Dinosaurs - OH MY!

Found a couple of field trips to do with Dinosaurs! That will really get Arianna excited (haven't told her yet)! She really, REALLY digs Dino's! Since one of them is fairly close (the other would be on the way down to California next year) but is only available for a limited time, We are going to do a Dinosaur Unit Study - Summer edition! Just have to print stuff out tonight and we can get started! Then in a couple of weeks, we'll go visit some Dino's! Arianna's going to go NUTS when she finds out.

Unit Studies

I've figured out unit studies for this school year. It should be a lot of fun!

September - Our solar system and ends with a trip to the Planetarium (a fun trip for when Omi and Opa visit!)

October - Ocean and ends with a trip to the Aquarium

Nov/Dec  - I combined these months since we have so many "vacation" days that neither has a full month. We are doing a study on Costa Rica ending with a trip to the living room for some video's on Costa Rica.

January - England. With a little help from my friend! The girls will be doing a unit on England than finish up with some fish and chips and some fun video's!

February - Reptiles, insects and spiders...Well, I might try and forget the spider half! YUCK!! Ending with a trip to the Reptile house and a tour through their venomous reptile museum!

March - Ireland! I have some fun idea's for this one. Including some yummy cooking, a St. Paddy's celebration and some fun Irish dancing!

April and the first part of May - California/San Francisco - ending with a trip to San Francisco (hopefully). Hubby has to go there anyway so we thought we'd make an attempt at a field trip for the girls. Redwoods, science museum, Monterey Bay Aquarium...So crossing our fingers and hoping we get to go!

Second part of May and June - Animals from around the world ending with a trip to the Zoo.

As we start the unit studies we'll post some of the fun projects we are doing (and there are a lot of them!) and letting you know some of the interesting things we discover!

Hiking on Texel

Omi found a wonderful little area for walking in the forest. The first section we hiked had a great place for kids to walk with little signs and things to discover along the way. It gave me some great idea's for the girls walking path in the backyard up "stairs" through the tree's and bushes..

The girls found wooden toadstool's...

Funny looking "friends"...

Frogs, rabbits, and other forest creatures..

Opa got ahead for a little while                                                                                      

But we still managed to find some interesting things..                                                

Kaitlyn and Arianna both had a great time exploring and found new "friends"...

Kaitlyn really liked Marjan, Omi's sister 

While Arianna found her own new friend and decided to sit awhile...

After our walk it was time for coffee and apple pie! Always nice for an afternoon distraction! Not to mention pretty yummy!                                                                                                                         

More pictures from Keukenhof

 The girls enjoyed some nice Coffee (or in their case Milk) and apple pie while taking a break.

Ecomare - Texel

Ecomare was a fun trip our second day at Texel. There were several seals to visit like this little guy. There was also two brown porpoises...

Along with a few of locals...

(and yes, there are at least three fish in the bottom picture!)
The girls decided to do a boat tour...well kinda...

They didn't get to far. LOL.

and at the end of the day, even with a couple of small disagreements...They still left as best friends...

Arriving in Texel

 We got the chance to visit a little more of The Netherlands and the girls got their first ferry ride.

The ferry ride was windy of course but the girls really enjoyed it. Once we arrived at our final destination it was on to the beach and meeting some of the local wildlife.                                

 These gentlemen hung outside our cottage and were a lot of fun to watch. They'd meet up on top of the dune next to the cottage, do their  head bobbing "I'm bigger than you" male dramatics and then calmly walk down the hill together and go in different directions.

 This visitor got a lot of reaction from the girls as well. All you had to do was say rabbit and they'd run to the window to watch. (Yes, I know it's a hare, but the girls think it's funny to call a bunny  a "hair". LOL)

Our first day the girls even got to go get their faces painted! It didn't last long once it was dry though. Guess it got a bit itchy! 

 They had a fun time exploring the area...

                                                                                                                         

Then it was back to the cottage for dinner and bed. They had a fun filled day and more adventures to come!                                                                                                                                                     

Keukenhof

What a beautiful place! We had a great time walking/playing through all the flowers. I'll just post some of the flower pictures first then a few of the other stuff..

They have several buildings as well to walk through as well as some play area's for the kids.

A small petting farm is also on location, and some beautiful fountains (which of course the pictures haven't all gotten downloaded yet so I'll have to post more later on those).