Visit with Gran and Pop

Last weekend my parents came to visit. The girls were so excited to hear that Gran and Pop were coming!

On Saturday my dad and I went to the Farmers' Market AND the grocery store. He bought all my things and my pantry was FULL! It was so wonderful. Mike went skating while my mom stayed with the girls. He had a great time as well. Slightly sore and probably wishing for hip pads, but still had fun.


Saturday afternoon, while the men stayed home and cooked, the women went out shopping. As it should be!


The girls all got new shoes! How wonderful, and perfect timing as the weather has cooled off quickly.

Liv

Even Laurel will suffer a stranger for new kicks!

Gran tries to wrangle for a picture.

Thanks for visiting us, Gran and Pop! Thanks for the food, gifts and new shoes!

Waldorf Co-op - Week 1

What a great start to our Waldorf co-op! We have three new families joining us this year, adding a total of 7 new little friends. So now in all there are 7 families with 19 children ages 3 months to 8 years.

Our first day was a little bit out-of-sorts. We discovered that the spot where we normally meet at the park was being used by the staff for a program. Since the parking area is so small, and we had the flexibility, we moved our group just up the hill to the picnic shelter until we could get back to our usual place.

Teaser pic - keep on reading!

A small trail behind the shelter goes down to the lake. I took most of the kids (about 10) for a hike. The older boys ran ahead and by the time I had caught up with them, they were knee deep (literally) in mud! The lake had receeded, leaving a wonderfully gooey mudflat. With such an amazing opportunity for mud play, we put co-op on hold for the kids to enjoy the muddy mayhem.

They were all very hungry (and dirty!) since lunch was quickly approaching. We took full advantage of the outdoor sinks at the picnic shelter to get the kids (semi) clean. Luckily, I have a "close relationship" with the park's General Manager, so he came by to clean up our mess.

As soon as we got back to the creek and picnic tables, we set up for lunch. I sang a little verse while passing our the placemats I had made for the group. The kids instantly settled down and were ready for our blessing:

Earth who gives to us our food,
Sun who makes it ripe and good,
Dearest Earth and Dearest Sun,
We will not forget what you have done.




One of the mommas reads a story while the kids finish eating. It was amazing how much more peaceful lunch was that day, as opposed to how lunches go during playdates and last year's co-op. Definitely a new tradition!

After lunch, one of the mommas leads the children (except mine, who refused to participate) in some gentle yoga.

After yoga, they "om" or "aum".

Then we moved on to our circle. I don't have any pictures of that unfortunately. We sang our songs, lit our candle, then I told the story "The Giant Turnip". I was really happy with how it went. We moved from that into movement verses and more songs. I think that for next week, we should transition from the story (passive) to the movement verses (active) with a more quiet fingerplay. The kids really seemed to be jolted out of the story by jumping up and doing the song. Some of them didn't even jump up! So I think we need a better way to ease them out of the story. Hmmmmmm.............
After story, we moved onto crafts! For our first craft, we did watercolor.

I like to give my girls one color at a time - starting with yellow, then red, then blue. They fully enjoy and explore one color before adding the next. As always, the painting ends up a dark blue-green-brown. But that's okay, because right now they are just enjoying the painting (verb) and don't care about the outcome painting (noun).

All mommas agreed that it was a GREAT day! I'm so excited about this year!!!!

Beach Trip: Day 5 and 6 (Tuesday and Wednesday)

OOPS - I accidentally uploaded 2 days worth of photos. So this post is quite large, but worth looking at I hope.

Day 5 - Tuesday

Monday night Mike went to the grocery store and stocked up on food for us. So on Tuesday morning, we were anxious to pack a lunch and head to the beach! The waves were too rough for any kind of swimming, but there was lots of time for jumping waves and building a magical castle for the mermaids and sand faeries.

After our nice picnic lunch and lots of play, we went back to our room and read stories for a while. Then we hit the kiddie pool for lots of swimming and splashing.

Day 6 - Wednesday

This was a great day! We went to Jockey's Ridge State Park in Kittyhawk. It is the largest natural sand dune system on the east coast. The largest dune is between 90 and 110 feet tall, depending on winds.

On top of the first dune, Lela shields Liv's eyes from the blowing sand.

Source of fresh water - vernal pool where rare toads breed.

We had the highest kite on the dunes that day.

The wind was very strong - 30mph - so I had to hold the kite. The girls were not capable of holding onto it! We had nearly 500 feet of line out at one point!

Green tree frog

Amazing! We found this little gal hopping around one of the two small tree and vine tussocks in the middle of the dunes. She was about 150meters away from the vernal pool shown in the previous picture.

We put her on a nice leaf and shared some of our water with her, to clean her up and rehydrate her delicate skin. In gratitude, she posed for some pictures.

Black and white photo series - playing in the dune grasses.

Racing up the dunes!

Lela and Liv climbing the biggest dune at Jockey's Ridge.

My favorite picture from Jockey's Ridge.

In the afternoon, we went to the Nags Head Nature Preserve. It is an globally rare ecosystem - maritime forest. Where we lived in Virginia Beach, at First Landing State Park, is also an globally rare ecosystem. So it felt just like home. Beautiful forested dunes, plants that are usually found in the piedmont and mountains, freshwater swamps and marshes.

We only got to walk two short trails, totaling 1 mile, but enjoyed every minute of it. Here are some highlights:

Tiny, tiny mushroom growing beside a fruiting partridge berry.

Partridge berry is normally found in the mountains and some parts of the piedmont.) For reference, the berry is a bit smaller than a dogwood berry. We had a great time imaging what faeries made this sweet little mushroom their home.

Stunning yellow mushroom.

After all the rain on Monday, the mycological life was quite abundant.

And as if seeing ONE green tree frog in a day weren't special enough - here is a second!

Not quite so glamourous, living in a PVC pipe in the middle of a maritime forest. Only a couple miles away from the green tree frog living in the middle of the largest sand dune system on the east coast. When we peeked inside, there was another tree frog down there. It was too dark to identify though.

Forested dunes.

Imagine that the shore used to be just on the other side of those dunes, but over time land was created and colonized. We lived between sand dunes just like these in Virginia Beach.

Posing on a float dock at a little freshwater pond.

These sources of freshwater, if you remember, are vitally important to all life on the Outer Banks. Including people, since are not visitors in nature, we are a part of nature. We felt very grateful to visit this special place.