Mommy Camp 2015

MommyandmeMegan is my guest speaker today:

This year me and Mommy are in Mommy Camp. The other kids are at Jr High (Andrea), Juniors (Adrian), Jump Start (Audrey with her friend Casteel) and Sr. High (Mark) at Lake Ann Camp.

We play a lot. We work at clean up the whole entire house. We make dinner. Yesterday we painted and caught fishes. We played outside. Today we are going to play outside. We ate some candy.

Mommy helped me take this picture.  Mommy put it on the timer.  I got to focus it. I had to push the button in and then I run to Mommy. Then it took a picture.

Mommy Camp is FUN!

Maple Syrup Update

bucketsIt has been a crazy year for syrup.  We started tapping in January, but then the weather turned very cold and we did not get any sap for a few weeks.  It warmed up and we brought in a few gallons of sap before the weather froze up again!  We still have buckets out, but we have not had enough cold nights and warm days to collect sap.

We are often asked how much sap is needed to make syrup.  We usually boil down around 35 gallons of sap for each gallon of syrup.  The kids check the trees most days to make sure the buckets do not have mold.  They empty the sap collected to store in the shade so it does not spoil.  Once we collect enough sap, we do most of the boiling down outside.

PancakeEven with the crazy weather, we were able to can 6 1/2 pints of syrup.  We are hoping for more, because that won’t last very long.  But we are all thankful for what we were able to get.

Half

MeganToday is Megan’s half birthday. She is now “two” years old.

HalfThis morning, she started asking me, “Where’s my birthday cake? It my half birthday. I 4 1/2 but everyone tease me that I am only 2”.  She asked about her cake a lot!

We tried to keep her cake a surprise, but I think she knew that we would celebrate. The kids gave her some small gifts and Megan was very happy.

Bragging on Mark

Mark has been entering the Elkhart Park’s Photo Contest since 2009.Mark While he can spend hours photographing machine parts, such as this year’s Honorable Mention winner , “Whistles”, he enjoys photographing anything that catches his eye.  This year he also earned HM ribbons for his “Garter Snake” and “Boxed In” entries.

Chemistry is Mark’s favorite subject this year.  He is thankful for his daddy who can help him when it does not make much sense.  He enjoys the reading part of literature most of the time. When he finishes his book work for the week Mark likes to spend time programing with Arduino.  Right now he is working on an alarm clock.

Master McGuire prefers being outside, no matter the weather.  He is often found exploring the woods.  Mark also likes to work hard chopping wood,  shoveling snow, or spending time with “his” alpacas.  Most mornings, Mark is up before school so he can run three miles.

Mark would love to find a camera small enough that he can carry around to get unexpected shots but not feel like he has a camera attached to him. His favorite unplanned photograph was of a bald eagle he noticed flying after dropping his sisters off at a friends house.

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