Maple Sugaring

For some reason my letter was not happening today until after dinner.

New England. In so many ways New England is the America we learn about as children: four distinct seasons of equal length, red brick houses, narrow streets, big cities surrounded by beautiful, lush countryside, a melting pot of culture and racial diversity, and history all around you.

We had a storybook New England experience this week when we attended a Maple Sugar Festival at the John James Audubon Center. On the drive out to the festival we re-read the “Sugar Snow” chapter of Little House in the Big Woods. The girls were as excited as Mary and Laura when we arrived. We saw and tasted the sap being drained out of a towering maple tree. We saw big black kettles of sap simmering over a fire just like we had read about in Little House. Kate carried a yoke with sap buckets hanging from each side. We also learned about the Native American method of extracting and reducing the sap, which Kate the Indian loved, of course. We tasted maple sugar cakes, made crafts, learned how to make maple candy in the snow, and even saw some owls, or “hoo-hoos” as Jane calls them.

This has been a week of adventures and creativity. We made a trip to the aquarium, enjoyed a Little Explorers program at Bartram’s Garden about rain, mud, and worms, and made our first Springtime trip to the park. When it’s rainy and cold we stay inside. When the sun comes out, we come out too.

We went to a Native American craft program at the library. The girls met an beautiful Native American girl from the same tribe as Pocahontas. They were pretty much in heaven. They each made a dream catcher. Jane was hilarious at this craft. She wanted to do it all by herself. She wouldn’t let me help her with the stencils. She wouldn’t let me help her peel the backs off the stickers. She wouldn’t even let me help her sew the web. She watched what everyone else was doing and figured it out herself! She did a great job, too. Her finished product was much more abstract than what I would have done, but it actually looked really cool. Never underestimate Little Jane. The peak of Kate’s creativity this week was when she made an Indian outfit out of construction paper. Josh helped her with a few of the final adjustments but she did most of it on her own. Our construction paper and tape supply took a substantial hit, but I figure that is what it is for after all!

Kate’s preschool is going really well. She simply loves to learn. She and Makenna have a lot of fun together, but they manage to learn a little at the same time. They have learned to count by 2s and 10s, add and subtract, make things equal or more or less. They are writing their little letters, not Kate’s favorite, but I guess she has to have something to work on in Kindergarten. We are learning about the seven continents. She can point out the continents on the map and tell you that the cool animals are from Africa, the Andes, where Llamas live, are in South America, Texas is in North America, and Asia reminds her of Asialene, Makenna’s Mom who is her other teacher. She announced to her Dad at dinner one evening that she was “dying to go to Europe!” She learned that Europe is where they make chocolate and pizza and pretty pictures and cool buildings and she decided she NEEDS to go there. She reads every street sign, billboard, and truck as we drive now and is always begging to read Cowboy Sam or work on numbers with Dad when we are home. I hope she always has this much enthusiasm for learning.

Josh has been home a lot more in the evenings lately. The girls love to play with him. He’ll ride around on stick horses, play cowboys and indians, fight bad guys, and wrestle way past bed time. The girls can’t get enough Dad time and I love to listen to them play while having a chance to get something done on my own. Josh works on math with Kate and is teaching Jane letters. Jane can tell you that you that J-A-N-E spells Jane and M-O-M spells Mom.

I had a fun Girls Night Out this week. Three of my dear friends here (Asialene Smith, Lori Mortensen, and Emily Brady) recently had birthdays so we went out on the town. We went to a restaurant called Max Brenner. It’s all about chocolate, which means I’m all about it! We had a nice evening out together--took a cab and the whole city bit.

Josh was helping me make some adjustments to my settings in Facebook this week. I was talking about how I was “friends” with so-and-so or needed to be “friends” with x___. Jane was sitting on Josh’s lap and piped in with, “Savanna is my friend. And so is Sarah. And so is Jilly. [Big Smile]” I’m glad she knows what it means to be a friend!

This week is Spring Break. We are looking forward to some time with Josh. For better or for worse, I have jury duty starting tomorrow. That throws a bit of a twist into our Spring Break plans, but we’ll see how it plays out.