Yes, we're alive!

We have been busy, busy, busy.  Nothing too exciting, just normal everyday stuff.  Since Rachel and Joseph will take their academic tests in May we really have been focusing on school, and lots of it.  Which has left me with little time to blog.  After testing is over I can finally let my breath out and relax a little.  Here are a few pictures of our everyday life, please don't yawn too much. 

Rachel decided one beautiful afternoon to wash her "motorcycle".

Joseph and Nicole voluntarily weeding the garden.  Uuumm!  Looks suspicious to me.  I think they are looking for marbles for their jars (more on that in a later post).

Rachel is still swimming with the swimteam in Winchester.  They swim every Mondays and Wednesdays.  She loves it!

Last week we enjoyed a field trip to the Virginia Arboretum (Blandy Experimental Farm) here in Boyce.  Talk about a beautiful place.  This trip was on "water wonders".  The students used topographic maps of Virginia to locate and describe their own watershed.  They also learned how to collect, measure and record water quality (i.e. look at little squigglies under a microscope).  How cool is that.  Next month we will go back for Virginia Natives: plants and animals).

Collecting pond water.

Now we're getting to the fun stuff.  Lots of little wiggly, slimy things to look at.

Last, but not least.  This picture has nothing to do with the field trip or anything else but I had to include it.  Yes, it is real.  I'll leave you now, with this.