Travels and Friends

We've been very busy for the past few weeks. We went on a trip which started out in Plymouth, MA at an Unschooler's Camp Out. Where Ryan met a new friend, Mauve, and found she shared his love of sticks.

Ethan, Declan, and Will discovered a sunny place to relax.

I managed to get all the kids in one photo. This was Ryan's fire, but he decided to share. He built lots of fires on this trip and learned "black smithing" which is, apparently, the art of blacking one end of stick so that it can be used to write on rocks.
Next we went to Grammy's cabin in NH. The fun with fire theme continued there. Grammy liked the fires.
Ethan built his first fire with a little help from Ryan and Mimi.
In honor of In spite of it being Learn Nothing Day, Uncle Gareth showed Ethan a how to use a bow and arrows.
Mimi and Ba took the guys for a canoe ride. Of course anyone can ride in the canoe. It's much more challenging to get pulled along in an inner tube.
Ethan spent hours following the ducks in the pond. He quacked at them and they were very accommodating. He got really close to them. After a few hours, he announced that being a duck was great, but without feathers it gets pretty cold even if the lake is warm.

Water always looms large in our family, so went to Jacob Riis Park last Tuesday and caught some gnarly waves.
There were a few wipe outs, but both Ethan and Ryan are ready to go again tomorrow. They say this is the best beach in the world. I have to agree. It has been my favorite beach since childhood.
Amazing water fun continued at Jean's wonderful potluck. The food was yummy and there lots of cool unschoolers. Jean lives mere blocks from the ocean, so naturally, everyone headed there for an afternoon swim. It was a great time to catch up with friends, old and new.
I couldn't resist posting in this photo of Kim. Gotta love a girl who knows what to take to the beach.
Finally, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Sunday. Ethan wanted to wait to see it at an Imax with Ryan, all 3 mommies, Aunt Jo, and Uncle Joe. We met up in New Rochelle, NY and while we were walking to the theater, Ethan decided to pause to let Wolverine hang on a tree.
All in all, a very satisfying and refreshing few weeks.

New Hampshire, New Fridge, New Haven

July was quite the month, but I'm going to start out with today because it's fresh and amusing. Ethan and Ryan stayed home with Mama Jeanne today while Esther and I set out to get a refrigerator. The old downstairs fridge died a horrible death last month and we had no choice but to get a new one. We got an amazing deal since Sears was having a sale and we had a $50 coupon.

While we were in Sears, we got a phone call from Mike Alumni Cruises. We just booked our rooms for the Unschooling Adventure Cruise in October of 2009. In order to talk to him, Esther wanted to sit down. We ducked into the nearest dressing room and sat down in a stall. While she was talking, I listened for a while then looked around the stall. I noticed a very large pair of shorts hanging on a hook.I thought it was odd that they were men's shorts. Then I looked at the other clothing in the stall. It was all men's clothing. She finished the phone call and left. The sales associate outside looked very confused. We just smiled and walked away.

In other news, we spent 10 days in New Hampshire at Kim's cabin. The first two days Esther and I had to work. If you've ever wondered what we really do at work, here's a picture of breakdown. Mike is one of the show producers and the girl pushing him is Georgia, child of one of the other vendors.



Back at the cabin, there was lots of game playing,

and hanging out by the pond.
There was also a day of bowling. We won a free game of ten-pin bowling last year at the Firemen's Auction and cashed it in this year.

We got to spend with Kim and she got to spend time with Croydon.
Ryan loved having s'mores each night. It was even better the night we had the fire, s'mores, sparklers, and fireworks.

Of course all that fun in one night can make you very tired.
Ethan liked getting up early and waiting near the dock for anyone else to get up and go swimming with him.
Both Ethan and Ryan liked having Uncle Stephan's and Uncle Gareth's friends come up. Callen played guitar and that was very cool.

Now we're back in New Haven and looking forward to a day at Lake Compounce on Monday. Right now though, we 're having fun playing Webkinz and Puzzle Pirates.