Walk in the woods: Beau's preschool grad day.

Beau enjoyed his couple of months of preschool. He learned a few new songs. He dealt with being around some kids who were different than him & made friends with some kids he'll go to school with next year.  He had a tornado drill, & became familiar with the school bus. 
And that pretty well sums it up.
He was proud to graduate.

We had a good walk in the woods the day of his graduation.

He stopped to smell the trilliums
(which, he found, don't have much scent.)

Spotted a tiny Spring Peeper in the leaf litter.

Admired the delicate starflowers.

Carefully took a closer look at the Jack in the Pulpit.

And felt the softness of new ferns. 

It means the world to me that his (and all of our kids') most important & influential classroom has been at home & hands-on during these early developing years.  
And it is my hope that they always learn from their surroundings, by experiencing as wide a range of positive experiences as possible, and by being good observers.
 
Develop a passion for learning.  If you do, you will never cease to grow.  -Anthony J. D'Angelo 

End of school year 2012

Whew. Today is the kids' last day of school.
Busy, busy times have come with May.
We've watched about thirteen baseball games, put in long miles & late school nights for some.
We've had birthday parties, graduation parties, school events, & more.

Lilly's 2nd grade class put on skits & did a mini-graduation ceremony earlier this month.

 

The following day was elementary Track & Field Day.  She & Johnathan were speedy & strong as ever. We had fun watching.
Lilly is not a big fan of acting/performing for a crowd (as was pretty easy to see in her skits the day before.)  When it comes to running, this seems to be an advantage though.  She's so quick to get off the track & out of the public eye, she sprints to the starting point, whizzes through her race, and doesn't even stop at the finish line, keeps running right off the track.
She took first in her events, and was out of sight in no time. :)

Johnathan's 3rd grade class had a successful day competing against the 4th grade.   And they looked really cool in the tie dye shirts they made together.

The boys pulled a tug of war victory against the 4th grade boys.  Johnathan ran the final leg of the relay race, finishing strong for his team with the win.

We often have parents warn us about how busy we're going to be, going different directions for activities as the kids get older.
May 17th we had our first real scheduling experience with this.
Mason & Eric were playing their first varsity start, while Beau was to be graduating from preschool a block or so away at the school.  We wanted to be there for both.
We were able to watch most of the game before making it to graduation in time.
Beau was so patient & composed, waiting at the end of the line with the W's & Z's to have his name called & receive his preschool diploma.
Our kids are always the still ones at these things, while the kid next to them pokes in their faces & kicks at their heels.  They're all five the same in that way.
He was a cool cucumber.

He had kindergarten round up last week.  And again, made me so proud!  It was the sweetest thing, watching him listen to the bus driver as she went over school bus safety. Many kids were being corralled, restrained, hushed - and Beau stood next to the driver in front of the group, listening, and nodding courteously as she spoke. My heart swelled, to watch him. :) He's going to do so well in kindergarten next year!

Mason & Eric, as mentioned, have been very busy with baseball practice, games, & tournaments.  They've evolved to the varsity over the second half of the season, and are doing great.  The younger kids have done well with all the time aside the chainlink fence, too.

Last night we traveled to Carlton to watch a subsection play-off game.  It was a great one.  A rally, a tie, three or four extra innings. Eric had a crucial RBI hit & fielded the final out of the game for the win.

We've been all over the map this whole month.  Off to the next tournament game this evening.  We tossed in moving a piano from Minneapolis, looking at property in Crane Lake, and Lilly's 8th birthday this past week, too.
Tomorrow we welcome summer vacation with open arms!

What I'm working on Wednesday : Vintage Lockers

I acquired a set of vintage lockers last month - from the same beautiful old factory where I got my clock.
They're old, and fantastic.  Four units with eight lockers in all. 
Mine turned out the winning bid by a whopping twenty-five cents!  I was pretty excited.

Over the years someone had started painting three of the four units in a fairly messy fashion, right over the original number plates & all.  They had also acquired some nifty stickers that were the heavy duty kind & very stuck.
My new lockers were awesome, but needed a little work.

Finally I had a day dedicated to tackling them on Sunday. (between seven baseball games, and several events last week & this week.) 

We had picked up a wire brush attachment for the grinder (for another project of mine) and decided that was the best method to get the bad paint off. 

Mitch is certified in the lead handling department, and we went about things in a lead cautious manner without kids around, just in case. 
It took some time & elbow grease, and after getting stuck in the leg with loose flying wires again & again (ouch!) then finally getting hit in the cheek with one, I smarted up & found some safety glasses, not really wanting a wire in my eye.   But the wire wheel did the trick.

The (amazingly cool) hardware and doors are riveted on.. but I was able to remove the number plates to clean them up. 

Along with their number, they each read:
Waterman Waterbury Company
Minneapolis Minnesota
So I did some looking for the name while waiting for new paint to dry.
After searching vintage lockers vaguely off & on for a couple of weeks I hadn't seen anything similar to these.  But with the info from the hardware, this turned up; lockers identical to mine in an old advertisement.

I love the reference to "cloak rooms."
The ad is found in the American School Board Journal, Volume 59, dated July 1919!

It's actually a really fun publication to look through.  Some good history.  Many of the ads for slate, desks, pianos, and every kind of vintage school supply you can imagine- are downright charming. 

And so are my lockers now that they're shaped up!

Today I worked on prepping the space where they are to go in our entryway, and then they'll be moving in.
Can't wait!
Better photos to come.  (maybe even a before & after reveal)

PS: Yes, I've been creating my own witticisms on the popular "What I Wore Wednesday."
I must say, I wore my pink rain coat this evening to the awards/sports banquet at the school, and I even managed to feel fashionable.  But I'll stick to where we went & what we're working on.
I guess that's more my style.

New Turtle; Painted Hatchling

We've documented over the years that our old  pond turtle is usually first seen out sunning herself around the last week in May - first week in June.

With warmth & changes arriving early this year, I was curious if we'd have earlier than usual turtle sightings, too.

I didn't have to wonder very long.   Johnathan saw a turtle out on the small pond on Saturday, the 12th of May.   And then he found this little miracle, which he first confused for a piece of stick in the the dark, weedy water.

Tiny thing.   It's little egg tooth was still prominent.

And our first sign of new turtle life here!  
After all the years of the same old turtle, seeming so alone, some of the other Road Rescues we introduced must have finally stuck around.
Or - it does take females turtles here in the north more than a decade to mature (as many as 11-16 years) -maybe she just finally became a mom. 
Whatever the reason, we were pretty excited. 
Johnathan brought the turtle straight in the house to me, dripping net & all, so I could untangle it's tiny claws.  It kept pretty tucked into it's shell.  So sweet & new!
We took a few pictures, then Johnathan immediately took it back to where he found it.   He was pretty concerned that it have food.
A special find.  We'll be keeping an eye out for it, hopeful to track it's growth & success.

 Chrysemys picta.  Bambino.

The kayaks are here!

We've been looking forward to getting kayaks for some time now.  (Especially Johnathan & I.)
We got just two of them, not quite realizing that the younger kids would set to the pond on them & never want to come off.  They've been floating & paddling around at every available moment.
We may have to outfit ourselves with a whole fleet for the family.






Spying water spiders...

So far we've had a busy week & haven't made it off the pond.
Looking forward to exploring new & old waters soon.

Where We Went Wednesday: Canal Park, Duluth.

We had to make a trip to Duluth today. Mitch met with his material salesman, and we picked up a truckload of stuff.

Over the past couple of years it's become kind of a special treat for Beau & I to get to be out & about with Dad on a weekdays like this.
When we're through with all things work-related, we have lunch down by Canal Park at our favorite place. Then we go for a walk. Beau always wants to see the big ship nearby. We might stroll under the lift bridge before it's time to get on the road home. 
It's also a treat visiting Canal Park mid-week when it's not crowded with people.
I had my camera along during another one of these special days last March.

Duluth, in all my memory, is usually chilly or windy (or both.)
Today was beautiful. Warm, and as calm as the water on Lake Superior ever gets.

Lunch was good and then we went to see the big ship. 

We're usually downtown throughout winter & earlier spring months.  Summer gets busy, for us, and for Canal Park, where it gets ridiculous just trying to finding a place to park. 
This is the first time in many visits that the slips were in.

 

As I was taking a picture of Dad & Beau, they spotted another big ship leaving the harbor. 

This one was really booking.  I only caught a photo of the tail end of it as it passed under the lift bridge.
We walked over to the pier & the park.  The rocks were warm from the sunshine, it was nice hanging out on them a while.
Beau found a chalk rock.

He & Dad skipped rocks across the water and I came home with a couple of pockets full of my favorite washed-smooth ones.

I think I was born a rock picker. 

I still have rocks from Canal Park that I collected as a kid. 

Beau tried to sneak up on a seagull.  We played a little more by the rocks & water. 

And then it was time to head home to meet the other kids after school.

On our walk back to the truck, I took my usual crossing-the-street photo of the lift bridge.
This time I actually had a second or two before traffic came & I got a clear shot.
Lucky day.