Bat Appreciation Day

Today is International Bat Appreciation Day. I have a great appreciation for bats because I can't stand mosquitoes, and since bats love to eat mosquitoes, that makes them highly esteemed in my mind. A state park about 45 minutes from us held a program for homeschoolers today to celebrate bats. The morning program was for grades K-2, and the afternoon program was for grades 3-6. I signed all three of my kids up for the afternoon program. I figured it was better to include Oliver with the older group than the other way around. Nadia met two sisters who are in grades 3 and 6, and those two girls are also registered for the coding program at the children's museum next week. We learned about white-nose syndrome, which sadly has decimated the bat population over the past 13 years. The kids made a craft and played two games. The weather has been very erratic lately. It was a sunny day (we had a lot of rain earlier in the week), but it was only in the 50's so I decided to skip taking the kids on a hike. They have some beautiful waterfalls that you can see if

you hike a trail.

The kids all finished their AWANA books this evening. WOOHOO! Their cars were also turned in. Paul helped them pain their cars yesterday. The Grand Prix will be next Wednesday. Paul added a telephone cord to Oliver's "phone" to increase the weight of the car. The first two pictures in this  (at left) are from Saturday (when it was a glorious 75 degrees out -woohoo!). The two pictures below are from today - one of the bat games and a picture of their three cars. At the very bottom of the page is a video of Nadia saying the verses that she said tonight at AWANA. I also want to take videos of Ian and Oliver saying the verses they said tonight, and I also want to get one of Nadia playing a song on the piano that she learned this week. Nadia actually practiced the piano more than what she was required to do because she LIKED playing the song. WOOHOO! I can't remember if that ever happened before with her.