Ragnar Relay 2011 - GO Team Toe Jammers!!

At the finish line at Harvard Stadium - Team Toe Jammers ... New England Ragnar Relay 2011.
The Ragnar is a relay done at different times & locations all over the country. New England's was 198 miles run in 30 hours with a team of 12, each person taking 3 turns over the course of the relay. The team ran from New Haven, CT (starting at 8:30am Friday) to Boston, MA (last runner in his team arrived 2:00pm Saturday). Jared ran 7 miles in southern Connecticut at 9:30am on the Friday that it started, another 5 miles that night around 7:30pm in central CT, and his last leg was 8 miles in central MA around 6:00am Saturday morning. Thankfully Jared didn't have to run any legs in the middle of the night!

We surprised Jared at his 2nd leg, his 5-miler somewhere in Connecticut! It was so cool to see him & be a small part of this great endeavor. What an amazing event! And ... HE'S OFF! ...

All done - PHEW!!!

This was just a cool tunnel in Connecticut that we had to go thru to get to where Jared was running. :)

I Was Blind But Now I See!

We recently had a family home evening lesson about Jesus's miracles & healing the blind & helping people. Just had to share the photos.

JONAH for PRESIDENT

... a school project that I love ...

I love his family symbol up above! I think it will look great on the presidential seal some day!

... last word: "laws"
And HEY, I'd vote for him!!

LEMONADE for Sale!

So a couple Saturdays ago Jonah got it in his head that he was going to sell water & muffins at the end of the driveway. Like an old fashioned lemonade stand. He made a sign (see box in above photo - "Jonah & Merrik's Water & Muffins ... 25cents") & he & his partner in crime dragged all the stuff to the end of the driveway to set up camp. Lo & behold - people actually stopped! Probably expecting lemonade from such an establishment. And when Jonah gets an idea in his head, there is no changing his mind. SO I decided to help them increase their sales a little bit...

... I went up to the house, made a few pitchers of lemonade (it was GOOD) and a cool, easy to read sign which now advertised the cool, citrus beverage... and off they went!

Some time later, he stand was officially pronounced 'Closed' when they ran out of plastic cups. Needless to say, it was a huge success!! Jonah earned enough to pay for his school field trip to the Ecotarium next month and the boys wanted to count their money over and over and over again... it was very cute!

It was very cute! AND we got to talk to some very nice people & meet some neighbors that we didn't know yet. It was time well spent!



AND ... while the lemonade stand was in business, Jared was mowing our gargantuan lawn. He wore a pedometer that day. We have just over an acre of land & only a push mower. Here are the results: 16411 steps totaling 7.51 miles!! WOW!! I need to learn to start mowing. I've asked. Jared says he likes the 'benefits' of doing it himself. Hmm...

...at the hands of the Boys.

Merrik's craft from Beach Day at school.

I love seeing their handwriting. It's so precious.

Mother's Day cards the boys made for me at church.

The boys decorated the pots & planted Mother's Day plants at a church activity. I love 'em!

Triarama Takeover!

Jonah came home from school one recent Friday with this very cool triarama - a new term for me, that's for sure, but self-explanatory. I'd heard of & probably made in school a diorama. But this 3-fold design was new to me. And to Jonah. AND he fell in love. Over the course of the following weekend, he/we made four MORE triaramas!! For your reading pleasure...

This "Python" triarama was the original ... made at school.

These giraffe and alligator triaramas are part of the at-home collection.

All of Jonah's triaramas!
In this pic only the original has it's accompanying paper essay. The others have them too, except with I'm guessing less actual research than the school version. At home, Jonah would finish his triarama piece w/ 3-D animal (glued onto a zigzag paper fan-type paper to make the animal pop out of the middle of the pic) and then he would dictate to me all he knew about this animal or that animal. It was great!!

Leadmine Mountain/OSV Conservation Trail - Sturbridge MA