Insta-Friday

 

Insta-Friday @ Life Rearranged

Once again it's Friday. Time to share my Instagram pics. I need to get better at taking more. It looks like we didn't do a lot this week but it sure feels differently!

Early in the week I took the kiddo for a bike ride down the road. We did an easy six miles. We stopped half way for a quick water break. I attempted a self-portrait. Obviously it's a skill I need to keep working on.

My oldest son is ::gulp:: 15 years old. He actually turns 16 in just a couple of months. Next week he will be starting driver's education. Oh my. It seems like yesterday he was just a toddler running around! Now he's yards taller than me (not hard to do) and growing by leaps and bounds. 

On Tuesday we had to make a trip to "the city" where we used to live and the boys were born. In gathering the paperwork and things he would need to sign up for the class, I realized that the only copy of his birth certificate was the hospital souvenir copy. When I called the City Clerk they said I could walk out with the copy I needed if I applied in person, so rather than trust the postal service, we headed down.

Being the homeschooling mom that I am, I wanted to add something to the afternoon to round out the educational opportunity. We started the morning at piano lessons. At City Hall, while I waited the ten minutes (seriously - I was amazed at how fast it was!) to get the copy of the birth certificate, the boys spied a fantastic clock in the hall that spanned two floors. I did not get an Instagram photo of it, but I did snap this one....

We then headed to the local college to check out their art museum. They had a display of astrophotography that was very impressive. The boys had a good time, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. We arrived as a lecture was happening on the lower level. I was also told no less than three times by the kind elderly volunteer..."They won't touch right?" ::sigh:: So we looked and took a bit of photographic proof we attended and then walked the grounds a bit (where the photo of all three of them above was taken).

Yeah, they were that thrilled to pose for a photo for me...again.

Wednesday found us at our cooking class. This is week five of six and it was a bit different. We met at the local Farmer's Market. It's held at the old jail location and we were able to use the kitchen facility. We made some homemade ranch dressing and had veggies to dip and some toasted bread with sunflower oil on it (yum!). We were also given a tour of the market. Unfortunately, Wednesday afternoons are still pretty slow there. They are also open on Saturday mornings. Unlike most of our cooking classes, we didn't spend the time cooking this week and did not make a full meal. 

My youngest getting help slicing up a radish. 

After our tour we headed across the river to a great new park that was created last year. It follows along the river and has workout stations along the way. They use your own body weight. For example, there is one where you stand on a small platform and rock side to side to work your oblique muscles. There is another machine that works like an elliptical and another that is a climber. All told I think there are about 6-8 stations and the path is about a 1/4 mile long. 

We ended the evening with a shopping challenge. Typically we are given a bag of "take-home" groceries which is a set of ingredients for whatever we made in class. Since we didn't cook a meal this week, we were all given $25 to shop at the market but had some parameters to follow. We had to shop as many vendors as possible (there were only five), not go over the $25, and hit as many of the food groups as possible.

There is only one other family who does this class with us and we both ended up buying virtually the exact same ingredients. They included a pound of grass-fed beef, raw milk (we bought a 1/2 gallon, they bought a pint), a bag of salad greens, a wedge of Gouda cheese, a loaf of bread, and a bunch of radishes. We came in at exactly $25 and got extra points for bringing a reusable bag. What did we win? Gratification and yummy food!

And at the end of the week, we spied this moth drying its wings in a parking lot so I had to snap the photo.

It was large - about 4-5 inches across. It's wings were vibrating and slowly moving up and down. Interestingly enough after I snapped the photo, I had someone drive over to ask me what I was taking a picture of. Just a pretty cool looking moth.