Spring 2012

I suppose I have quite a bit of catching up to do...we haven't had a ton of outings this spring, but we've had fun anyway. Here is a taste of our spring 2012:

Lighthouse Park
At the tail end of March, we had a week of beautiful weather. On the warmest day, a friend and I decided to hit the beach. It was a sunny 74 degrees when we left the Hartford area to head south. I thought about tossing jackets into the car - after all, it was still March in the Arctic. But I figured it was forecasted to be in the 80s, why bother with a jacket? As we were driving, I noticed the temperature reading in the car started dropping the farther south we went: 70, then 65, then 59. By the time we got to the beach, it was 57, and we were greeted wtih this:

We decided to make the best of the foggy situation. We ate our picnic lunches in the car. And then, as the temperature continued to climb, we went to Sugar Bakery. The owner of Sugar Bakery is a Cupcake Wars champion, and this was NOT my first visit to the Cupcakery.

Although it never got real warm, it did warm up enough for us to enjoy a lovely day at the beach. Michael had fun being buried in the sand.

And we discovered a private cove surrounded by rocks which afforded a bit of protection from the wind.

Peabody Museum
Not too long after our beach excursion - and after the weather had turned decidedly back to Arctic cold, we paid a visit to the Peabody Museum. Think Museum of Natural History in miniature.

What was awesome is that the museum's temporary exhibit was all about food.

Unless you follow me on Facebook or Pinterest, perhaps you don't know this, but I've been a little obsessed lately with eating healthily. (And, yeah, the display above shows how many teaspoons of sugar are in each item!) My kids aren't as enthusiastic about this healthy eating as I am, but since I'm the teacher...well, anyway, we had a good time.

Ice Skating
Almost every week for the last few months, we have joined a homeschool group at a local ice skating rink. The kids all started learning by holding on to these little walker things.

They have all improved greatly, though Audrey still holds on to her walker. Jacob and Michael took off, and even Alex heads into the middle of the rink occasionally. It's been a lot of fun learning to skate and hanging out with homeschool friends at the same time!