It's Field Trip Friday!

GG was up and ready early this morning. I made a slide, sent a couple slides to Pastor, ordered Bible study material for September's study, and registered one of our gals for conference. 

I left the house at 0900 to meet Arielle and two of her sons at "the farm." Cory had the day off and kept Charles at home with him as he's been a bit under the weather. 

Benny has been learning the letter "F" this week. He's written it, he's sounded it out, he's looked for it in other words...and today...on FFFFriday, we visited a local FFFFFarm to pick some FFFFood for our dinner table. 

We often visit the farm for Harvest Festival. We love it - it's crowded. In fact, so crowded we didn't do a lot of the things last year. Arielle heard you could go to the farm to u-pick and they are gracious enough to let the children play on the things that are out. It was wonderful. I am glad we went even though it was raining last night and this morning. It cleared up for our trip.  Danny loved the mud after the rain! 

📷by Arielle

They gave us little knives, told us which things we could harvest today and how big they had to be before we harvested them. I'm seriously wondering why I grow a garden. Maybe I should just u-pick. 

It was harder than one would think to find FFFFood as the weeds grow up right with the food. 

Searching for food 📷by Arielle

📷by Arielle

📷by Arielle

Success! 

We picked broccoli, sugar snap peas, zucchini, kale and it seemed like there was something else. I began to envision a stir fry....though I'd already prepped for chicken/mozzarella ravioli.  

When we were done picking the boys played on some of the toys which are around. 

📷by Arielle

Arielle, Danny & Benny

I want to build one of these in our yard....I think it could be great fun. Maybe a roller slide off our deck. LOL It would probably make it easier to get GG out in the yard too. LOL 

We went through the maze. Benny was sure he could beat his mom through - and he did. In the midst of mazing...we misplaced Danny. I could hear him and then it went SILENT as only a hiding 2 year old can be. We called, we searched...we didn't see his ginger head anywhere. 

I heard a bit of a laugh...and then "Moving under." Sure enough, I looked low...

One can move REALLY fast through the maze if one crawls UNDER the walls. ::snort:: 

Back at home the girls were working on homework and Allie was prepping for work. We had a nice talk spanning budget, priorities in this season, time management...college in RESIDENCE takes more HOURS than college online...though I think it only SEEMS to take more time...maybe. One can't go about their normal routine and fit college in the early morning or midnight hours. One has set times to be at set classes...and lots of homework to do one someone elses time schedule. This is totally new for Stacia as global lets the student work at their own pace. Liberty did have deadlines so Allie is a bit more familiar with deadlines...but all the time constraints and deadlines set by those outside of your home....well that's new for both girls. Things like Stacia is scheduled to have her wisdom teeth out one Monday morning. That wasn't a problem at all with Global...she would have done extra work and scheduled that week off. It's a bit trickier now. 

We wrapped up our discussion and Mike and I got ready to go sign our taxes. Yes, I did say taxes. Our accountant assures us we are NOT her latest clients. ::blush:: 

As Mike headed to get ready Dad said he wanted to go on a walk. This is a GREAT idea as he is NOT moving around enough...and he IS gaining weight.  Michael asked which way we were going and said if we weren't back he'd pick us up. 

He made it about a block... and then he sat. I was glad Michael drove up. 

When we got home from our adventure Stacia and Millie had gone to a local lake. 

Yellow leaves on ground

It was a fun day...at the end of a busy week. We closed it with a dinner using all our farm fresh produce and a bit from the produce co-op as well. I made a big pan of stir fry veggies and cashews and we topped our butter/garlic braised chicken ravioli with them. 

Comfort food at it's best. I think I'll go make a steamer (got some sugar free English Toffee syrup) and read or watch some comfort show on Prime.