camp lake days

Every day has been an art in nature day at the lake. But today the kids asked for a Lake Only Day. (Some of the pictures from this week also include our neighbor, Christopher Ruggie.)

So glad they love it!

    

I promise…

I was not trying to dump either Courtney or Truman when they got thrown from the tube (on separate occasions) but they both seemed quite pleased that they have bragging rights and have joined the ranks of air catchers.

pottery art day

This morning we went to All Fired Up for a more traditional art project today.

 

 

 

  

 

The boys and I went over to the park while we waited for Papa and Courtney to finish up. Luckily the local train came through for some real excitement.

Then we had lunch at NBA City.

We’ll be delivering their masterpieces when we see them all in June.

art to print day

The pictures today can’t begin to capture our fabulous experience. The kids loved the giant machines and all the things that they learned about the various aspects of of getting art to print.

 

 

 

First we talked with a couple of the computer designers. They showed us some of the kinds of jobs that they do. Then the kids designed personal calendars for 2012.

 

 

Below they are standing in front of the palette of paper that will be used to complete jobs today.

Even though there is a machine that does the shrink wrapping on a large scale, the kids enjoyed watching it happen around the envelope we brought with us.

 

 

 

The glue they use to put books together looks a lot like gum. (No one was tempted to try it out, thank heaven. )

 

 

 

 

We were all amazed at the hugeness of everything. There were printers that were 7 feet tall and 20 feet wide. They watched all three of their calendars get hole punched at once and talked about that amazing hole puncher, among other things, the rest of the day.

We went to the conference room and designed a poster with the lake pictures that they brought with them.

 

 

     

Last of all, we watched it coming through the printer.

 

 

 

The lake pictures--

egg art day

With Easter this weekend, of course, we had to have an egg art day. Actually, it started yesterday. Can I just say how APPALLED, the kids were, and then Shocked when they found out we were going to cut apart Papa’s ties.

But Papa joined us and assured them that these ties were okay to use. He used a small drill bit and bored holes into each end of the eggs. The boys especially loved squirting air into those holes and dislodging the insides, totally enjoying disgusting sliminess of it all.

Then we wrapped the eggs in the tie fabrics.

Today we prepared to leave the house early.

We went to the Spanish Sugar Mill for a pancake breakfast at DeLeon Springs.    

 

 

After breakfast we set up our grill with sterno and began boiling water for our eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

There was plenty to do while we waited for the eggs to process.    

Not sure what this is, but we have seen it everyday—multiple times.

1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 5 and a 6 and a 7 and a 8 and a 9 and a 10. Whoa!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

The kids each picked their favorite egg to show and leftover bits from the tie it came from:

  

soap art day

Our friend, Britta Doerffler, is a soap maker. She does the research and development part of the business designing new soaps--colors and fragrances. The kids were then free to do their own research and development. She  taught the kids about “melt & pour” soaps as well as “cold-process soaps”. They didn’t seem very cold to me. After mixing tap water and lye and some oils together the combination started steaming and we stuck a thermometer in it and found out that it was actually 195.4 degrees. Our melt & pour soaps are ready, but the cold-process soaps are wrapped up in towels to hold their heat for another 24 hours. Then we will unwrap them and cut them into bars and let them sit for a week or so before using them.  We’ll photograph all our soaps tomorrow because even as I write Courtney is back in the kitchen this evening making more “melt & pour” soap.

   

All of the kids are asking to make more soap, but this is what we have so far and the house smells fabulous :)