Just a nice day

Today has been a really nice day. Nothing exciting going on, nothing out of the ordinary. We started summer break in June and we have had a chance to be out enjoying nice weather and doing things as a family a lot. But lately however packing and pregnancy have taken up a fair amount of my energy. Which means the kids have been watching tons of TV. When they weren't watching TV they were complaining of being bored and having nothing to do.
We typically do not take a whole summer off and this is the point at which I would usually end our little summer break and start school again. that is just not an option this year! We will be gone two and a half weeks of July, then back to Washington for two to three weeks which will be full of packing and sending Daddy off on his deployment, Back to Ohio again where we will spend two to three weeks living with Grandma and Grandpa until we move and settle into our own place the first of September! There is just NO chance of starting our official school back up and having any sort of working schedule!!
Since we couldn't just start back off to school but the kids are going crazy with no real set schedule I decided I had to do something. Not a strict schedule really.Just a plan of things to do during the course of the day other than sit in front of the TV.
I read through one of the new Magic Tree House book "Dragon of The Red Dawn" we borrowed from the library. Its a great one about a brother and sister who travel back in time to Japan. They meet Samurai and a poet named Basho who writes haiku poetry and see Mount Fuji.I thought up some fun activities and crafts we could do to go along with the book for the week.
So we got up today and had breakfast with Dad and then we read a couple chapters of our book.We talked over what we had read while we drew a picture of our favorite part of the book so far. Even Hannah got in on the coloring. Of course by the end of it she had more marker on her than on her paper!
Afterwords the kids played for a while and I got some laundry going. Then we did lunch. Hannah went down for her nap and the boys got twenty minutes each of video game time.During video game time I got on the computer to find and print a map of Japan that showed Mount Fuji as well as a world map so that we could see where Japan was compared to where we are.
At the end of video game time the neighbor kids asked if the boys could play in the back yard, so the boys headed out for an hour of backyard fun.
When they made there way back in the boys decided they wanted to play a board game. We grabbed out one of our favorites from Grandma and Grandpa Dino monopoly.
After monopoly we looked at the maps and found Mount Fuji in Japan and colored on the world map North America and Japan then we read a few more chapters of our book.
Now the boys are watching an episode of "Duck Tales" and mommy is having a little computer time before Miss. Hannah makes it up from her nap.
The great thing is that the kids have been so great having fun and playing. not whining, not bickering and NOT watching TV all day!