We live in ....

CONNECTICUT!! Woohoo, weren't you sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to hear the big news?! hahaha {don't feel bad if you weren't!}

I will have a post detailing many things I love about CT soon, but for now one of my favorite things about CT is that it's a small state and there are so many wonderful things to see nearby. You can go on tons of day trips and still not see everything there is to see in this great little state!

So I have a few places to share with you - some little gems in this great state. We have been taking a lot of field trips lately - for several reasons - one being that it will soon be winter and our field trips may be limited once the cold weather hits and two because we simply LOVE the fall season!

On a recent field trip we visited this beautiful Castle which sits very high on a hill overlooking the Connecticut River - the castle is called Gillette's Castle ... {this pic was taken from a ferry boat we were on and I used my zoom to capture the castle ... }
But if I zoomed out and took the pic in a regular mode you can see how high it is on the hill ...

Here is some interesting information about Gillette's Castle {copied from Wikipedia of course!}

Gillette Castle State Park is located in East Haddam, Connecticut in the United States. Sitting high above the Connecticut River, the castle was originally a private residence commissioned and designed by William Gillette, an American actor who is most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on stage. After Gillette died, with no wife or children, his will precluded the possession of his castle by any "blithering sap-head who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded". In 1943, Connecticut's government took the property, re-baptizing it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park.

Located at 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut, the park consists of the castle and its grounds and receives 100,000 annual visitors. It reopened in 2002 after four years of restoration, costing 11 million dollars. It now includes a museum, hiking trails, and a picnic area, and holds many theatrical celebrations.

There are a number of oddities in the castle personally designed by Gillette, such as unusual doorknobs and locks, and a system of hidden mirrors for surveillance of the public rooms from the master bedroom.

The grounds used to have a railroad track with a working steam engine that visitors could ride on, also designed by Gillette. Some of the track was purchased by Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut and is in use to transport guests around the lake. The remaining track was pulled up and converted into walking trails. From the castle's garden one can see the Connecticut River.

Here is the walkway leading to the castle - the stone work is everywhere and is simply stunning ...

I loved the vines growing between all the stone work ...

Looking back down at the river, that little boat was the ferry we took across the river!

Can you spot the two cats in this picture?

I LOVE the sunroom which faces the river ...

Very unique windows of all different sizes ...

Check out this upper balcony - cool, isn't it?!

You can go inside the castle and take a tour but on this particular day we didn't bring enough cash with us. I know, silly excuse but we hadn't really planned on stopping here that day - we were heading home from another area of the state and decided to stop here last minute. But we did peek in the windows and it looked really cool. We will definitely go back to tour the castle some day.

They have some really neat walking trails too - you can walk through the woods and even go through long, dark tunnels. There is a pond and lots of picnic areas. It's a really beautiful place! It's FREE to use the grounds and you only have to pay a fee if you want to tour the castle.

This was a really neat field trip and we would highly recommend it to anyone who visits Connecticut!

School Caddy Craft

A friend was recently giving away this old silverware caddy and I knew as soon as I saw it that I could turn it into something super cute!

Here is the before:
I painted it with leftover chalkboard paint and then used chalkboard markers to write some sayings on the sides ...

It sits in the center of our school table holding all the essential items that we use on a regular basis. I LOVE how it turned out!

Another Non-Recipe Recipe

Today was Canadian Thanksgiving and since I grew up in Canada and still have many family members and friends that live there we decided we'd have a little celebration here today too.

Unfortunately a busy weekend meant I was pretty much unprepared so I had to pull together a last minute Thanksgiving dinner late this afternoon!

I really didn't have time to cook a turkey so I bought one of those fully cooked rotisserie chickens. I made stuffing and heated green beans. And of course we had to have our cranberry sauce. So even though we were missing a few items it was still a really yummy dinner!

Then, I wanted something pie-ish for dessert - but since I'm trying to eat healthy I didn't want to make anything too fancy. {Nor did I have the time.} Sooooo, I made these tonight and the girls and I GOBBLED them up ... they were SO SUPER DELISH and easy!

Here is my non-recipe:
*Peel one apple per person / slice it into thin slices
*Use one ramekin per person and throw the apple slices into each one. Make sense? One bowl per person - one sliced apple in each bowl.
*Add a tsp of butter or margerine to the top of the apples in each bowl.
*Add a tsp of cinnamon to each bowl.
*Add a tsp of brown sugar to each bowl {or sub white sugar if you have no br. sugar on hand}
*Pour a little apple juice or apple cider into the each bowl.
*If you so desire add any other yummy toppings such as - raisins, oats, nuts, etc.

Put all of the bowls on to a baking sheet and put the whole thing in the oven at 375 deg for about 40 min or until the apples are tender.

Serve warm with cool whip .... YUMMY!!

Wellspring Academy Week 6!

This week at Wellspring Academy ...

We had another rainy week so when the days WERE nice I sent the girls outside to play ...I love seeing all of their creations that they draw on the driveway with chalk!

We finished up our unit on the Sun by demonstrating a Solar Eclipse ...

We entertained a tiny tot on Thursday ... We've started to put her up at the table in her booster seat because she's always so interested in what the girls are working on.

She keeps us laughing with her silly antics!

We made sun prints with leaves - a fun way to demonstrate how strong the sun's rays are and also it made for a fun, fall craft! The day was a bit windy though so we had to hold the papers down with rocks!

Not the greatest lighting, but these are the end result.

We did a lot of other stuff too ... but right now my mind is totally blank ... so I'll leave it at that for now. I do have a couple field trips to update you on soon though {with LOTS of FALL pictures!}

PS. I don't know whether to laugh or cry {I'll laugh, it's always more fun than crying} but NO ONE wanted to play along and guess the Castle ... nope, not-a-one! Now I know that many of you are personal friends so you were disqualified -- but there are still several people who are not personal friends of mine. {Maybe they don't even read my blog anymore?! LOL} Oh well ... I'll give ya another day or two if you just forgot to guess last week and then I'll be making the big reveal this Wednesday.

P.P.S. Here are the latest pics of Gracie {Trouble} and Casey ...

{Aren't they cute? Yeah, so cute we have to lock 'em outdoors while we do school work, they are SO distracting lately!!}

Friday Funny

I'm not sure why ... but I find it humorous that as I sit here on the small, loveseat couch ... my two dogs are sprawled out and taking up the entire large couch!

SPOILED I tell ya!

Ladies Camp Retreat

As promised here are the photos from my fabulous weekend away at the Ladies Camp retreat. It was held in NH at a GORGEOUS Christian camp that is right on the lake and surrounded by small mountains.

Everything about the weekend was fabulous. The company {I went with 3 fab girlfriends from church}, the food {what's up with that myth that camp food is gross?}, the weather {MUCH warmer than I expected}, the speaker, the worship time, the fun activities ... ALL of it was amazing!

Isn't it just crazy how one weekend away can do wonders for a busy Mom? I felt soooo refreshed and rejuvenated when I came home.

The speaker was Sharon Jaynes who previously wrote for Prov. 31 ministries but now has her own endeavour called Girlfriends in God. Check it out online, you can sign up for email devotionals. She is an author and speaker and she was great. A real southern girl {love her accent!} who was the picture of grace.

We also had the choice to attend some seminars. We made tie dyed t-shirts. We went on a hike in the woods. We played wii Dance until we were sweating like pigs. They had craft classes and Zumba. Or you could just simply choose to be in nature and have quiet, personal time.

The cabin we stayed in was right on the lake ... in the morning this was our wake up call ... gorgeous, isn't it??!!

Here is the camp chapel - which they have actually outgrown. They now do chapel in the large gym and use this building for other things like activities, seminars, etc.

One of the most fun things we did all weekend was something called the Challenge Course. There were 12 women in our group - the 4 of us plus 8 women we did not know. We went through 4 different very difficult, very physical challenges in which we HAD to rely on each other in order to complete the tasks.

One thing that really stood out to me was the teamwork aspect. I know in this world that women can be so caddy and competitive with one another. You know what I mean - when you meet new women and automatically feel as though they are all sizing each other up based on looks, abilities, etc. Women can be downright mean to one another, can't they?

But here, in this place where the women knew and loved the Lord, there was NONE of that. We became comrades with these other women, we NEEDED one another in order to complete the challenges. We lifted {literally} each other, pushed each other, grabs each other's hands ... we could not have done it without every member of the team. Isn't that just the way it is in the body of Christ? Or rather how it should be? I just love that!

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, I just couldn't help but see the parallels with this challenge course and the Christian life. =) So, one thing we had to do was get ALL 12 women up into and through this tire that was suspended high above the ground. The first woman up had no one to catch her on the way down and the last woman up had no one to boost her up - it was HARD, but we all did it!

Walking away as we finished the task ...

Even though the tasks were hard - they were fun too and we laughed our way through many of them ...

After that two of us did the rock climbing wall ... and the other two of us did riflery. I did riflery - I would have done the rock wall but we ran out of time ...

Trying to get a picture by the lake, we were being so silly and laughing so much that it was hard to get a pic with everyone's eyes open!

Later that night, the real fun began. We were told in advance to dress up for a decade and we chose the 70's - we went to Goodwill to find our costumes and then we had to dress up and wear them to dinner on Saturday night. It was SOOOOOOO much fun! Here is Joann {she has short hair so she got an afro and it was HILARIOUS!}

Here is Bethany ---

And Dee ---

And myself --- we got the platform boot covers at Walmart in the Halloween section! haha!

A couple more fun photos while we waited for dinner ....

During the teaching time we had this very powerful lesson about seeing ourselves as God sees us and letting go of those burdens we tend to drag around with us, the things that we allow to get in the way of being the person God wants us to be in Him. We were told to write something on the paper that we were going to stop carrying around as a burden and go nail it to the cross and give it to Jesus. While we were doing this they were playing Amazing Grace and In Christ Alone and many, many women were just bawling. I cried too. It was such a powerful moment and something I won't soon forget.

The gorgeous lakefront ...

And the tallest trees ever ... seriously these things stretched to the sky ... reminds of that song 'Your love oh Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness stretches to the sky, your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice flows like the ocean's tide ...'

The whole weekend was just a beautiful glimpse of what heaven will be like. I cannot WAIT to go back again next year!

A BIG Reveal and a Little Contest ...

Up until now I've kept where we live a pretty tight-lipped secret aside from saying 'we live in New England'... but I'll be honest, I LOVE where we live! We are in one of the most beautiful {IMHO} states in the country! There are places we go and things we do that I just want to share with all of you! I don't want to keep it a secret anymore!

And so ... I've decided that in a few short days I will make a BIG reveal and tell you all where we live. No, I won't disclose exact towns or anything silly like that. But I feel that there is so much to share that I just can't keep it secret any longer.

Until then, I have a teeny, tiny contest for you ... and for those that know me on a personal level or live near me, I'm sorry to say you won't be eligible for this one.

I have a picture below ... for the first person who correctly guesses the EXACT name of this castle and where it is located - I will have a prize. Not a big, fancy prize - but something fun nevertheless. {And who doesn't love getting something in the mail?!}

Sound good? OK ... now guess away!

{edited to add: I have hidden the comments for this post so everyone can get a fair guess. just didn't want you to be alarmed if your comment didn't show up.}

Wellspring Academy Week 5!

Holy Moly, it's been another week already?! Where does the time go? Well last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to attend a women's conference at a great Christian camp here in New England and then I feel like the rest of the week was a total blur! We had a busy and fun week including lots and lots of rain and wind ... and ONE nice, hot, sunny day in the middle of the week. We were also babysitting little R that day so we went to the library and the park and had a really nice day.

Aside from that it was a typical week {is there really such a thing?!} and we continued in our studies as usual. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't take any pictures this week. I need to be better about that!

But there was one day that stood out and I wanted to share a little story from it. We have been learning about the Inuits of the Arctic in our history course and on Thursday the girls were assigned to write a story about what it would be like to live on the frozen tundra like the Inuit did. They both slumped in their seats and proceeded to give lots of grumbles about how they couldn't think of anything to write and they had nothing creative to say.

I told them that they had to complete the assignment before we could move on to anything other fun things for the day, no matter how long it took. After talking for a few minutes my oldest said 'oh, you want us to MAKE UP a story?' and I was like 'YES, be creative! Make something up!' So finally they got writing once they understood what they had to do! LOL

AND, they ended up blowing me out of the water ... they wrote out their stories, then they shooed me out of the school room for awhile and they planned a play to act out what they had written. About 20 min later they called me back in where they had set up props and they acted out the whole story that they wrote! I videotaped it and I was just sooooo impressed! I love how they chose to change their attitudes and not only do their best but actually put a lot of creative thought into it. They did a wonderful job! I love how these types of things can really be living lessons and hope that it will really help them remember more of what they've learned.

I do have two photos to share with you ... when I was at Ladies camp last weekend the moon looked absolutely stunning, so I went out at night and used me super zoom and snapped this great shot! I love how you can see the texture and different colors of the moon - I've never seen it so close {with the exception of professionally taken photos}. I thought it was a neat picture to show the girls since we are studying Astronomy.

And the leaves are just starting to change - I love when there is still a little of the fresh green color mixed in with some gorgeous splashes of color!

Next up - more about the Ladies retreat!!!

Have a great week friends!