Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Making beautiful pictures together

Matt's sister and her family joined us on the boat this weekend. It was the first time we have had overnight guests and it worked out well. We sailed a couple miles south of lincoln and the boys all got to help work the stamp end lock. We moored for the night near the village of washingborough and after walking the dogs went in search of the pub. It was a lovely sunny afternoon so we enjoyed a drink in the garden while the boys played. We spent a quiet evening with the boys engrossed in Indiana Jones while the grown ups chatted.

The boys all got along really well and delighted in spending time together. This picture is of sam and benjamin drawing-benjamin drew a pic of sam while sam drew a tank facing friendly fire!

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James looking very grown up

My nephew James who is very nearly 4. He is a sweetie and seemed to enjoy his weekend on the boat. He and Sam and Benjamin had an Indiana Jones fest, watching all but Temple of Doom (worst of the 4 in my opinion).

Yee Haw!


Yee Haw!
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
Spent a lovely day last friday with some of our oldest and dearest peterborough friends. We met up at Sundown Adventure Land which is only about 20 min from the boat. It is a theme park for the under 10s, full of great playgrounds and a few rides. It was lovely to see Sarah and her girls, especially my goddaughter G (she is the one in the white coat). Sam and C spent the whole time rough and tumbling. After enjoying the park they all came back to the boat where g kept asking to go to sea!

Friday also happened to be my birthday and the boys took me out to dinner to the chinese restaurant at the marina. The food was fantastic and sam ate nearly the whole half a cripsy duck on his own! He is really getting a taste for seafood and was most upset that we wouldn't let him order the lobster!!

Crazy driver


Crazy driver
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
Here is mr. crazy looney driver, all I can say is that given the crazed look on his face I am certainly not teaching him to drive!!! That sounds like a job for his dad.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

A beautiful morning

The sun is shining, the ducks are swimming are floating by nibbling on the bread we have thrown out for them, the boat is warm and the dogs and the boy are asleep. It is nice to sit here and just soak in the atmosphere. We have had a nice week, just pottering along-a bit of school work and a bit of fun.

We started Sonlight Core 3 a few weeks ago and are both really enjoying it. The emphasis is american history and the readers and read alouds are based on that theme. It has sparked some interesting discussions on imperialism and slavery. We have also restarted the Cambridge Latin Course, doing a little each day rather than just once a week. This works much better and sam is actually excited to do it each day. We are also doing daily math drills to hammer home basic math facts. Sam can add and subtract fractions but often forgets more basic operations. He has also started a daily journal to try and encourage him to write more and to improve his handwriting.

Have a sunny day everyone!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

This and that

Not a lot going on here at the moment-just the familiar comfort of routine. We spend our morning doing schoolwork and our afternoons running errands, walking the dogs and bringing order the chaos that is the house. When we aren't here we are on the boat doing the same thing. We have been on the boat quite a bit lately and going to be there a lot more over the next few weeks. We all really enjoy our time afloat, if only the broadband connection was quicker. We don't spend much time on line, hence the lack of blogging lately.

Sam is getting excited about his birthday, I can't believe in just over 2 weeks he will be 8. He is a sweet little imp and a joy to be around most of the time. He is still heavily into lego and is getting very good at making programmes for his lego mindstorm robot. He is moving up to cubs very soon at is excited at the prospect. Several of his friends are also moving up so at least there will be some familiar faces.

The snow is now more or less all gone, there are a few lumps around here and there but they are far and few between. The boy is desparate for more snow, seems he didn't get his fill of snowball fights! The snow is lovely but it would be nice to have a little warm spring weather.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Out the front window


Out the front window
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
It looked very peaceful this morning, it is amazing how the snow dampens the noise.

The backyard


The backyard
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
This was taken about 8:30 this morning-before the dogs started prancing in the snow.

Intrepid Explorers


Intrepid Explorers
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
The dogs were too busy trying to eat the snow to look at the camera.

Snow monster


Snow monster
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
The snowmonster-he was out of bed like a shot when he saw all the new snow!

Searching for food


Searching for food
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
This little guy followed us around watermead for quite a while. He was very bold and hopped right up to us.

Mr. Robin


Mr. Robin
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
Rogue was dying to make friends with this robin.

Out the front window


Out the front window
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
This is what it looked like after a couple of hours of snow. We were on the boat when it started snowing and after a hairy drive made it home before the snow showers got really heavy. I am glad we got home when we did because I don't think the road was gritted. It took our poor neighbor 4 hours to do a 32 minute trip!

sam making a snow dog, rogue acting as the model

Sam spent a long time making a snowdog and rogue was happy to sit and be his model.

A big one with daddy's name on it!

It was a very lopsided snowball fight-matt and the dogs vs. sam. The cats and I stayed inside and watched the the whole thing. Everyone was thoroughly soaked when they came in but a good time was had by all.

Rogue leaping on a snowball

Here is rogue, mid leap trying to catch a snowball that matt has thrown him!

Her majesty lounging


Her majesty lounging
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
Miko hates going out in the rain but sat for ages in the falling snow!

Enjoying the snow


Enjoying the snow
Originally uploaded by mattamsam
The two dogs playing in the snow, miko looks like she is smiling! They boy really enjoyed themselves-eating snowballs was their fav activity.