Another Rambling Post

It's the first day of summer vacation, I have a fresh cup of tea, and I'm feeling the need for a bit of a meandering ramble. Yesterday was the last day of school. The boys were pretty wound up and I was happy to get a chance to chat with their afternoon teacher in the morning before school. She is a retired teacher who was brought in for three afternoons a week for the second half of the school year to offer an enrichment class aimed primarily at the SK kids entering Grade 1 in the fall, but #2 was lucky enough to be allowed to participate. She seems to have been quite charmed by the boys and has been very generous in sharing little stories about what all the kids get up to in class. I quite like her -- she reminds me of teachers I had as a kid -- and the boys really enjoyed her class. It gave me the chance to hand along our little "gift" in person and thank her for the wonderful work she has done with my boys.

All the teachers seemed to enjoy the "apple cozies" I made for them. I had made a couple for the boys earlier in the year, as they refused to eat bruised apples, and the teachers had commented on them. The boys and I thought it would be a nice spin on "an apple for the teacher" if we gave them each one of their own, so we picked out yarn colours and I knitted and felted them and stuffed them all with a nice shiny Granny Smith.

I'm looking forward to having the boys home for the summer. We had been intending to head to NS during the break, but we have experienced a Nortel-induced change of plans which is a little disappointing. We're going to try and going during the Fall instead -- maybe over Thanksgiving. I've got a lot of ideas for stuff to do this summer and #1 has requested we do "school" stuff, too. This makes me quite happy, as I've intended to approach summer with an active "unschooling" mindset. I suspect this may lead to a summer of math and science for me, as regards #1, but I'm sure #2 will have other stuff capture his imagination. :)

Our annual Canada Day "Brew and Q" is quickly approaching, for those in the know, and I'm a wee bit torn as Blue Rodeo is doing the concert on the Hill and I'd really like to be there. On the otherhand, I don't want to miss my kids seeing the fireworks -- I'll probably give the concert a pass, but I'll be a little sad not to see them! Their concerts always have such a great vibe. I'm thinking of making a variety of homemade ice creams in our super-cool manual ice cream makers to serve up to folks. The trick is to make enough (and quickly enough) that my family doesn't consume it all first! Or maybe I'll just go with the chocolate-dipped frozen bananas again. :D

My front garden has gone to weeds. I'm aiming to get out there later today and excavate some (or all) of it. I suspect that one of my bags of mulch was contaminated with grass seed. We went to NB and came back to a hayfield. Everyone knows that about the only plant I *don't* like in my yard is grass, so you can imagine how I cringe when I pass by it in the morning. Everything is growing well, though, and it's really nice to see my overall yard plan come together like this.