Five for Friday! 7/18

Happy Friday friends! 

As you are reading this, I am enjoying some time relaxing, chatting, and bonding with my co-workers at the most beautiful lake house I have ever seen. 

Not the exact house, these are the neighbors. 

This is a working retreat for the leadership team at my school and we will work on some items a little bit. Mostly we will laugh and enjoy some time together before we all return to the craziness of the school year. 
Last year, I was nervous about spending a weekend with my principal. This year, I have been counting down the days. It will be nice to have a complete adult conversation without being interrupted by my boys. I love them dearly, but I am in some serious need of time with friends and adults! 

This week I spent a lot of time at the park with my boys. After each outing,I walk away thinking, we really live in a great place. We do. 
We have 3 parks in less than a 5 mile radius, one is in walking distance. The other night we visited the newest extension of the one across the street, and I was reminded how beautiful our county park system 
The newest extension includes an official disc golf course that is built in to the terrain and woods of the park. They added a playground and a beautiful pavilion. Guess where we will be having future birthday parties? 

The boys and I explored the disc golf course and attempted to figure out how to play - the boys really loved the game.

I think we will be spending a lot of time on the course. 

My oldest has been bit by he baseball bug. 

I could have kissed the coach at his skills session. He told the kids something I have been saying FOREVER - you only get better by practicing. 
It is great when someone else confirms what you have been trying to teach your children. At least now my son might actually believe it, since I wasn't the one who said it! 
The lessons were so much fun, that he is going back for 2 sessions next week. Because he had so much fun, my youngest decided he wanted to try it out too. I am so excited that my middle is going to give something new a try! 

While my oldest was at baseball camp, the other 2 joined me for a little bit of sorting things out in my classroom. They actually asked to go - shocker! Since the school is next to the park, it made sense to stop in.
The AC was not on in the building and it was so HOT we only made it for a little while. 

I did not move any furniture, but I did sort through some books and organized my bookshelves. I have a lot of inherited items and am in the process of purging things that I have never used or have forgotten about. 

My teacher desk was moved to clean the carpets and I am considering getting rid of it. 

I find that it is a clutter collector and perhaps without it, I might have a tidier work space. 

The boys loved playing in the open space and entertained each other playing ball, puppy, and reading together. 
The AC will be on next week, so my youngest and I will go back to do some set-up while the oldest two are playing baseball. 
Every little bit I can tackle before the official return date will make the week of pre-planning more productive. So hard to believe that I go back in a little over a week!

My youngest and my middle son joined me and a friend on a trip to a local farm to go blueberry and blackberry picking. YUMMY! I love fresh fruit and really love fresh blackberries. They were super sweet and lots of fun to pick. 

I am so glad we made it out there early because it was HOT!

We brought home enough to nibble on them during the week and I have bags of them frozen to enjoy in some pancakes, smoothies, and baked goods. 

 Summer is almost over fr me and I know planning is really on my mind , as it may be for many others. I am posting some items on sale as part of stock up summer sale series, hope these might be of some help to you with your planning. 

Animal and Plant Cells packet

Fraction Task Cards with a winter theme

Out of this World Fraction Task Cards

 I hope that you have had a great week and enjoy a very relaxing weekend! 
Cheers-

Saturday Snapshots 7/5 & Summer Stock Up Sale

Happy Saturday to all of my friends! 
I am excited about linking up again with Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera! for Saturday Snapshots. The time off and this linky party has really helped me stop, look, and click to collect some great images of my summer. 
Each week, I captured an image that I fell in love with and see a little bit more of the love I am surrounded by. 
As always, I am going to feature some shots of my boys, but I also tried to capture some of the natural beauty in my world. 

For the 4th, we spent the day swimming with a friend and their boys. We spent 7 hours at their pool, I was amazed my kids were still awake because I was exhausted. I captured some of the fun they had flipping, diving, and being their silly selves! 

I still love yelling, Cannonball! It was funny because I heard other adults saying it too. Ah , the memories of belly flops and cannonballs as a kid!

I love the facial expressions I captured in my oldest's face! My heart flipped watching his do his stunts, luckily no one suffered any injuries on the diving board.

The dudes were flying through the air all day long!
They also spent many minutes on the water slide. When I set up this shot, I was not expecting this view, it made me chuckle, and I loved seeing his smile after he emerged from the water. 

Here is the view, I really love!

 Do you think he was having fun?

Here are some pictures of a crow that kept visiting our area and the trees surrounding us. You cannot see it, but there is a lake on the other side, absolutely gorgeous! 

My middle son's nickname is "Little Professor" because he loves learning and teaching about animals and anything science related. In the following pictures he is in his element with one of his favorite critters, frogs!

He rescued this {huge} frog who was trapped in one of the skating pools at the local park.

I am telling you the frog was HUGE! 

My son feels such a strong connection to animals. Each night he goes out to find the frog who has adopted him. He is convinced it is the same frog, that he likes him and comes to visit every night. You can see the love in Ry's eyes. 

One of his favorite things to do at his grandparents is to find frogs and lizards. Every time we go he catches at least a few and spends some time visiting and observing them. During the visit last Sunday he found 2 frogs, and a Hercule beetle. 

Ry's brothers love to see what he finds and he always shares his love of the critters and his knowledge. 

In this picture you can almost hear Ry telling Col all about the frogs. 

I planned to capture my oldest on his scooter, but the weather had other plans for us. Instead you get the picture of the tree with the dark clouds that opened up minutes after I clicked this shot. 

I have certainly captured the small moments and the fun moments of our week! 

Thank you for indulging me and letting me share some of my loves with you! 

Life moves too quickly, I am enjoying preserving those memories and looking back for those little things I might have missed while I was in the moment. 

Since it is Saturday, it is also time for the 3 items available for $1 as part of my weekly Summer Stock Up Sale.   

Multiplication Fluency Matching cards with arrays

Synonym Antonym match up cards

Multiplying & Dividing Fractions 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! May it be full of memorable moments!