Week 1 of 3rd Grade and Donner Lake

This week was a fun start to our school year!  

Here are some of the highlights...

In geography we did a hands on project to see the distortion between flat maps and globes. 

 Some geography sheets...

Nature study...

 Backyard Habitat Study...

An afternoon play date with Carissa!

Rose's favorite books this week....

 

Rose, daddy, and Mr. Michael went to the Rib Cook Off.  Yum.

Over the weekend we went to Donner Lake in CA to enjoy hiking, swimming, kayaking, biking and the great outdoors.

 On our way back from Donner Lake we picked up some worms for Rose's worm niche study in science.

June

Oh, what a fun start to our summer!

Here we are at Lake Tahoe spending a gorgeous day with our friends, the Beck family.

The water was still quite chilly...

but that didn't stop the girls from having fun...

 

Chad (in red) and I (in yellow) are using our friends kayaks...

 Chad and Rose.... 

 Carissa and Rose...

 Chad playing some beach frisbee with Mr. Michael...

 We let Rose paddle out in a kayak (red) by herself.  Her friend Shaina was in the yellow one.

 She did great paddling out, but couldn't figure out how to turn back around.  She was stuck way out in the lake.  (See those tiny rocks way out there?  barely in the photo on the far right side.  Yeah, that's were she was.)  Daddy and Mr. Michael had to swim out and help her.  Her sweet friend stayed close by her and never left her side.  After daddy and Mr. Michael swam out there, they got pulled in by a nice man on a sea-doo.  ...Did I mention the water was around 60 degrees on this day? (chilly!)
She handled the stress and fear of the situation very well.  Just one more adventure!

aren't they so cute?

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We had an in town vacation at one of the local resorts.  We just love being together as a family.  It was fun celebrating the end of Rose's 2nd grade and the end of daddy's first year of teaching at UNR.

Rose visiting their in house candy store :)

 Enjoying some bowling there...

 Our view of the pool...

 Rose in the pool...

 enjoying one of their restaurants...

 It was a great family vacation!

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Catching a 3D movie with our friends....

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 Rose and Sam having a kool-aid stand...

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Enjoying the Truckee River in downtown Reno after dinner out one evening...

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Rose having a fun time at Carissa's birthday party....

We are thankful for sweet friends.

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 Another great day at Lake Tahoe with friends...

 For Father's Day Chad received this inflatable kayak that seats all three of us...

We have so much fun kayaking!

 Trying out Paddle Boarding...

(I think I will stick with kayaking...but it was fun trying it out)

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(We do love online coupon deals....)

Here we are at Viva Le Cirque

 Dinner before the show...

 At the show...

 After the show...

I must say, June was a very fun month!

After looking at these photos, it is obvious that God has blessed us with good friends here in Reno.  I am so thankful for these christian friends.
I am also so thankful for my loving husband and kind daughter.  I feel blessed that we get to spend so much time together as a family.

Summer Projects (painting, a sandbox, and 50 books)

 The end of May and beginning of June we painted the main rooms of our downstairs.  It was all white.  We liked the brightness of it so we didn't want to bring in dark colors.  The kitchen we painted yellow, the living room light green, dining room light blue, and the foyer brown.

I couldn't find much for the "before" photos  ...but here is the best I could find for before and after photos....

BEFORE

AFTER

  

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

...and some more AFTER photos....

looking in to the kitchen from the living room

 

the foyer

Since our walls are textured Chad had to go over the line area (where two colors met) using a q-tip.  Can you say patience?  

You can compare the top line of the brown that he hadn't done yet, to the bottom line.  

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Another project was a sandbox for Rose.  Chad decided he wanted it to be an in-ground box.  He is a hard working man!

And since he was digging up a ton of rocks from his 6'x6'x1' hole he decide to clear out all the dead sage brush next to our fence and put in a rock border.

unsightly sage brush poking through the fence

pile of pulled sage brush

Chad putting the rock border in

Nice looking fence line with a rock border on the outside

 Yes, all those rocks came from his sand box hole.  That's a lot of rocks!

filling in the sand box

I have a great daddy!

sometimes they add water to the sand to build castles, etc.

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Rose had a project as well.  When the school year was over she was asking to go the local waterpark for a day of waterslides and fun.  So we gave her a way to earn her day...   She was to read 50 books (out loud to me or to daddy) and she could go.  I was thinking this might take a good chunk of her summer to earn.  I was wrong.  5 days later she had earned her trip!  Five. Days.  

That was one motivated girl.  

Rose with some of her books she had read.

And to make a great reward even better....Her two dear friends got to go to the  water park with her!!  She had a blast!