March Maple Syruping!

I missed posting photos in March, but we did have some fun!

Mommy brought home some silly glasses from work on St. Patrick's Day!

The next day, while Daddy was busy at work in the midst of tax season, I took the kids to the Cleary Lake Regional Park for the Maple Syruping program there.  Two years ago, we did the program at the Richardson Nature Center and the kids loved it. 

We started with a quick tutorial on how to identify maple trees, how the maple trees make and use sap, etc.

Then we headed out to the "sugar bush" trail. 

Along the way, we saw some trees that had already been tapped. Trevor found this one with an almost full bag and we brought back this sap in the orange buckets on the way back to the lodge.

The kids had fun carrying the buckets with the supplies in them.

We found a good tree to tap. 

Our guide demonstrating the angle to drill the tree.

Each person got to do some of the drilling.

When the drilling was done, you could see the sap was already starting to drip out.

After the spout was placed, the sap dripped out 1 drip at a time.  The guide told us you could put your hand under it to catch the sap and taste it...

...or you could just catch it directly in your mouth! 

The kids met two other little kids in the group and enjoyed the time together.

Once we brought back the sap, we put it in the boiler in the sugar shack.

Trevor checking out the boiling sap.  The steam smells sweet!

The kids had fun and we headed home to relax for the rest of the day.

In other fun, Trevor has been having fun coloring lately. We got a pirate coloring book at the dollar store when we got little tins for Sarah's hair pins for dance, and he has been coloring up a storm.

 Next up...spring break started 1 week later and we had lots of fun!