notes on the year's moments
As I was going through pictures for yesterday's post, I had a few thoughts about the year that's past. First and most terrifyingly, it was really warm! All of the boys wore shorts at some point in every month except January. Last year's winter was very short, though we had lots of fun skating and did get a few beautiful sledding days, though nowhere near as many as we would have liked. Climate change is scary.
I also noticed our outdoor activities changed some from the year before (though of course we still spent more time than ever outside!). We did less biking, which feels kind of sad; we improved a lot as MTBers in 2021 and I had hoped that trend would continue in 2022. One good reason it didn't, though, is because we spent lots more time outside with friends, and our friends don't like biking as much as we do.
But of course that friend time was super fun and worth it! A big part of it was park day, which after we started it in September 2021 saw its first anniversary and its first full calendar year in 2022. It helped a lot with our outside hours total, because it was the rare Wednesday when we didn't spend close to four hours, or even more, at the park with a fun crew of kids and adults. There was also Backyard Farm Club, which grew out of the park day group and got going in May. We met weekly through the summer, and are now down to once a month, with less farm chores to occupy us. And then this fall we also started a new co-op group for learning and playing together, which has been meeting every Friday in our yard!
Of course, even with all of that we did get some time to adventure on our own. We explored some new places and visited old favorites. We traveled to the Cape and went camping not once, but twice! (though I realize I never wrote about our Maine adventure... oops! Our fall trip is here.) And this fall we spent some time at the ocean closer to home.
Those are the types of things that come through in pictures. We also read lots of books (and some of us played lots of video games), practiced writing, reading, and math, played music, did a little bit of art and a lot of gardening, and generally had a full and exciting year. Good thing I wrote so much of it down so I can remember it!