Geocaching!!

Yesterday, Jack and I headed out on a geocaching adventure!  It was so nice out, not too hot (like the 99 degree day the day before!!!).  We decided to head down to Old Lyme to start our journey. 

Jack was a big helper with the GPS!  We grabbed a bunch of quick (but tricky) ones at first...

Then we found a really nice nature preserve in Old Lyme...we had the place all to ourselves, except for some squirrels and birds!  We walked the trails there, talked about all of the animals, found the cache, checked out the water, then moved along to Old Saybrook for our last cache!

At this cache spot, we met up with Auntie Scoot and Riley by a little pond.  We relaxed by the pond, checked out the pollywogs in the water, found our last cache of the day then hit one last spot....








Dairy Queen for ICE CREAM!!  Woo hoo!!  We LOVE ice cream!  Grandma even met us there!! 

It was a great day...we found 7 caches!!  That brings our total to 144!  We're getting there...our goal is to hit 200 by the end of the year!

Hidden Mill

Today we met up with Auntie Scoot and Riley to check out a 'hidden mill'!  Living on the shoreline of Connecticut all my life, you would think I would have at least heard of this place....but this one must have slipped by me!  Honestly, I can't imagine many people know about it! 

A friend told me to check it out after she found a geocache there!  When I looked it up online, and saw the pictures, I knew it was on our to-do list for this week!!

What a hidden gem!!  The mill was built by Governor John Winthrop, and was originally used to grind corn for colonists. The water wheel has been rebuilt and awaits further restoration.  It was built in 1650.
It's location is what really amazed me, right underneath the I-95 bridge in New London.  One of the caretakers told us that they are going to try to restore the water wheel to make it run again!

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Of course, we also had to find the geocache that was hidden there....

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I loved the old stone arch bridge that was there......

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And Jack really enjoyed the bridges to walk across....

We stopped at the Connecticut College Arboretum on the way back for a quick walk and picnic lunch too!

We're going to go there again in a couple of weeks when the flowers are in full bloom!!  It's going to be beautiful!!

Preschool screening day!

Today was Jacks preschool screening....I have to admit, I was soooooo nervous about this.  Jack is a very quiet, shy kid when he's around other people, especially people he doesn't know.  All I could picture was him clinging to my leg and not talking at all to the teachers.      BOY DID HE PROVE ME WRONG!!  :)

He sat right next to one of the teachers, and she started asking him some basic questions.  He answered them all, without any prodding from me!  He did pretty good on the 'stacking the blocks the same way as the teacher' test.  It didn't turn out quite like the teachers, but very close.  He looked at his when he was done and said, "Mine doesn't look exactly like yours, but it's pretty close!"   I thought that was pretty funny!

Next test was finding all of the blue little plastic teddy bears out of about 30 multi-colored bears and putting them in a basket.  PERFECT!  At one point, he questioned weather a purple one was blue, asking the teacher, "is this one blue?  or is it purple....hmmm....I think it's purple, so it doesn't belong in the basket."  Nice job Jack!  I even questioned it...it was very close to the blue color!

Then the teacher read "The Very Hungry Catapillar" to Jack....he sat there listening to every word, asking questions along the way.  She got to the page when the caterpillar turned to a butterfly and Jack said "That sure is a very beautiful butterfly!  It was wings just like a ladybug!  Those are so they can fly!  Butterflies and ladybugs both fly!"   I thought that was pretty good!!

The last thing Jack had to do is color a picture of anything he wanted....when the teacher asked what it was, he said, "A monster!".  She asked where he lived, and he answered, "Africa!".  That's my boy!  (He is at least enjoying learning about other countries through our postcrossing project!)

I think he did a great job and definitely showed his personality!!  I wish more people could see that part of him...usually he's too shy!

Afterwards, we grabbed some food for lunch and had a picnic at the playground to celebrate! 

 Jack had a great time on the playscape and even found a little friend there.  Jack asked him if he wanted to go down the slide together....another surprise today!!  Jack doesn't usually just start talking to other kids, it usually takes him a while, but he had so much fun with this boy.

Our last bit of fun for the day??  Uncle Chris took Jack, Hannah, and Luke out on the ATV for a ride through the woods on a trail and through the blueberry fields!  Jack had a blast!

Busy, busy, busy!!

First off, I would like to say thank you to Amanda, (http://funnydayswithmommyandmaddie.blogspot.com/) for the help in customizing my blog!  I am still going to tweak it a little more, but I love the pictures across the top!!  Thanks Amanda!!

I haven't posted this past week at all since Mother's Day...we've been busy!  Here are a few of the highlights from week....

Jack and Daddy bought me a beautiful weeping cherry tree for Mother's Day!  I got one for my first mother's day in 2007 that I had planned on using as the backdrop for pictures with Jack every year to celebrate, but we sold our house and bought a new one last year and couldn't take the tree with us!  So...This is my new tree!!  It was getting dark out, but Daddy and Jack still went out to plant it for me!  Jack was a huge help as you can see!

The guys also had some fun with sparklers afterwards!!

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On Saturday, we all went to Hopeville Pond State Park and had a BBQ!!  Alyssa, Sydney and Jack had a great time with Daddy fishing, while I made hamburgers and hotdogs!!  We topped off the night with S'mores!!

We took this picture of Daddy with the 3 kids for a Father's Day Gift!!  :)

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On Sunday, Jack and I headed to Cows and Cones for their Community Cookout!  We checked out the cows, chickens, sheep...then they had free food and ice cream!!  We also got to see a great show by the K9 dog and Jack got to sit in a real police car!

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On Monday, our playgroup had a scavenger hunt at Fort Shantock!!  The kids were given a picture list of things to find while we hike the trail around the pond!!  Jack was very excited to do this...the only thing we didn't put in our bucket was a 'bug'...too hard to keep in there!

This picture of Jack and his friend Alyssa is my absolute favorite!!  They were holding hands on the scavenger hunt!!!!

We finished off this day doing a little geocaching, hiking, and letterboxing!!

Dinosaurs Everywhere!!

On Sunday, Mother's Day, Mark and I took Jack to the Dinosaur Trails!  I've always wanted to take Jack because he loves dinosaurs, and the fact that it was free admission day for Moms made it an even better day!

We started out walking over to the volcano in the water...every hour it starts steaming and lava (water) starts shooting out the top!  It was such a windy day, the water went sideways and ended up getting a lot of people wet!  Fortunately, we were on the other side!!  LOL!  The trail is about a mile and a half long, through the woods and around a few small ponds.

As you walk along the trail, there are signs giving information about the dinosaurs and there are about 25 life-sized dinosaurs!  The walk was beautiful, between Mountain Laurel trees and streams.  There are benches along the path too, although Jack was so excited to see the next dinosaur, there was definitely no time for stopping!! 

Something we found interesting was every once in a while, you would catch a glimpse of a pretty stone mixed in with the gravel pathways...they were polished amethyst, jade, quartz and other gemstones like you would find in the gift shop!  We ended up collecting a handful of beautiful stones to add to Jacks collection at home!
 

There were also some "can you guess what I am?" boxes along the way that Jack really enjoyed....he loved sticking his hands in to feel what was inside!!

They also had a maze near the end of the trail...you could take a set of stairs to the top to look down on the maze then go down a big tube slide, or within the maze there was a big dinosaur mouth wide-open.  There was a tube slide in the mouth too!!  We went down the tube slide a bunch of times!

Of course, Daddy had to hide within the maze to hop out and scare Jack as he rounded the corner....

I managed to catch this picture just as he jumped out!!  Thankfully, Jack just started laughing!!

We had an awesome time!! 

At the end of the trail, there is a nice playground that we played at for a while...all of the playscapes were geared towards dinosaurs too...one of the walkways from the ladder to the slide was a giant dinosaur bone!  They even had a big dinosaur skull that you could play in!!

It was a nice Mother's Day for me, spending time with Mark and Jack...just having fun!!

(And, Jack got me a special Mom Book that made me cry after just a couple of pages, and I am also having a weeping cherry tree delivered on Thursday for my special present.  Mark gave me one my first mother's day so I could have pictures of Jack taken next to it every year, but we moved last year!  Now I will have one at our new home!)

Mothers Day Craft!

As a special Mother's Day Craft, Jack and I decided to make 'home-made' paper with wildflower seeds in it!  The paper can be planted later and after some 'showers of love', beautiful wildflowers should start to grow!  We made one for Grandma, Auntie Scoot, Namie and Auntie Mel!!

After blending some scrap paper and water in a blender, we poured the 'soup' into a baking dish....

Jack then added the wildflower seeds to the dish and used his hands to mix it all up!  It was really squishy!!

We then used a section of screen from an old screen door to gather up the pulp to form a little sheet of paper!  After pressing a lot of the water out, we left the screens with the pulp on a towel to absorb as much of the water as possible!  It took about 24 hours to totally dry.

After letting them dry, we added a picture of a flower, "Happy Mother's Day" and Jack signed his name!

Here's a picture of Jack giving one to Grandma!

You can tell she really loved it! 

Happy Mother's Day!!

a busy day!

Today we had a very busy day!!  We had our friends Leah, Tyler and Ryan over for a playdate in the morning.  And although Jack had his moments, (he's been having a rough week!) I know he had a fun time playing!  The kids played in the playroom for a while, then headed outside to play on the bouncer and on the playscape!  Then they sat down for a picnic lunch out on the deck!

After the playdate, Auntie Scoot came over and we took a ride to the Butterfly Pavillion.  It's a 4 day exhibit where you can walk around a greenhouse filled with 1,000 butterflies and many flowering plants.  The butterflies even land on you! 

Jack loved having the butterflies land on him!   They had bowls of sugar water that you could dip your fingers into, the butterflies loved that!  Jack said they really tickled his fingers!

Riley loved the butterflies, although she would rather hold on to them tightly, which didn't work so well!  LOL!

After the butterflies, we made one more stop at the old historical cemetery so Auntie Scoot could take some pictures...

I, of course, took some pictures too....

.....and even got a great Mothers Day Picture of Jack and I!!

Our trip to the zoo!

Today Jack and I went to the Southwick Zoo with Auntie Scoot and a few of her friends!  We've been there before, but it was Auntie Scoots and Rileys first time!  Here are some of the pictures from our trip:

Jack went into the petting zoo and found a few baby goats to hang around with!

Jacks cousin Riley wanted to hold Jacks hand, but Jack wasn't too sure about that idea!

Relaxing on the wooden carved camel!

My favorite animals, the alpacas, posing with Jack for a picture!!

Jack and I had some fun with the props in the party area!

The deer forest is the best part of the zoo in my opinion...you walk through a wooded area of the park where the deer walk around in the woods.  You can buy corn to feed them!  They are VERY friendly and will eat right out of your hands!

Riley really liked the deer!!  She wanted to hold them!!  :)

I even got a chance to feed them too!

Some of the animals we saw along the way!

....And a happy little guy!