A quick jaunt

 We had relatives visiting NYC all the way from Turkey. So we wanted to stop in and have dinner with them. We headed in early so we could explore a bit. We missed our first train, so we had an hour to kill before the next came. We walked around in downtown Milford, and found a bakery. So we noshed the entire hour away.
Not too bad…
After we arrived in the city, we decided to walk a bit in Central park. We did not get to see too much. This park is huge and it will be a few trips in before we can say we have seen it. This time we decided to check out the water conservatory.
 It had these motorized sail boats that you can rent and cruise around.
So we did.
Our relatives happened to be in that area at the same time as us, so Addy stayed and chatted, while I sailed with my boys.
I wish I was fluent in Turkish. It would be really awesome to have a conversation with Addy's family. I would even accept really cool technology to make this possible. I wish I lived way in the future and could have a chip implanted in my brain, so I could be totally fluent in Turkish. That would be so great. And a teeny bit scary.
 But more awesome than scary, you know?
Then we happened upon a bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland.
 We finally made it to dinner which was so yummy and all Turkish. I did not grab many photos as there were photos being taken all around me. I will post one here later. Dinner was long and all in Turkish, so it was hard for the kids to sit there and "be good", but they were!
 So I wanted to take them somewhere cool for dessert.
Well, we were really close to an epic candy store.
 So off to Dylan's we went.
 I am pretty sure they were thrilled.
Finally, after filling their bags,
we headed home.
 It was another pretty great day.
 Life is GOOD!

Catching big bass

at Beaver dam lake.
I love it when we go there!

BIG year!

I believe this year is going to be quite huge for us.
In so many ways.
We are taking part in a few truly great projects. I am most excited for Evren this year as he is finally old enough to participate in so much. I remember what last year did for Kaya and it really left me with my jaw open, and my heart singing.
We will be participating in Destination Imagination again. This made us so busy, but was worth it on so many levels that we are happy to do it all again. I have no idea what challenge they will pick this year, so it will be exciting to witness the birth and completion of 100% kid driven creativity and perseverance. I am thrilled that Ev will be a part this year.
Marlin is going to audition for the Penny Lane Players, a local, 100% homeschooled, amazing, Shakespeare theatre production group. This year it will be,  "A Midsummer Nights Dream".  Kaya will be doing some tech work, and I think Ev will find something to do, props? He loves our friend Cath who will be in charge of that dept, so I am pretty sure he can fold in and feel included.
The one I am most over the moon excited for, and am counting down the weeks until it begins, is the Huckleberry Hill Project. It really embraces passion based learning. This big kind of project based learning is what works for us. We become alive and vibrant, pushing ourselves, each other, stretching and growing, and big things are happening and it is so wonderful that I can't put it all into words just what kind of beautiful magic unfolds and makes you stop and look around while your eyes blur with happy OMG! look at all of this crazy good crap that we are actually doing tears. It really changes you, and instills so much good mojo and confidence and good productive exhaustion that it is literally soul cleansing. Unless you walk that journey with your kids, you may have no idea what I mean, but I can tell you that if you have, you would understand every word of that psychobabble sentence that just shot out of my brain. Anyway, I have not visited the farm that will be hosting us. But Jess has, and so has Cath (Marlin has since changed her project so disregard what it says in this post).
Just look at it!
 I can't begin to describe how awesome this will be for this particular group of people. Kaya will be launching his sustainable, local, backyard chicken and egg project. Marlin is launching Cookies For a Cause which will feature organic seasonal flavored dog biscuits to be sold to raise money for shelter dogs in need. Evren will probably primarily focus on participating in the documentary making project on Type 2 Diabetes.
Lastly, in the spring we will participate in the dig. It will have a Mayan focus this year as it is 2012. But maybe if the prophecy holds true, then maybe we won't....
How big is this year?
BIG!

Lake Wintergreen

We finally made it to Lake Wintergreen in Hamden, CT. It is part of West Rock Ridge State Park. We had just enough time to do a micro trip. Which is just a really fancy way to say that we just wanted to scope it out, and poke around for a half hour!
We did a super quick trail walk, and explored around the banks of the lake. We spied a few cool things like a really dark colored sunfish, which they tried to sneak up and catch unsuccessfully.
 I think the best thing we saw was a beautiful golden orb weaver spider.
Evren snagged Kaya a Chinese Mystery Snail for his fish tank. ( image taken from google images, not mine!)

 It is an invasive species here in CT, so it's perfectly cool to kidnap it out of it's unnatural environment in my book!
 It turned out to be a cool little trip. I think micro trips are great. They let you just pop in and see what's going on, with out the pressure of putting aside a bunch of time and planing to go there "one day".
Which sometimes, and sadly quite often, never happen.
I know about those ever elusive "one days".

In the yard

A letter from Andrea.

We are always so happy when we get a special letter from Andrea.
She has become Marlin's pen pal.
I am so grateful, glad, and excited each time a new letter comes.

Ice Cream place #5

Rich's Dairy Farm, Oxford, CT.
So we hit up Rich's Dairy Farm, finally.
I say that because we have lived here for 5 years, it's a few towns over, and we have never ventured there before.
I have heard good things about it.
So let's see how it fared:
I hit up the rum raisin, I am trying to compare all of these places using that flavor if available.
The portions here were gigantic.
It gets less points for that.
I mean they were stupid big.
I am not a fan of super sizes.
  
The rum raisin had a lot of raisins, but it was weak on the rum flavor. I like that particular flavor to be the opposite actually. But it was super creamy and the waffle cones were great.
Also, they lose points because they had a big yellow jackets nest in the wall above a bench that wasn't dealt with.
The bees were annoying, scary ( I am not a yellow jacket fan) and I am pretty sure kids will get stung in September when they are super aggressive. That's just my own personal fear though… Another thing that bugged me was that there were no bathrooms. At least have portapotties for the kids who are desperate. There is no where nearby to take kids to pee. Also, this was weird, but they won't take hundred dollar bills! So if that is all you have, like one family in our party, no ice cream for you! Luckily they were with our group so we pulled it off. Lastly, even though they had a ton of flavors, the place lacked charm. I mean it would have been cool to see the cows at least. It wasn't bad, just so-so. I think it would be so much better to get a cone or a cup in their smallest size, which is still huge, and take it to go the Southford falls State Park for a hike and eat.
Anyway, since we had friends drive up a long way for this tour, we decided to play some mini golf!
We were going to go for a nice walk to see the falls at Southford State park, but the weather was iffy. Mini golf turned out to be a lot of fun. The moms chatted on the shaded porch, and the Dad's and kids had a fun game. For whatever reason the place had a red caboose in the parking lot.
I think they should convert it and sell shakes and smoothies out of it.
 At least that's what I would do.
So even though Rich's dairy didn't do it for me, it did turn out to be a great day with friends!