Forests, Fire Safety & Shelters

(CHECK OUT ALL THE PHOTOS)

As the weather is warming up, we thought it would be fun adventure for the kids to go on a walk in the woods. So, we walked down our driveway and then literally stepped into the woods. Throwing tick-caution to the wind, we started off on a 1 mile walk through the fairyland magical forest. It was so fun! The girls were enchanted with nature (finding walking sticks, looking at streams, finding leaves and pinecones, climbing on rocks, etc). Sonoma was only slightly difficult. She insisted that I carry her (NOT Adam, for some reason) for a large portion of the way, and she gets heavy fast!

The next day we decided to have a family fire safety night. We live in an old house where we will use the fireplace and we want to be prepared. They apparently don’t have laws here about landlords providing smoke detectors or anything like that, and we live primarily on the 2^nd floor of this house, so there are a lot of safety issues to be aware of. After purchasing smoke detectors and a couple of window ladders, we sat down with our children and taught them the basics. We introduced them to “stop, drop, and roll”, and to the fact that smoke rises, so you need to stay low to the ground if there is a fire. We had them listen to the smoke alarm that we installed in their bedroom, and then we had them practice opening the window and climbing out with the ladder in their closet. The windows are pretty hard for them to open, but we are hoping they never have to do it! Also, because they are not teenagers, there is no chance of them using the ladder to sneak out at night J

It is a requirement in 1^st grade here to make a shoebox-sized shelter of some sort.  Olivia made a house on stilts. We worked on it for days. In her planning portion of the project, she wrote about things like hammocks, a rainbow room, and colorful blankets, etc. It turns out we had to make all of those things. Lots of work. In any case she was happy with the results. Ruby decided to make a shelter as well. Hers was a tent. I was proud of them, and I’m so glad that the project is over. It was consuming our lives and dining room table for about a week.

Cute kids…

Olivia: She calls lip balm “lip blam”. She read it wrong a while back, but it stuck in her head.

Ruby, Our 4 year old (who is almost 5) has begun writing and leaving notes for us periodically. It is so cute! Her latest one was left on Adam’s desk and it said: “FRum Ruby I [heart] U DAD i CLED YR OFIS” (From Ruby. I [heart] you, dad. I cleared your office). She had straightened his work area. Adorable!!

Also, after picking a flowering weed the other day, she came inside and asked, “Where’s that flower tank?” I was confused, but guessed, “You mean vase?” Her reply, “Yeah.”

Sonoma: She calls rabbits “Wabbuts”, Olivia “Alivala”, sticker “sigee”, monkey “muhgee”, blanket “banget”