4th of July

Race and Emma came to Declo with us to celebrate the 4th of July with Devin's family! We started the day at the Rupert Parade.

     The horses and candy were a hit with the little girls! I thought it was funny what a big part the Mexicans played in the parade, being a celebration of America and all, but they were actually one of my favorite parts with their ornate outfits, horses and LEGIT mariachi music.






     These girls were so cute sharing candy, clapping for the people going by, and Holland waving to the pretty girls on floats :)  Ava got pretty freaked out by some of the weird car horns and "woop woop" sirens but she survived.  And we were SO glad to have had tents/umbrellas for shade!

That evening we headed to the Snake River for a pizza picnic before heading out on the water.

It was a beautiful, perfect night for going out on the water! We ended up watching Burley's fireworks from the boat which was such a neat experience - being so close and just floating beneath.  Ava was pretty freaked out by the fireworks at first.  Once we started calling them sparkly and "pop pop" like bubbles, she calmed down a little but if she heard the noise and wasn't looking in the direction of the firework it really scared her.  Luckily she falls asleep on boats and she slept through most of the entire show :) Pin It

Guns and war and stuff...

 Since our apt complex doesn't recycle, we take our old cans, cardboard, and milk jugs out to a desert and shoot them. 

 Idaho Military History Museum

 

Devin and I drove out into "the desert" on Saturday to go shooting with our .22s. They are so much fun (and cheap) to shoot, so we like to use them as much as possible.  I've made quite the improvement - what used to take me 5 tries AT LEAST to hit now takes one and I don't go waving my gun around as I walk, scaring Devin half to death.  I've come a long way and Devin is a fantastic shot as always :) I have no fear for our safety should intruders come along.
   We figured it would only go along with our day if we stopped at the free military museum on our way to Costco for free samples aka lunch. I love looking at stuff from WWII especially, and they had displays on the national guard, navy, army, marines, everything.  What interested me the most were the medical displays - so many uses for a muslin bandage and a scary looking amputation kit.  We, too, have come a long way! Pin It

Fourth of July

It was a LONG DAY but probably the most enjoyable of all the days we've been here in Meridian!

8:00 - Dragged ourselves out of bed for a pancake SCONE breakfast at the church and boy are we glad we did!  We sat by our friends the Richmans, who invited us to come out to Eagle Island with their family for the day. 

12:00 - Drove the short 10/15 minutes to A BEACH in Idaho!  Who knew?  Okay, not like the ocean, but there was sand and water and that's exactly what we wanted. 
My exact words to Devin before going to bed Tuesday night:  "I wish we lived near a beach."

5:00 - Went to Tara's for a BBQ with the Stricklands. The grill-master provided some scrumptious slabs of beef to go with the many delicious salads - jello salad, caprese salad, and cucumber/onion/vinegar salad.  And what kind of dessert could be used to celebrate our country more than apple pie?

8:00 - We headed home to pack up our bikes for Boise's firework show.  We love the trail that runs along the Boise river.  It took us right to the park where the fireworks would be going off.  Luckily, we spotted a place along the river to watch the fireworks that wasn't in the huge mass of people at the park and couldn't have asked for a better view.  (my cell phone's camera does not do them justice)
10:30 - Rode back to our car in 15 minutes thanks to watching the fireworks a little bit outside of the park (we hate traffic).

I've been reading a fantastic book (picture above) about some of the miracles that occured in the founding of our country.  It is amazing the stories that don't get told in history books/social studies classes just because someone might believe there was divine intervention, which could possible lead them to believe in God.  In my eyes, it's no coincidence that this is the only country of its kind - the freedoms and liberties that we have were indeed established and fought for by inspired men.  I've never had this kind of appreciation and love for America until just recently, which made yesterday that much more of a reason to celebrate. 

Happy Birthday AMERICA!

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Happy Presidents' Day!

I've never celebrated the real meaning of Presidents' Day like I have this year.  Being in a school really makes it fun, especially with kids who have never HEARD of the greats, like Abe Lincoln and G. W. :)  We did some really fun activities last week:

Abraham Lincoln

 I traced my friend to create a somewhat lifelike Abraham Lincoln and had the kids come see how tall he really was and then put a sticky note where the top of their head came to on his body.  It's not like no one is taller than 6'4" but compared to my little munchkins, it's up there!

Log Cabin

I also taught them about the penny while teaching about Abraham Lincoln and the best activity we did, which I didn't even take a picture of, was to make his log cabin by gluing 6 popsicle sticks onto blue construction paper, gluing a triangle piece on top for the roof, a rectangle piece for the door, and a square piece for the window.  And INSIDE the window, they got to glue a penny, heads side up, so that it looked like Lincoln was in the log cabin, how cute is that?! I got the idea HERE. 

George Washington

I know that Washington chopping down his dad's cherry tree is supposedly a myth, but it's still a fun story to tell and the cherry trees they made were so great!  They traced their arm/fist with brown crayon and colored it for the trunk, then dipped their thumbs in green for leaves and pinkies in red for the cherries.  They loved it!

This was a two-part activity.  Obviously we did the Lincoln side when talking about Lincoln, making his beard and hair out of ripped pieces of black paper (fine motor skills!) and then two days later on the back of the SAME Lincoln head, they made George Washington, using cotton balls for his hair :)

FUN FACT (and confession): I taught my kids that George Washington had really bad teeth, which eventually fell out.  that part is true.  Then I told them that he had wooden teeth for most of his life but that is WRONG and I just found out today - his dentist actually made him false teeth out of IVORY from the TUSK of a HIPPOPOTAMUS!  So much cooler than wood.

Stars and Stripes

Friday was my last day teaching my preschoolers and my teacher had a substitute, so I went all out for teaching the flag/George Washington, hence the Friday Fun Day face paint (colored chalk dipped in water). 

The kids had a cow when they came back from computers and saw my face painted - sometimes it's really easy to get their attention ;)  It was so fun to teach the stars:  the stripes are in a pattern, each star represents a state - which was the perfect transition to talking about G.W. being the first president when there were only 13 "states" aka. colonies. 

Basically, Friday was SUCH a fun day teaching the kiddos all by myself and talking with them all about things they know (they know a lot!).  Did you know they can sing the Star Spangled Banner and say the Pledge of Allegiance all by themselves?  Sometimes their heartfelt singing makes me teary-eyed, they are so precious and I hope they never lose that enthusiasm. 

I'm going to miss them a LOT but I'm also ready to experience something new :)

p.s. We actually spent Presidents' Day shopping and going to some really cool waterfalls - more on that tomorrow!


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