What do you notice first?

The adorable child?

Or the bizarre beastie on the coffee table? It will rule the world, or at least Hazel's heart.

Little artist

Last month, Hazel's preschool class went on a field trip to the High Museum of Art. The field trip included a story and related art project. Our young superhero/artist had a great time and was proud of her creations.

A special shout out to Janet/DeeDee who made the awesome flaming Human Torch sweatpants that have been in continuous use for almost three years.

Tennessee Trip

My Christmas gift to Aaron this year was a weekend trip to Lynchburg, Tennessee--horse country and home of the Jack Daniel's distillery. We had lunch at Miss Mary Bobo's, an old boarding house that serves excellent Southern food, family style and all you can eat.

The Jack Daniel's distillery has an excellent tour. We started with the area where the ricks of wood are burned into charcoal.

Two charcoal makers are responsible for making all of the charcoal used to filter the whiskey. It's fascinating to learn that there are artisan charcoal makers gainfully employed in the world today.

This natural spring where Mr. Jack first set up his still is the water source for all of Jack Daniel's whiskey. It is also probably the reason why Lynchburg is obviously a thriving, prosperous small Southern town, when so many Southern towns of a similar size and era have fallen into decline.

One of the barrel storage houses. They have a lot of storage, for a lot of whiskey. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the distillery or barrel houses. Best part of the tour: getting to taste the fermenting sour mash before it goes into the distillery (it tastes kind of like cornbread batter that's gone off).

Mr. Jack's old office. They are happy to allow visitors to take lots of photos of the sites that play into the myth of the Jack Daniel's tradition.They definitely push the old-timey tradition story throughout the tour and visitor's center!

The other big part of our trip was staying at the Clearview Horse Farm! The owner of the farm is a delightful British horse lady who fell in love with Tennessee and the Tennessee Walking Horse while she was visiting Elvis country. Most of her horses are very well trained retired show horses.

Neither one of us had ever ridden a horse, and Aaron in particular was really interested in riding a horse. (I've read so many fantasy novels where people ride on horses, and I just have no idea what that feels like.)

We had so much fun that we're thinking about going back with the girls this spring or summer when the weather is nice!

Operation

First Allowance

Hazel carefully sorts her very first allowance into her spend, save, and share jars.

So happy!

Shape Robot

Juniper's class just completed a math unit about shapes. Over the winter break, she had an assignment to build a robot out of two- and three-dimensional shapes. One of their rules was that the robot could not be taller than the child who made it, so of course Juniper wanted to make sure that her robot was almost but not quite as tall as she is.

They presented their robots to the class and named all of the shapes used in their robots. After the presentations, pedantic Juniper was agitated that one of her classmates used Coke bottles for his robot's arms: That's an irregular shape. It's not a classic shape.

Pick your favorite

We couldn't narrow it down to just one...

For Aaron

A few months ago, we went to a BBQ fundraiser at the Clarkston Masons' Lodge.

Anyone who knows Aaron well can imagine how delighted he was by the all-you-can-eat BBQ, baked goods from the ladies' auxiliary club, and photo collection of past Masons.

Fun times at the Fall Festival

Hazel loved the bean bag toss at the ICS fall festival. While Juniper tried to max out on the number of cheap plastic prizes she could win, Hazel just wanted to throw bean bags.

I see you!

Hoarding

It's all mine.

Community

At the start of the school year, Juniper's class did a unit on community. One of their activities was making posters showing how they will help their community. Juniper drew a picture of herself helping to clean up the messy bathroom in her kindergarten classroom. (For some reason, our normally slovenly child is extremely perturbed by her peers' inability to get the paper towels and toilet paper consistently into their proper receptacles.)



As the culmination of the community unit, the children presented their posters to their class, and parents were invited to attend. As an added bonus for Juniper, her beloved Aunt Becca happened to be in town for her class presentation.

After their classroom presentations, the three kindergarten classes had a school-wide parade. We're so glad that Juniper gets to be part of the community at the International Community School!

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In Hazel's perfect world, every day has a merry-go-round.