Market Day

A bored child asked me for the "Activity Book" the other day.  This is the one suggested by Tapestry of Grace for this year's work.   It's called Old Testament Days.  We were done with school; she was just looking for something to do.

She managed to get her sisters, a friend and her brother to go along with this, and here are the results:

A Middle Eastern Market Day in the back yard.  The costume was my only contribution.  There was actually another booth, a bit more involved, but my camera battery died and DD12 doesn't particularly like to be blogged so I didn't bother her.  
In case you are wondering, they are selling spices, cloth, (rotten) tomatoes, apples, stuffed animals and, I believe, matchbox cars.  
I just say what a great feeling it is when your kids want to "play" history when their studies have ended.  I cannot wait to see what they come up with for the Seder meal at the end of our Unit.

In other news, I surprised my husband this Thursday night by taking him on a twilight kayaking trip on Moreau Lake.  The idea came to me in a newsletter for homeschoolers, and I thought,Oh, he would love that.  When is it?"  Well, it was on his birthday.  So I quickly made arrangements for childcare (Thanks, family!) and kayak rental.  The above picture is the only one I took because I was afraid of dropping the camera in the water if I took it along.  It started to rain on the way there, but we decided to go anyway.  So glad we did, because the rain cleared right up after that.  By the time we were done, the clouds had cleared up enough to see a few constellations, too.

We began the trip by kayaking around the rim of the lake, stopping to talk to some passing campers about moose, which have been seen in the area of late.  We're in the Adirondacks, so moose sightings are not unheard of, but still newsworthy.  We didn't see any though, which is surprising when you consider that I was a moose magnet during the 15 months we lived in New Hampshire back in 1997-1998.
What we did see was geese!  Hundreds of them!  We kayaked into a pond adjacent to the lake, "Mud Pond."  There is a beaver dam across the opening which they just pulled open, and a beaver house in the middle.  Another at the back.  We didn't see a beaver but a muskrat that jumped into the water near us.
As it grew dark, geese came in by pairs, tens, and fifties, honking like mad!  It was LOUD!  They were all coming in to spend the night in the corner of the pond.  Then, when it had gotten quiet, our guide shone a spotlight into their corner and 20 or more took off, honking all over again  but really mad this time!

Todd said that guy must have been a handful when he was a kid.  Indeed, the phrase, "I just wanted to see what would happen," has accompanied many adventures in our household. 

Finally, for those who read about our accident, we are still car shopping.  Tomorrow we should hear about a minivan we bid on that had been repossessed by the bank.  I would love to have this, a  gold 2005 Saturn Relay.  If we didn't win, *sigh* more work to do.  We just make decisions so s-l-o-w-l-y around here.   Sooo thankful for the loan of a car so that the whole family can go places, even if we have to split up to do it. 
Tomorrow, a representative of another insurance company will be stopping by to do an estimate on Todd's car, which is probably totalled from an accident he had a week later in the parking lot of the local grocery store.  Not his fault, but a guy "didn't see him," went through a stop sign and right into the rear quarter of his car, so there's a big dent in the metal and a hole in the bumper.  Since we only paid $1,000 for the little thing two weeks ago, it should be considered a total loss.  Our guy estimated $1500 to fix it.  If they call it a loss that'll be complicated because we don't even have the title yet!!  If it weren't dark out, I'd give you a picture of that!  But this is New York State in October, so dark out it is, at 6:50p.m.

I'm still waiting for my found camera to come in the mail, but then I will have Botany pics and probably some others that I have forgotten about.  Hopefully, not of crashed up anythings.