These are the pictures that I entered in the fair this year. Almost all of them won prizes! You might have already seen a few of these pictures on my blog, but here they are again!
Which is your favorite?
***Allison***
We are just home from a wonderful vacation at the beach. Well, it was partly at the beach – first we drove down, sightseeing on the way, then we stopped at the beach with our friends for a couple of days, and then we drove home. Of course I took my camera, but… IT STOPPED WORKING because first my brother accidentally dumped it onto the sand because he didn’t know I had put it in a towel, and then it got splashed with water. 😦 😦 Thankfully I had already gotten a bunch of pictures, so I can still show you some. (Oh, and I ordered a new camera that is hopefully coming by tomorrow!)
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On the way down we stopped at Mount Airy, the inspiration for the set of The Andy Griffith Show (which our family loves.) It wasn’t quite like we expected, and the places were kind of scattered around, but it was neat.
There was an Opie’s candy shop,
and of course the Mayberry Sherriff’s office and jail. The jail didn’t look quite like it does in the movie when you went inside, but it looks like you’re actually in the movie when you look at the pictures.
We also got some delicious ice cream. My sister and I shared this (huge!) banana split.
Next we dropped in at our cousin’s new house, where we found a big fat toad. We also went to look at their farm, but I didn’t bring my camera there.
Toad – meet kitten, kitten – meet toad.
And finally, Amelia Island! We saw some beautiful marshland there,
not to mention the many other beautiful spots, like this lake.
The trees in the Southeast are draped in Spanish moss and sometimes covered in ferns.
The beach house was a veritable reptile and amphibian collecting center! We saw and/or caught green anoles, geckos, toads, tree frogs, and a garter snake. (The snake, by the way, was in a closet in the house!)
Now for the beach. (Where, beside the fact that my camera stopped working, I lost my goggles. But it was really fun anyway!)
The beach there was not crowded at all, there were lots of shells, and the water was WARM, actually WARM! That’s amazing to me because we have never been to a warm beach, we always go to the northern beaches if we go at all.
Some of the shells were coquinas. We gathered about two cups of them one day, and made some delicious soup with them.
On our way home we didn’t do much sightseeing, but we did stop at Hilton Head. And that’s it!
Have you ever been to Amelia Island? What’s your favorite vacation spot?
***Allison***
Hey guys, I’m back from vacation! (The beach was AMAZING, in case you were wondering. But more about that in a later post.)
This week, right after we came home from vacation, the fair is going on. I am entering dear Miss Lily (!!) and my sister Carmen is entering her bunny Diamond. I am hoping they come home with ribbons!
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Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be a blade of grass, or a flower, or a bug looking up at the big world above you? This is what it might look like to be a dandelion about to get eaten. What a frightening monster! Oh wait… it’s just Lily. ☻
***Allison***
Here is an updated version of the classic paper chain.
Cut out a long strip from a piece of colored paper.
Fold it in half.
On the outside, top of the halved paper, write how many days there is left until ____ (whatever you using the chain for.)
On the inside, write a fun fact about _____, draw something, or write a joke.
Make the folded strips into the classic chain shape, and start the countdown!
We are going on vacation tomorrow (!!!), so that’s what I used the chain for. I’ll see you in about 2 weeks!
***Allison***
My family and I were outside on a beautiful summer evening, watching my little sister learn to ride her bike. After a bit of riding, Carmen spotted a hot air balloon floating along above us.
Hot air balloons are a pretty rare sight for us. We see the occasional airplane and sometimes a paraplane (now those are exciting!), but we hardly ever see a hot air balloon.
The balloon was coming down closer to us, so I ran inside to get my camera (obviously!) and with it I could see the balloon fairly clearly, even if it was still high.
We thought maybe it would land in one of our fields. But alas, it sailed over the nearest one (which had tall corn in it anyway) and continued gently falling. Some of us kids ran to get a better view of it, and we saw it slipping below the treeline.
From the field we hear Dad calling us and telling us to come get in the truck, because we were going to go see it land! The great chase had begun.
Actually, it wasn’t much of a chase. We drove to another field that wasn’t on our farm but was close to our house. The balloon was in sight again, but it looked much bigger now.
In fact, it looked like it had already landed! We were too late. When we drove into the lane next to where the balloon had landed, we could see it in all its huge glory. It was very colorful, and did I mention it was HUGE? The operators let us come close and look at it before the let out the air.
Our aunt and uncle and our cousins were there, and other people. It was amazing to think that a big piece of fabric and some hot air had flown several people miles away, and high into the sky.
Even if there are big fast jets that can take you where you want to go in the blink of an eye, I think there will always be something appealing about a hot air balloon.
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***Allison***
I love making up games. Some turn out to be really fun, and others… not so much. But for any kind of board game, there are at least a few things you’ve got to have. This series will cover how to make some of the things you need to create your very own board game.
First I will list a few things that your game can be about. Choose a kind of game that you like to play, but also keep in mind that, say Chance games are easier to make than Strategy. (At least for me!)
Words/Spelling
Chance
Strategy
Drawing/Art (like Pictionary)
Get up and do something! (like Charades)
Memory
Skill
Puzzles
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The Board: Every board game has to have a board – that’s the whole reason it’s called a board game! You can make a board out of stiff paper, thin cardboard, or you can cover an old game-board with paper and start over! (Make sure that you or your family don’t want the game before you cover it!) Another great way is to draw the board on cardstock, and laminate it. You can even tape together four pieces of paper after they are laminated for a bigger board. Here are a few suggestions for making the board to get you started, but there are many more ideas you can use.
Square: Think Monopoly – a square or rectangle, divided into spaces, going around the outside of the board. The nice thing about a square is it’s easy to make. Also, it allows room for you to put the name of your game or the logo in the center, as well as any stacks of cards.
To make a square board, use a ruler to make straight lines a ruler-width away from the edge of the board. Also use the ruler to divide the square you just created into spaces. Make sure the spaces are big enough to hold several playing-pieces at once. (Note: If a ruler-width isn’t wide enough, trace something else to make bigger spaces, or measure at intervals along the edge.)
Circle: A circle board is more interesting than a square board, but it is hard to make one big enough to hold an adequate number of spaces, and the edges of the spaces will be slightly curved instead of the nice straight edges of a square space. A circle board still has room for the logo and stacks of cards, if you make it big enough.
To make a circle board, find two circle shaped objects, one smaller than the other, and trace around them, making sure the smaller one is centered in the big one. Divide the circle into spaces.
Squiggle: This shape allows you to fit many spaces into a board, but there isn’t much room for anything else. A squiggle also lends itself nicely to shortcuts (more on that in a later post.)
To make a squiggle board, take your pencil back and forth across the board in a zigzag, but with curved corners. There isn’t a good way that I know of to make the squiggles nice and symmetrical, but just try to parallel the two sides evenly. You can make tight squiggles for lots of spaces, or loose squiggles so you have room to draw pictures, the logo, or put cards in between them.
Stepping stone: Stepping stone spaces are made of individual pieces instead of one connected loop. The nice thing about this is you can use up pretty scraps of paper making it! You can fill up the entire board with spaces, but be sure to draw arrows that show which way the playing-pieces are supposed to move, because it’s hard to tell when the spaces aren’t connected.
To make a stepping stone board, use a circle or square hole punch to punch spaces out of pretty or plain colored paper. Draw arrows showing which way the playing-pieces are supposed to go.
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So there are a few suggestions for the board. A few more things:
Be sure to make your Start and Finish spaces big enough to hold the maximum number of playing pieces for one game. (In other words, don’t make the Start space only big enough to hold one playing piece when there are 5 players trying to fit their pieces on Start.)
Have fun decorating around the board. You can draw things pertaining to the game (i.e a forest landscape if the game is about woodland animals), or decorate it with doodles and designs.
Make up your logo. Decide on the name of your game, and write it in fancy lettering somewhere prominent on the board.
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I hope you are inspired to make up a game! Next up will the spaces of the board.
Here’s a picture I took the other day of a cicada on a tree. Cicadas are those creepy looking bugs that buzz loudly in the treetops in summer. They also shed their skin, and sometimes you can see brown old cicada skins all over a tree trunk – fascinating but gross.
Do you think he is cute or ugly?
***Allison***
Recently, we have been picking caterpillar after caterpillar off the parsley and dill in our garden. So far we have, hmmm, I think 11 caterpillars! Some are small, some are big, and some are in chrysalises! We had the privilege of watching a few caterpillars turn into chrysalises right before our eyes: the caterpillars hung from a branch or twig for, I don’t know, maybe 24 hours, and then in like five minutes they shed their skin, and there was the chrysalis!
I took a video of this below.
The caterpillars are really easy pets to take care of, but boy do they eat! That’s pretty much the only thing they’re interested in. The six caterpillars in chrysalises right now don’t eat (of course!), but the four others are just stuffing themselves. Every once in a while they shed their skin so they can have room for more food, so they can get bigger, so they can turn into chrysalises, so they can turn into butterflies, so they can lay eggs, so the eggs can hatch, so more caterpillars can stuff themselves! It’s a never ending cycle. These particular caterpillars are black swallowtails. I can’t wait to watch them turn into butterflies, and hopefully I can get a video of that too!
Have you ever kept caterpillars as pets? Did you get to see them turn into butterflies?
***Allison***
Drum roll please! We have the answers to the mysteries today, along with the great detectives who figured them out! This time I decided to do something a little different: instead of saying which objects a person guessed correctly, I will just give them a point for each thing they got right, and you’ll see the total at the end of this post!
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#1 Solution: Styrofoam cup.
#2 Solution: Purple cabbage.
#3 Solution: The Utz girl (like on chip bags)
#4 Solution: Yellow yarrow flower.
#5 Solution: Pencil.
#6 Solution: Old candlestick-lantern thingy.
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Ahem. Now for the detectives:
Loren from Happy House of AG , and Blue Eyes, Gray Eyes guessed all 6 correctly! (Well, for #6 she said the turn-y thingy on the lamp, and I guess that counts…maybe…perhaps…)
Clara from Clara’s Craft Corner, and Shelby from Country Christian Girls and Every Bit of Lovely tied with 2 correct guesses each, and there were some extra guesses that were very close!
Thank you so much to everyone who played along. I hope you all enjoyed the mysteries!
***Allison***
Allison Marie 