Pictures from This Week

The boys and I did some chalk art drawings for Mother's Day gifts.

We've also been painting some rocks.

Evening walks still happen a few times a week.

And wildflower picking on those walks.

On Wednesday afternoon, elementary schools in the county did bus parades with teachers along the bus routes.  We waited at the bus stop we've never actually used for almost 2 hours but the buses finally came!  It's not like we had another better to do :)

Unfortunately neither of the boys' homeroom teachers were on the buses that came to our neighborhood but they did have some of their other teachers.

On Friday we met Jen's family at Deerwood Arboretum for some walking and geocaching.  Carter also climbed a tree.

Carter and Rylan have been running a mile every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  They do 3 loops to make the mile and plan to add one more loop this week to their runs.

I fixed our wood bee traps at the beginning of the season but there are still tons of wood bees trying to destroy our screened porch and playhouse.  The boys have started used tennis rackets and a wiffle ball bat to take care of them for me.  Apparently Gray took one swing with the bat and decapitated one of the bees.  The boys blocked off the "crime scene" to show us.

Kayaking

Last Sunday we finally got the kayaks out.  And this time we didn't send them flying off the minvan into an intersection or break a windshield :)

Though we did order a trailer and hitch for my van this weekend so that it will take much less time to load and secure the boats.  We are hoping this encourages us to go more often!

We kayaked on Percy Priest Lake up in Nashville.  We launched from Smith Springs Park and then went around Hole in the Wall Island and Pig Island.  I attempted to map our route afterwards and got almost 7 miles.

The wind wasn't horrible but we were going with it on our way out and we knew it was going to be tough on the return.

Carter used Brian's sea kayak and I used mine.

We finally got our new boat on the water (the Feelfree Corona - nice name) for the first time with Brian, Gray, and Rylan in it. 

It was a pretty quiet morning on the lake with enough but not ridiculous boat traffic.

The first island we got to was called Hole in the Rock Island.  We discovered this little passage (which the island is obviously named for) and ventured in.

This quiet little area was peaceful and it gave Rylan a chance to try out Brian's kayak before deciding he'd rather stay on the big boat.

Heading back out ...

The rock walls were tall on this side of the island.

This monster tree was at the end and it's were we stopped and let the boys play in the water for a bit.

After a swim we headed over to Pig Island and started battling the wind.  I ended up attaching a tow rope to Carter's boat to help him out.  It was still easier than maneuvering Brian's 3-man boat.  We took another shorter break at Pig Island to rest up before the long paddle back into the wind.

It was great to finally be back out on the water.  We are hoping to do it a lot more often now that we have open weekends.

Pictures from This Week

We tried out the stained glass chalk drawings last Saturday.  That took up about 10 minutes :)

Rylan had a Zoom birthday sing-a-long for one of his classmates. 

On Sunday, Carter's homeroom teacher (Ms. Guerre) delivered a yard sign for him!  The 5th grade party committee sold t-shirts to the 5th graders earlier in the school year, and we used the profits from this to buy the signs (usually that money would help pay for their two parties, graduation ceremony, and keepsakes).  All the 5th grade teachers delivered the signs to their students over the weekend (while social distancing, of course).

On Tuesday we went hiking with Jen's family on some trails behind her parents neighborhood of Westhaven.  I had no idea there were trails back there but they are pretty nice and there are several miles.

Afterwards the boys and I participated in another birthday parade.  This one was combined for 2 kids that live across the street from one another and we were actually invited by both families.  Davis is one of Rylan's friends and Tori was in Carter's class this year. This time we added a mustache to the front of the car, Gray dressed up as a gangster banana, and we blared Peanut Butter Jelly Time out of the car. 

Our container garden is doing well.  We had a really bad late frost a few weeks back and had to replace the tomato plants and 2 pepper plants (we had covered them but it wasn't enough).

One of the tomato plants has flowers.

As does one of the pepper plants.

And we have a few more strawberries getting red.

Two of Rylan's friends had a distance laser tag birthday party on Tuesday night.  Davis and Ryan have the same birthday (but Davis is one year older).  They invited 4 friends (including Rylan) and played laser tag in the dark.

Rylan looks like quite the ninja!

We haven't been going on quite as many evening walks lately since we go hiking more often but we still do some.

We met Jen's family for hiking at Radnor Lake on Thursday.  We did the main loop around the lake again, but now all the trees have their leaves so it looked really different than a few weeks ago.

We roasted hot dogs for dinner on Thursday night.  It's been hard getting used to cooking at home all the time.  We are usually constantly on the go and eat out or eat something simple like sandwiches most nights.  Our meals are somewhat limited too because I've been trying to make stuff that everyone will eat.  Which can be hard with our picky eaters.

Bananas

We've been trying to be creative with the birthday parades we've been invited to.  On Tuesday we pulled out the banana costumes and some "bling" Carter used when he was a rapper squirrel in a school performance.

Rylan wore the costume at home (not for the parade).  We blasted "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and had a dance party.

Gray even ate his lunch in his costume :)

Pictures from This Week

This week our school did a Virtual Derby.  The regular Derby is a huge fundraiser for the school and was supposed to be the Friday before Spring Break (the 6th day of school that was canceled because of Covid-19).  The PE coaches encouraged the students to run as many 0.16 mile laps as possible in 30 minutes (which is what we do at school for the Derby).  There was no fundraising this year - it was just a way to encourage the kids to be active!

Rylan completed 19 laps (about 3 miles).

Carter completed 18 laps (about 2.9 miles).

We participated in our first birthday parade on Wednesday.

Tennessee State Parks opened last Friday.  On Thursday we went to Old Stone Fort State Park in Manchester with Jen's family.  It was much more empty than the local parks we've been going to.  The Duck River and especially the Little Duck River were flowing and made the waterfalls pretty.

We stopped at this spot on the Little Duck and the kids played in the water for awhile.

As usual, we found a snake!  Carter actually found it when he stepped on it's head (hopefully he's okay)!  It's just a small watersnake but it still scared Carter!

Our first fruit/vegetable was ready from our container garden!

Yesterday I was cleaning up the playhouse and decided to knock down the house finch nest because it was covered in tons and tons of poop.  When I went to collect the nest from the ground, I found this on one of rocks!

It was hard to tell for sure, but I think they were more house finch eggs!