Moment of the Week

 

A very nice Fall Break!

Fall Break

The way I have our homeschool year scheduled we have four-one week breaks planned throughout the year.  

This week happens to be our first break.  After seven weeks I am grateful for a breather, and the weather this week is going to be amazing!  I could definitely take advantage of this time off to get my fall cleaning done too, but mostly I just want to relax.  

Monday we made the drive to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs.  

It is still an active dig site.  I think it is really awesome to have something so amazing so close to where we live.  

There are lots of mammoth skeletons in this site.

This site is actually a 26,000 year old sink hole.  So I've stood in a prehistoric sink hole, I can check that off the to do list of life.

It was a great field trip!

I am so looking forward to enjoying this week.

Lucy the Pup

 This is Lucy.  

Our puppy.  

Why would we get a third dog?  Who cares.  She is part of our family now, and she is sweet and adorable.

Lucy is a schnoodle.  Her dad 'Snoopy' was a toy poodle and her mom 'Oreo' was a miniature schnauzer.   She has been a wonderful addition to our household in so many ways.

  Nate is completely in love.  He is taking the job of feeding, watching, and playing with her very seriously.  We send her out probably ten times a day and most of the time I send Nate out with her, to keep her out of the garden and to report if she has done her business.

She:

 has puppy breath, 

loves eating leaves and grass,

cries to get up on the sofa to cuddle, 

wants to eat the big dogs' food, 

barks like she means it to defend the yard against neighbor dogs, 

weighs almost 4 pounds,

cuddles with Bonnie then two seconds later riles her up to play hard,

prefers Bonnie's large toys to the little toys we bought her,

is successfully crate trained,

sleeps through the night,

had a great time on her first leashed walk,

rarely has accidents in the house,

barks to go out to play-but not to go out to do her business,

LOVES Bonnie and follows her everywhere,

Loves Anna when Anna tolerates her.

Speaking of Anna.  This old gal has been having trouble with her eye over the past few months.  We took her in and after lots of tests found out she has really bad dry eyes that has damaged her left eye pretty badly.  She has drops now that will hopefully keep her from loosing any more sight in that eye, and keep her other eye healthy.  For a nearly twelve year old dog she is in good health otherwise. 

These canines are members of our family. 

Moment of the Week

These girls have become fast friends.

 

 

 

Where you find one you are likely to find the other.

One Year Ago

A year ago today our neighborhood looked like this.

The Atlas blizzard hit us hard.  Knocking out power, downing trees, leaving behind 41 inches of wind blown snow.  It was epic on our street.  Trapped in our neighborhood for days moving the snow, chainsawing the tree branches, sharing grilled cheese sandwiches.... was a real bonding experience.

   

This past summer our neighborhood had it's first block party.  The main topic of conversation was the blizzard.  Also it was a ton of fun!  The kids (and grownups) had a water balloon toss, the potluck food was good, and we had an impromptu garden tour of all of our backyards.   

We declared we needed to do it again before winter hits and we are all trapped inside.

So our Chili cook-off was planned for the anniversary of the Atlas storm.  

A proper fall get together! 

 I am going to make spiced cider.

And since I'm in charge of fun, I have apples for bobbing, and donuts to eat, hands-free, off string.

 This is part of the reason we love living here in South Dakota.  We hit the neighborhood jackpot. 

In other news: The living room carpet is being cleaned(it's been WAY too long) in preparation for something new being delivered tomorrow!    

A Fall Day

This morning we drove west to Spearfish where there is a corn maze and pumpkin patch.  The property had lots of fun stuff to do like duck races....

... And a hay jump!

Then of course was the 17 acre corn maze.

We all had a really fun time walking, and sometimes running, through the maze.

Thankfully we had a map, because I could have seriously become lost.  I cannot imagine walking through in the dark.  My amygdala gets amped up just thinking about it!

After we made it out we went through the pumpkins, picking out a few big ones and lots of little ones.

We won't carve them until the week of Halloween, but it was a perfect crisp fall day, so we took advantage of it!

It was a fun family outing for sure!

Now I'm off to get apples for bobbing, donuts for eating off string, and cider for our neighborhood's fall block party tomorrow! 

Moment of the Week

A puppy named Lucy

FINALLY caught up with school!  We have time for fun stuff again!