Wednesday and Thursday

Time is just flying.

Or really it's just that spring came kind of early, so it feels later in the year than it really is. In fact, I've already mowed our lawn twice, and isn't that something we usually reserve for April?

There have been ups and downs this month, and the bright weather has helped to clear the bad air. High winds and a couple of heavy rains have done a lot to clear the tornado debris from the trees, and the warm weather has made it easy to get out with Iris and Ollie and ease the pain of losing Moose. Colorful, happy flowers always help, too.

It's been chillier lately, though, and while I don't really have the right to be disappointed because this is more like true March weather, I suddenly find fifty degrees to be a bit on the cool side. Either way, spring is here.

We're in Egypt these days. Calvin loves Egypt. We spent a couple of weeks exploring it last winter, and I'm surprised by how much he seems to remember now. I think Magic Tree House has a lot to do with it (Mummies in the Morning, plus the accompanying research guide, by Mary Pope Osborne). We are visiting ancient Egypt now as part of a tour through the ancient civilizations, which we're loving. Calvin discovered a craft book in the sale room this week, all the suggestions in which he is determined to try (Egyptian Crafts from the Past, by Gillian Chapman), and we've watched Engineering an Empire (History Channel, 2006), three times thus far—it's a great overview of the architecture from each of the three kingdoms. I suspect there will be many crafts to photograph in the coming days, but we have to go shopping for a few oddball supplies first.

Meanwhile, we're smelling the flowers, puzzling through the continents (Geo Puzzles Europe and the Middle East), filling in our ancient civilizations timeline (I've failed to photograph it thus far, but I'll get on it tomorrow), graphing, mathing, and exploring the earth that is coming alive all around us. Every day is full of discovery, more so now I think than any other time of the year.

Looking back

Detroit Institute of Arts

Today? How about a trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts. A number of mothers recommended it, and I've been wanting to go for a while now, but it was actually my parents who suggested it on a whim today. It's a great museum, and with a great number of surprising treasures. Calvin was especially excited about the suits of armor. They set up sketching benches so that patrons could try out their own artistic skills. We enjoyed Greek and Roman artifacts, van Gogh, Picasso, lunch, a textile craft, and artifacts from the ancient Middle East and Egypt. I suspect we'll be back.

C. Monet

As in Calvin. He just started an art class through our homeschooling group, and they tackled water colors the first day, copying Monet's The Pointe of Heve for their first project. They talked about perspective and about colors. Calvin loved it, and I love his painting, done with water color pencils.

We're linking up to Saturday's Artist at OLM.

Ollie just wouldn't pose