"Springy" Weekend

Well, after a wild start back to school (Ed stayed home with Elijah- sick again- Wednesday, and I stayed home with him Thursday and then had a field trip on Friday), we are blessed with a gorgeous "early Spring" weekend- mid-40's and nothing but blue skies today!!!

First , here are the only 2 pictures I took on my field trip Friday. I planned on taking lots more but we were just so busy having fun that I only got a couple of classroom shots. My Environmental Biology class spent the day at the Jericho Research Forests with a wildlife tracker from UVM. It was an excellent field trip, although it started out a little strangely. I wasn't informed until we boarded the bus in the morning that the bus driver wasn't "allowed" to take the bus up narrow Tarbox Rd. Having never been to the JRF before, I had to make a snap decision about which end of Tarbox to have the bus drop us so we could begin the hike up the road until we found the forest. It was all fine,the kids were prepared for the hike, but I felt bad because we arrived late. I certainly would have accounted for a 20-minute hike by having the bus leave early, if only I had known we needed to! Oh well, we had a great time out in the woods on a gorgeous day!

Today we spent a lot of time outside- this morning we went for a little walk and then Elijah played nicely in his sandbox (!) while Ed and I sat with our faces in the sun, enjoying the day as though it were July. After Elijah's nap, we hit the playground for an hour & a half. Fun day, but not much got done around the house, as you can see from this pic of our kitchen:Yes, that's Chinese take-out for dinner. Good in the moment, kind of feel full, yucky, and a little gluttonous afterwards. Similar guilty feelings about all the Girl Scout cookies and jelly beans I've been eating this weekend. The Girl Scout cookies at least were purchased for a good cause. The jelly beans...well, I have NO idea why I HAD to buy jelly beans. And now they're here, so of course I have to eat them.

And our living room. No cover on the futon, as the first thing I did this morning was spill my entire mug of coffee all over myself- and the futon.

Finally, some practice with "faces." Here's Elijah's self-proclaimed "Happy Face." Also showing off the new haircut, which was 30-minutes of pure torture in our bathroom this morning. Thankfully, we don't have to give Elijah haircuts very often, because they devastating events for all parties involved. Elijah is screaming at the top of his lungs, I'm barking orders at poor Ed, Zoe's hiding someplace in the house to get away from all the noise...You get the picture!His "Sad Face":And this one he said was his "Angry Face." Which surprised me, because I always thought it was his "hamming-it-up-for-the-camera" face. Maybe he's angry when I try to take his picture?!Finally, a tender moment with Daddy: