Last summer I tried doing a little kid-centered family study of the Fruit of the Spirit. I was so organized that I kept proof and took pictures...for the first couple of weeks. That was my first idea of a potential 2015 Family Project for Owen - it didn't make it through the summer. Then as we got into the school year and were enjoying reading the Boxcar Children series I thought maybe we could do something with that. But then Owen's intereste quickly moved on to the Hardy Boys - and lets be honest, the entire family wasn't really involved with either of those things - Kyle and I tagteamed and the girls tolerated the books w/ no pictures at best.
Then genius struck Kyle! He said - what about a bike riding thing??? I had just gotten a bike (finally!) so I could join in on the family bikerides. So...we hatched our plan.
To get to THIS:
We started with THESE.
The girls were totally on board: more family bike-riding for a school project? No problem!
And of course Owen loved the idea.
Shoulda coulda photo-shopped myself in.
Remember - its spring - so its actually still enjoyable to be outside!
Craziness on our favorite road (the only smooth one in our whole neighborhood right now). Thank goodness for Funston.
Part of the project was that we mapped our 5 favorite routes and Owen used his I-bought-it-with-my-own-money watch to time us. We marked other stuff on the neighborhood map such as friends' houses, smooth vs. rough roads, hills, busy streets.
The Monday after Easter Maggie had preschool but the big two were out of school so I road with them (across some big streets!) to our favorite pancake place - Kerby Lane Cafe. They did so great!
Enjoying their syrupy reward!
Okay, so the project in detail:
The team - we all got team names:
Kyle "The Visionary" Mezger
Alison "I heart my bike" Mezger
Owen "The Gearmaster" Mezger
Rebecca "My helmet doesn't fit" Mezger
Maggie "Let's go vacqueros" Mezger
We had 5 routes - I love the names Owen gave them.
I think we were all super happy with the project - it served its intended purpose - actually getting us to do something FUN and INTERESTING as a FAMILY.
(Who is this big kid???)
Of course Rebecca wanted her picture taken with it too!
Okay, this seems unrelated but I assure you it is. Family Projects are on display at Grandparents Day...so lets jump ahead.
Last year Bee and Nana came with us - they got the full tour including a little performance by Owen's class (and of course all the Family Projects). I was afraid it would be a little duplicative, so this year we only invited my dad Dahdo and Pam. (I know, we're so spoiled with having so many local grandparents!) Even though they had both been to school to pick Owen up before it was super fun to get to give them a full tour and let them experience a little of Regents first hand.
Here is Mrs. Boyd's first grade class praying before their little performance.
I didn't bring my camera so you can barely spy Owen in the back. He's not the most emotive of the group...a couple of little girls on the front row with some serious stage presence stole the show (in a good way) but he did great. They recited Psalm 139 (yes, all of it, from memory) and they sang the hymn Christ Arose.
We love checking out a lot of the other Family Projects - its fun to see what his friends and classmates did and its a great place to borrow ideas for the next year. :) Here he is checking out our carpool and neighbor buddy Oliver's project all about their new dog Cuatro (great dog name, right?).
And here's Owen showing his project of to the Contine Family. Um...they made a teepee!
We took D/P to check out Rhetoric Hall (such a great facility) and the Science & Nature Center (aka "the garden") - you can see them on the bridge.
So glad they had this little photo spot set up (thank you high school volunteers!) - what a fun little family photo! (Kyle was at work - boo - and the girls were at school...not boo.) Will be fun (= crazy!) to go next year with both Owen and Rebecca. I'm guessing we'll invite ALL the grandparents!!!
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