Nice Long Weekend

Tomorrow is Tuesday and back to school for us.  We had a lovely four day weekend.  Today we went to visit a therapeutic horseback riding farm with our special needs homeschool group.  My husband had the day off so we were able to go as a family.  This was nice for me because he could watch one child and I could watch the other.  It can be an exhausting task to try and keep tabs on two autistic children in public at the same time.  Both of our boys seemed to have enjoyed themselves.  Ds12 has recently started to overcome an incredible fear of dogs and just about every other animal so when we got out of the car and the first thing I saw was about 4 dogs running around I was a little nervous.  He did great with them though and was particularly fond of one black dog with three legs.  I am not quite sure why but he has talked about that dog for the rest of the day.  He also did well with the horses even though he has no interest in actually riding one at this point.  He was able to brush a pony and attempted to use a hoof pick with the assistance of the very nice lady that was helping him.  Ds11 did very well also.  There were quite a few people there so I think he was a bit overwhelmed by that but he didn't get upset.  He didn't ride or interact with the horses much but he didn't seem scared either so that was an encouraging sign.  I think he would really enjoy riding therapy if we could get him on the horse.  He is a very sensory orientated child and I think he would love the rhythm of horseback riding.  I did speak to the lady there and she did say that they have never had a child that didn't eventually end up riding and the longest it has ever taken a child to get on the horse was six weeks.  I am hoping we can find the time to give it a try with him.  We also had an Easter egg hunt there.  It is funny because ds11 was with my husband and I and we pointed to the eggs he should pick up and put in his basket.  He understands this process because when he makes a mess we point and say pick it up.  Therefore he is looking at us like I didn't mess up these eggs so why are you making me pick them up.  He did pick them up but I think he was pretty confused about it all.  Here are the pictures of our field trip:

 

Shortly after we got home my friend called and I was able to talk to her for awhile which was great.  She, her husband, and their little girl were our next door neighbors but her husband deployed back in September and she decided to go stay with family in Texas while he was gone but he will be coming home next month so they will be coming here for his homecoming which is exciting.  We got to be pretty close when my husband was deployed last year.  We would go for walks together almost every day and she would bring her little girl who just turned two over to play.  My twelve year old just loves little kids and had such a great time trying to entertain her.  We have kept in touch while she has been in Texas and I hope I have been half the encouragement to her during their deployment as she was to me during ours.  I am so excited about seeing them again and I am really hoping things work out for them to move back here.  Currently her husband has orders to go somewhere else but she would really like to come back here.  I guess we will see what God has in store for their lives. 

As for the rest of the day I went to the grocery store with ds12 and then made dinner.  We had steak and home fries.  Not too gourmet but it was good.  Ds11 was super tired after such an exciting day so he was asleep by 10:30.  Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!  I am going to go to bed myself after this.  I thought about staying up and working on some ideas for school for Earth Day but I think I am going to seize the opportunity to get a good night sleep.  I did want to share one last thing though.  This is a center activity I created the other day for Earth Day.  It involves sorting different pictures of recyclables into categories. I am getting a lot better at Microsoft Word so I thought I would show it off.

 

The pictures of the objects are in the pockets already and I am wishing I had taken a separate picture of them but there are about 5 pictures per pocket.  I just wanted to show it off.

Have a great night!