Happy Easter!

Hannah, Mia, Kayla, Papa, Sarah, Madeleine, Garmi, and Benjamin

Dyeing Eggs

Sarah turns 6!!!

 We had a small family party on Wednesday for Sarah's 6th bithday....pizza, chicken tetrazini, stuffed shells, salad, and of course, cake!  Here are a few pictures....


Vegan chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting...homemade of course.

Benjamin....what more do we have to say???

Playing his "guitar" and singing.

Notice the sparkling silver shoes (Maddie's) he is wearing while reading....

Little Artist

St. Patrick's Happenings

Shamrocks the girls made and painted.

Ben and Maddie craft time.



Sarah on her dress down at school.

Rainbow fruit platter for St. Patty's.

Papa and Leprechaun Benjamin

Boston Children's Museum

 The Harrisons (and Grandma) headed down to the Boston Children's Museum today.  It is probably our favorite museum because we always discover something new to do when we go.  There was a music and movement class today and all the kiddos loved it!  The played drums and maracas, and danced with scarves and puppets!  We had lunch from Flour (and a few desserts of course) and ate on the water front...a bit chilly but beautiful!


My girls help lead the dance!
Ben in the tool room.





Maddie using the screw driver.

Turtle Lane Maple Farm, North Andover, Massachusetts

 The Harrisons headed down to North Andover, Massachusetts this morning for our first maple sugar house tour!  It was incredible!  We were the first to arrive and it was wonderful being able to move freely around the sugar house.  The tour lasted about 1 1/4 hours and we were able to sample sap, warm syrup, maple sugar, maple cream, maple candy, and maple bacon ice cream.  I was excited because of all the science that the girls learned and experienced....plus a history lesson!


Farmer Paul feeds the stove.

Evaporation!

The 3 kiddos.

Sarah holding a replica of an original wooden spile made from a sumac tree.

More Maple Farm Photos

Various collection buckets from years past...

The Pump Room...equiped with pumps and ultraviolet filtration systems.

The sap starts to foam because of the starch...just a knife touched to butter and then put in the foam makes it go away!  Chemistry!!!!  Gotta love molecules!

Maple syrup from years past.  Notice the light grades on the left and they get darker as you go to the right.  The light syrup is made from the sap early in the season.... it has a higher sugar concentration and doesn't need to be boiled as long.  The darker the syrup, the longer it was boiled because the sap had a lower sugar content.