Monday 24th & Tuesday 25th, 2009

Monday comes around too quickly! Unfortunately, Mondays do not go well around here, it's hard to readjust to school and it's journal day - I'm determined that eventually they will accept that it's not going to change, so I am persevering, but it is a little bit of challenge!

We did make cookies in the afternoon, a super easy peanut butter cookie recipe: 1c peanut butter, 1c sugar, 1tsp vanilla, 1 egg. Bake for 8-10 minutes on 350. Caitlin made them and was very happy at the results, they were well received by everyone, I didn't say they were healthy!

Despite the cooler temps and a breezy day, the younger two wanted to go in the pool, they said it was warm. Nathan continues to swim at great distance each day, it's not a pretty sight, in fact one lady almost jumped in to save him. I reassured her that although it appears as though he is about to drown, he really doesn't want to be assisted and, in fact, will not drown!

We had a great fire. We have been very lucky in the past few weeks, collecting wood from vacated sites, we've only had to buy one lot of wood the whole trip so far. The kids think it's great fun on a Monday to look around and see which sites have wood left. The employees here actually came over at lunchtime, after they'd seen the kids on their wood-collecting mission, to let them know where there was more! Unfortunately, we'll have to burn it all before Thursday as we can't take wood over the border into Canada.

Today went very well on the school front. We were able to 'do gym' today in a couple of different ways. We went out on a peddle boat around the small lake, saw a very cute turtle sitting on the rock, which we stopped to gaze at before it fell in the water and swam off. There were loads of fish, we think they're extremely 'people friendly' as they swarmed to wherever we were, no doubt expecting some kind of edible treat - we had nothing!

Later in the afternoon, we took the Woodland Trail onto the Deep Woods Trail, which circles the campground. We were very glad that we'd applied OFF mosquito spray before entering the trail, it was particularly buggy! It was a great trail though, lots of insects, tree discussions, uprooted trees: science at its best. It took us close to an hour to wander through, stopping to investigate things, and get back to our site.

The pool was closed for some reason today, as a consequence, the campground was offering a free pass to the indoor spa pool at the Casino Resort: too good an opportunity to pass up. The campground also has a bus that runs constantly, on request, between resort and campground. We called it and it gave us door to door service, picking us up directly from our site: impressive!

The pool was warm, we enjoyed it, although the kids were unimpressed at the rules of no diving or jumping - what, no jumping in the pool, the deep end was 5ft?! We wandered around the casino before waiting in line for the buffet. This was, without question, the highlight of the day for Jake, he loves a buffet, he checked out what was on offer before putting anything on his plate! When he finally came to the table, he gave us a full rundown on every dessert available, so funny!

We spent time afterwards, admiring the fountains and explaining 'gambling' to Jake. He was struggling to understand why people would waste their money, although the penny slots did look like fun. The shuttle arrived as soon as we called and we arrived back in the dark, shame we had to put the kids to bed after all that sugar!

Comments

jocelyn said…
Ali,
I had no idea you and your family were on the adventure of a lifetime. I have spent quite some time today catching up on your blog. Safe travels. I look forward to your updates.

Jocelyn
brits on tour said…
LOL! Thanks Jocelyn, very sweet of you to read it - must've taken a while to go back a few days! I just really need to keep it updated for myself, we're doing so many different things and moving so frequently that I know everything will merge together and I won't be able to remember what we did when! I do hope it's vaguely interesting to others, at least the odd post here and there!
Unknown said…
Sounds like the kids are getting a wonderful education! Can't possibly imagine Evan being as pleasant as Jake regarding touring historical sites, or even letting me explain the wonders of a decomposing tree.
School starts in three days - E got Farrely and D got a new teacher Mr. Ruth.
Kathy
morningDove said…
how wonderful you are traveling with your children and homeschooling them. we homeschooled our 3 sons and i wish i could do it all over again and know what i know now. i think we would have traveled more. will check back soon.
brits on tour said…
Thanks morningdove, always good to receive encouragement - do you have a blog I could follow?
Ali

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