Soccer/ Museum

Soccer started on Thursday at Prospect Park, the kids met about 16 of their home schooling peers and had a great time playing soccer for 2 hours. the coach M is so great with them and they really learn form him and have fun at the same time. The moms sat around atlking about various things, public school being one of the topics. I am still amazed at how many parents have issues with the school system and am forever grateful that i have the opportunity to home school my kids.

J and her bff F hung out together and played and talked and just had fun playing soccer. J decided that she Loves it! and wants to go every week. So I set aside the money for the next 2 mos so we can go to soccer weekly weather permitting.

DH was away for 3 days in MD for work, so I played single parent from Sunday night till Wed. night. It was actually really cool to be at home alone and to have more time to clean up. I also took the kids to SI on Monday. We took the train into the city and then took the SI ferry boat across the water and then walked the 3 blocks to the SI Museum. I love this place, not many people know about it so it's always empty and it's only $2 for adults and kids are free. The kids were fascinated by the 300 lbs meteor piece they had on display that hey could touch and try to pick up. This was the meteor that fell on the earth about 50,000 yrs ago. It created a giant crater in Arizona. Also of great interest were all of the preserved animals and amphibians they had on display. They had frogs, and bats and baby Hammerhead sharks preserved in alcohol in a jar. Most of them were from the early 1900's. Rocks and shells and dinosaur tracks that were preserved were also on display. Down stairs it was the Lenape Indians that inhabited NY from the beginning of the known migration period about 30,000-50,000 years ago. It showed how the first people came to North America and showed various artifacts that have been found in SI and NJ. Then it showed a progression in time as far as how they lived and the tools and things they used every day. Then there was a display from the 1500's when the first White man came in contact with the Native Americans. Giovanni De Verrazano (hence the Verrazano bridge) and his men and how things changed for them. It also had some facts on what needs to be done when looking for and preserving artifacts. It explained what it takes to be an archaeologist.

It was just so cool :). Afterwards I took the kids out for lunch at a sandwich place nearby and then we took a walk to the library that I used to go to when i was growing up in that part of Staten island. It hadn't changed that much, we sat down in the children's' section and I read a few books to the girls and then we walked back to the Ferry boat and went back to the city. The ferry ride was nice and cool, and we got to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and a cool boat that was painted as a shark which J loved. :)

It was a long day but so nice to be able to get up go where we pleased.

Now public school is over for the summer so basically every where we go will have some kind of camp groups there so I think we will just focus on tennis and soccer and having play dates for the next few months with schooling done at home.