5 Mile Woods

we went hiking in 5 mile woods today to find 2 geocaches hidden there. we walked a total of 2.2 miles and Manny had to carry Skyler on his shoulders for the last part of the walk back.

It was our first time to this pretty park, not far from Oxford Valley Mall:
Most of the trails had these nice boardwalk structures to walk on:

Manny and Skyler walking:

There were a LOT of fallen trees. we were the only ones here except for one guy we saw walking the other way holding a GPS. Not sure if he was geocaching too.

The first find:

The second:

Shayna and Skyler checking out a ladybug:

After the hike, we went to the Valley Elem. Ice Cream Social at The Chill Factor, a small outdoor ice cream place. Skyler was asleep but when Manny said "ice cream?" he woke right up!

Patriotic Concert

Shayna was in a Patriotic Concert today at school. The entire 4th grade and 1st grade performed the concert. It was the kind of concert that melts your heart. It was so sweet, cute and entertaining that you had a huge smile on your face the entire time. Here is the outfit she wore:




They sang all the songs you know by heart, gave facts about the flag and US history, told a few jokes, sang some songs you remember but don't know all the words (the states song), and sang at least one great new "american" song you never heard but loved. all full of cute props.

It turned out that Shayna got a $20 gift card to AMC movies from the leftover girl scout cookie money. So Shayna and Manny went out to see the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Memorial Day cache run

we spent memorial day geocaching. It was hot out, but we went in the later afternoon. It was more pleasant in the air conditioned car and the nice cool woods than the house on such a hot humid day.

we first went on a short hike on a trail behind Pen Ryn school, to find this cache, next to shayna on the log. shayna always writes and draws something in the log book near our team boca sticker. we also now leave a Team Boca seashell in most caches we find. we have Team Boca fishies too for the bigger ones.
It was very pretty here- with a nice quaint view of the creek. Skyler and daddy watched the ducks.

after this we went to queen anne park, where shayna and I found it after parking only 200 feet away, but it was too bushwacky for skyler. Then we did a bunch of fairly easy small and micro caches- one near an Aldi market, one behind a toys R Us store, one under a park bench near an office complex, and one in a Lowes parking lot.

The owner of the HUGE cache we did the week before, Sam of Team Ducky, sent Shayna a "first to find" prize (he had changed the location and container). He sent her a cute little digital camera. She will try it out on her class trip to Pennsbury Manor on Thurday May 31st.

Mini Pool

Since it was so hot today, and we are not opening our pool because we are leaving on June 9th (its never ready by now anyway), I took out the little baby pool. Skyler had fun for maybe an hour until it got too hot and stuffy to be outside anymore.

It was nice not having to do all the work of opening up the pool. It was nice and relaxing. while I am still busy selling furniture and packing, its still nice not having to open the pool. Our new pool at our new house comes with pool service and its an in ground, its ready for us! also, it was actually hotter up here than it was down in Florida! we also get an ocean breeze there, and the air is cleaner so overall its much more pleasant being outside on a hot day.

Funny face brunch

I decided to make Shayna's brunch into a cute funny face:
makes you hungry doesn't it?

Dave and Busters

Shayna had her final girl scout meeting at Dave & Busters at Franklin Mills Mall. First they had dinner. The service was verrry slow, due to the tip being included. So dinner took almost 2 hours! Thier leader, Linda, brought cookies for them to decorate.

After dinner, we went into the game area. Shayna got a $10 card from tonight plus we had some other cards ($25 total) left over from her birthday a few years ago that we never used. I wasn't feeling well so after 2 games and 2 ticket mishaps we decided to leave, as it was getting late and I had to meet someone who was buying furniture.

we went back after Manny came home on Sunday the 27th, and had a great time. we used up all the credits. unfortunately, I found a really fun trivia game just as our credits were out so didn't get to play it much. we wound up with about 1300 tickets so the kids got some cool prizes: a pedometer/flashlight (turns out it does not have miles only steps taken), alligator tooth game (skyler loves this), car puzzle track with wind up bus (doesn't quite work it seems to need more track pieces), some kind of building toy pieces (skyler seems amused by these so far), mini wind up shark (seems pretty cool), and a bunch of dolphin erasers.

also, shayna left her bag full of badges (just 2) and never got to eat the cookie...this I found out when we got home and by the time we called it was gone. In fact, she almost left her girl scout vest but they held it up in the front as we were leaving. no biggie, I can order the 2 badges for her and won't be affixing all her badges (she has a few more not ironed on yet) until she joins a new troop in Boca anyway. Lesson to Shayna: don't take off your girl scout vest, and if mom isn't feeling well you must be extra vigilant with your belongings.

Tamanend Park

We spent the last 2 days geocaching in Tamanend Park in Southampton. Yesterday we attempted a FTF (first to find), but it was a 4 star difficulty so no luck. We did meet our first fellow geocachers, the "famous" M&W aka Mark and Wendy, who have about 52 caches hidden in the area. The caches hidden in this park (4 total) are all by Team Ducky, a man named Sam who leaves a rubby ducky behind.

On the way to cache site #1. What a pretty view:


This was cache #2, aptly named "Tweener" since its in between other 2 caches. M&W gave us a hint (not telling us which cache it was) and that helped us find it. This one is so small:

Skyler is holding the hiding item- a hollowed out log that the top comes off- the cache was inside the log:

The best was last, cache #3. This is the biggest cache box was have ever seen so far, its HUGE. There were a lot of new small toys inside. It also had a camera and the owner will post the pics when its full.

White City Ruins

Today we went to Trenton, NJ to do a geocache at Roebling Park. We had a travel bug that wants to go to state capitols. It happens that this site has a lot of history and is part of "Weird NJ." There is native american history as well as the ruins of an amusement park that closed in the 1930s.


This staircase to an old trolley stop was part of the white city amusement park.

Shayna getting the GPS ready.

Scenic view of Spring Lake:

a swan:

Shayna at the actual cache site where she found it. It was too steep for Skyler so we waited above.

Shayna and Skyler with the cache:

Falls Township Park

We went geocaching at Falls Township Park today. This is just north of Bristol and not far from Pennsbury Manor, right by the river. There is a big lake here and also a canal.


The first one we did was by the canal. We walked through a really picturesque small trail until we got to a buried mini house. It was hidden literally "under the roof" as the title suggested. Grandpa found it!

Conveniently, there was this nice fallen tree to sit on while we went through the box and signed the logbook. The canal is behind Shayna, Skyler and Grandpa in this photo. Skyler says "geocache"..."GPS"..."travel bug" all with perfect enunciation. I think he may think that "geocache" is the word for "park."

Shayna liked this tree branch to play on a la gymnast style, she was flipping around it:

We walked around the lake on an easy but boring paved path (when I say boring, Skyler showed boredom by his actions and Shayna says paved paths are boring and trails through the woods are much more interesting, and I agree). This took us to the "eat-cache" as Shayna nicknamed it but it really was called "work up an appetite" which it did as we circumvented the entire lake coming and going to this cache. Grandpa found this one too!! It was a bit difficult getting out, was really wedged under a rock. Its a recipe exchange cache, pretty cool.

Shayna looking at the logbook - I think she was drawing in it, while Skyler looks on:

Skyler enjoyed flopping himself over the giant stone table:

Carnival

When we went to Magnolia Lake, we did not find a geocache, but found something even better: a CARNIVAL. It happened that there was a carnival right across the street from Magnolia Lake in Bristol.

Skyler brought home a new buddy he won fishing: turtle.

Silver lake and Magnolia Lake

We went to both Magnolia lake and Silver Lake Park today (they are both part of the same park areas) to hike and look for geocaches. We were not successful in finding the "magnolia lake Knoll" geocache and could not get to ground zero for the other geocache there, but it was a very scenic and interesting looking lake. We did return to Silver lake for the geocache we didn't have time to find last Saturday, Dream of the Blue Dolphins. There is a nature center at Silver Lake, a garden, ampitheater, many bird feeders, and here is the pretty waterfall pond:

Spring Choir/Band Concert

Thursday night was the choir and band spring concert at Shayna's school, Valley Elementary. It was called "Valley on Broadway." The kids had on top hats, bow ties, and black vests with white tops and black bottoms. Shayna was in both the choir and band, playing the flute.

Here are 2 short video excerpts.

The first is of the choir and you can hear Skyler saying "oooh, aaaah."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuF42hCXOhQ


The second is of the band playing. part of the video is of Skyler's antics. he was dancing in the middle of the aisle (we were near the front as you can see). he was with his friend Corinna from preschool (her brother is in the choir, he is in Shayna's class). There are also some other kids in the aisle dancing/jumping around/laying on the floor on what I call "the mosh pit." I guess it gives kudos to the band, that they are enjoying it enough to get up and dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKvTZ9-DE-k

Presentation Day

Today was Presentation Day for the SIP students. They presented thier Independent Study Projects. Each student chose one topic to research and write a 3-5 page paper on. Shayna did hers on Death and Remembrance. The other students did Irish Dance, Candy, Paper, Dance in Culture, and Knights and Armor.

here is Shayna doing her presentation:
They did a group pic at the end. Notice Skyler is in the group pic. Skyler was funny during the presentations. He reminded me of a black church congregant. Every time something was said that he liked, he would repeat it with emphasis. For example, when the candy presentation was being done, every time Seth would say the word "chocolate" Skyler would immediately repeat "chocolate!!"

Group pic with Ms. Welch, the gifted teacher for elementary grades at Valley and Rush (all but Shayna, Anne Marie, and Eric are from Rush, they consolidate them every Thursday because there are not enough gifted kids at each school and it is best for the kids to be around more of thier peers.)

Pictured above Left to Right: Michael Nally, Skyler, Seth Miller, Shayna, Ms. Welch, Anne Marie McCarthy, Abhinov Sundaresan, Eric Rodriguez.

They are holding a prop from seth's candy presentation below. The extra kids are friends of some of the SIP kids from thier regular class. They were each allowed to invite 2 classmates. Shayna had Niti and Danielle.

At the end of each presentation there was a question and answer session. When Eric did his on dance, the boys started asking him to dance. It was towards the end and they were starting to get silly. They kept asking him and he said "NOOO." So someone said about Skyler, does he dance? and Shayna said, sometimes if you ask him. So she said "Skyler dance" and he danced! It was like little Mikey from the 70s cereal commercials....Skyler will do it!

Another World

The second geocache we did Monday was appropriately called "Another World" in Neshaminy State Park in Bensalem. It took us to a part of the park on the far corner that I had never been to. To get there we had to walk on the paved path through caterpillar land, through the magic brick pillars, through a short wooded path, and then out onto a "beachy" type vast area in the middle of all the woods.

Skyler experiencing a caterpillar for the first time. he said it tickled!!

DE River Access Park

Monday afternoon we did 2 geocaches, the first not far from my office. It was at the end of Station Ave. off of State Rd. in Bensalem. A little park on the river with boat access, grills and picnic tables. There were some people fishing here. I had never been to this spot before.

Here are Shayna and Skyer, they were watching the ducks. Skyler said "duck wet" when they came out of the water and walked by him. This is really the boat access but apparently its also the duck access as well.
The ducks:

Mothers Day

I had a very nice and relaxing Mothers Day. We spent part of the day relaxing outside, and met my parents for dinner at a very charming restaurant in Langhorne. Skyler was sooo well behaved, in spite of the fact I forgot to bring the activity backpack but he sat through the entire dinner without any fuss.

Silver Lake

I got a GPS Magellan Explorist 100 for Mother's Day (Shayna is holding it). We went to Silver Lake in Bristol to do a geocache there. My dad came along, it was his first geocache. Here are the kids and grandpa at the site where Shayna found the geocache. We saw quite a few rabbits in the park.

Muffins

Saturday we baked muffins, actually a premade dough log, that the kids were able to do about 99% by themselves.

Here is Shayna cutting them:


Shayna telling Skyler what to do, after he has the dough she cut:

Skyler putting the dough into the pan:

Skyler licking the cutting board, YUM!

The muffins were such a big hit that I got them again. Skyler insisted on having the last odd muffin.

We have also been making fruit smoothies (shake according to Skyler) almost daily, using skim milk, frozen yogurt or light ice cream, fresh bananas, frozen peaches, and mango nectar. sometimes we add blueberries. This way we get our fruit servings and calcuim (well me the kids get lots of calcium besides that too).

Mouse trap

We spotted a mouse in the house, so made this mouse trap to try and catch it alive. we put a cracker with peanut butter on the end of the tube. the idea is the mouse will climb up the book staircase, crawl through the tube to get the food, and then fall into the bucket.

Notice, we were also trying to lure him with good literature, if you look at the books there are some very good reads.

alas, the trap did not work, this is a smart mouse.