A Moon-lit Walk

One of the benefits to homeschooling is that we are able to be flexible with our schedule and we don't always have to worry about bed-times. On Thursday night when we were eating dinner, Beckett suggested that since it was a full moon, we ought to go to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains and enjoy a moon-lit walk! We had done this a couple of years ago and it was the perfect night, so we said, "Why not?" and we hit the road. By 9:15 pm we were in Cades Cove, bundled up and ready to go. It had been a beautiful warm day, but I thought it would be cooler in the mountains. We quickly shed a few layers of clothes because the temp was 60 degrees at 10 pm! Crazy weather for February.....but we certainly took advantage of it! So here is a picture of the kiddos in front of a Cades Cove sign. It does say that it closes at dusk, but that is to cars only. Sometimes people will bike the 11 mile loop on a full moon, but there were hardly any people there this night. And yes, Will is in the picture, but I am not very good with a camera and I don't know how to take pics at night, so trust me, he is in the stoller between Beckett and Helen!

Beckett and Helen took turns riding the scooter while we pushed Will in the stroller! The scenes were beautiful! I wish my camera could have captured the beauty of the mountains in the moon light, but I will have to rely on these very amateur pictures to help us remember! Here is a shot of the full moon. It lit up the cove so well and we didn't even need flashlights or head-lamps!

We saw a coyote cross the road in front of us as we were driving to the cove, but this is the only wildlife we saw on our walk that night. He is all lit up from my flash....not the moon. Again, I'm clueless with the camera!

Still trying to get a cool "night picture"....I took this one of Sean and the kids walking in front of me. We had a wonderful night enjoying God's creation and experiencing it at night! We ran into a park ranger who let us look through his night vision scope. That was SO cool! We are blessed to live so close to such an amazing place! We got home around 12:30 am with many fun stories and memories!

Here is Helen's LAST "6th" birthday cake. I promise! :) She had Abigail and Kaelyn spend the night last weekend and she wanted a "dirt cake" to celebrate with her friends. They had a great time! Such sweet girls!

For Valentine's Day, we went to a local Retirement Center with many of our homeschool friends and visited with the residents while they were eating lunch. Here is a shot of several of the kids as they gathered to sing an impromptu song.

A little closer shot. Not all of our kiddos joined in. We had about 35 children aging from a four month old infant up to a 12 year old! It was  great for our kids to have this opportunity and I think the residents really enojoyed visiting with them and most of all hugging them! There were LOTS of hugs!

Each family made a bunch of homemade Valentines to pass out to the residents and they seemed to enjoy receiving them! Here is a picture of Helen with Kaelyn and Abigail as they shared sign language to a song called "God You Reign."

One warm evening this week Helen and Will enjoyed a tea party!

Love those sweet smiles!

Just a fun picture of Will enjoying an apple as he sat on the counter while I made dinner!

Finally, just wanted to share Will's version of Old MacDonald. He calls it "Ah Gah Mommy had a cow." (The second time it sounds a little more like old MacDonald.) And I'm not sure why he turned away from us to sing, but I love how he holds up the paper like he is reading the words to the song. Love this sweet boy!