Our Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival Celebration

 Friday after school, we quickly loaded up the car for a free night of camping at our church's property (in exchange for helping cleanup the property before closing for the season).  We loaded up the car so quickly that we forgot our toothbrushes. Shucks. The kids didn't mind.

 When the moon came out, we took a little walk by the river.  It was so beautiful.

 The moon peeked out from the clouds.  It was a beautiful night.

 I love the Chinese tradition of looking at the moon during Mid-Autumn Festival and thinking about the people you love looking at the same moon.

 Did anybody I love look at the moon??

 We lost our breakfast to a flock of hungry birds.  We went to the bathroom and left our breakfast sitting on the table.  That was a mistake.  Guess we fed a bunch of crows.  Our tent had bird poop all over it too. Nasty.  Darn crows!!

Tonight we got together with a few friends and celebrated at a local park.  Just as the moon came up over the trees, the kids helped tell the story of Hou Yi and Chang E.

 Here are nine of the ten suns....I wonder where the tenth sun is?  Perhaps just out of range of the camera.

 Yes, I know having a little lantern parade isn't done in China for Mid-Autumn Festival.  I know lantern festival happens fifteen days after Chinese New Year, but we think it's fun to have a Moon Festival lantern walk.

 It was pretty tough to get pictures of the kids together.  These two pictures turned out pretty good.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all of you!!

First Day of Fall

We spent our first day of fall pseudo-camping with friends.  In other words, they went camping near our home and we joined them at their campsite.  We enjoyed a little nature walk hike and a hike to the ice caves.

Check out that big tree fungus!

I love all the moss and ferns that were growing on this tree.  So beautiful.  I love living in the northwest...it is so green and beautiful.

I thought this fungus was pretty.

I love the colors of fall.

Check out the low cloud...very beautiful.

Here is a video containing more pictures.  The music choice from Mary Poppins was made because Erin Joy spent most of the day teaching Nick how to spell "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."  Nick was a good sport.  

 

When we got home, Erin Joy was excited to see that her Halloween costume came in the mail.  She wants to be a penguin.

Even penguins have to do homework....

Imagine her wearing black pants.  Isn't that a great costume?!

Penguins can play the piano too.

In Our Backyard

 I love that we don't have to travel far to enjoy beautiful places.  We enjoy the little waterfalls that are about 2 miles from our house.  There wasn't much water going over the falls.  We had a lot of fun watching the salmon jump the falls.  I tried to get a video of the salmon.  If you look closely in this video, you will see fish jump.

We went into an old mining tunnel...not too far in...we were a little nervous.

Love these girls!!

The note on Erin Joy's door....

First Day of School

They never seem to have backpacks in their first day of school pictures because we always take them to school a day or two earlier.  Rachel forgot her glasses too. Shucks. She'll remember the second day.

Last Day of Summer

Our last day of summer was spent at the zoo with friends.  We enjoyed seeing the baby snow leopards even though they are nocturnal and slept while we were visiting. The weather was perfect.  In fact, we have had perfect weather all summer.  Not much rain, a lot of sun, yet not hot....only a couple of days in the 90s and NO days in the 100s....most days in the 70-80s.  Perfect.

Between moving houses, moving classrooms, and teaching summer school it was hard to find time to play as much as I would have liked to have played.  We did find time to go camping twice and we did make the most of every minute.  It just wasn't long enough.  I wish August had 60 days.  Or 90 days.  Or could just last forever.

We had a great time at the zoo.  The depressing song on the video is the only thing I could find that talked about the end of summer.  I'm not really that depressed.  Well....maybe I am....