Finland around the turn of the last century. Her great-great grandmother, Fanni Hirvasniemi, immigrated to the United States in 1916 when she was 19 years old. Her great-great grandfather, Kaarlo Juntunen, immigrated to the USA in 1909 when he was 18.  They lived in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan where there was a large community of Finnish immigrants. When Hayden’s great grandmother started school at age 4, she only spoke Finnish! Hayden still has distant relatives in Finland, though she has never met them.