Valuable "V" in AdVentures

 And "V week" begins and ends.  Lots of things go on and we do a lot, but I'll just give you the usual highlights that sort of go with the theme.  :)

The girls did their own chalk boards of course as usual.

 We got a lot of vegetables to go with our theme!  I'd never cooked or eating an Artichoke before so this was a little adventure for all of us.

 The 4 year old decided she loved it!

 And also the 9 year old!  She thought it especially was good in humus.

 We had many snacks of Nutella and Celery... which is brilliant if you've never tried that!

 Aaaaand got a gluten free chocolate cake mix that we decided to fill with shredded carrots to fit the theme.

 Frosting was nutella.  ;)

I think I was subconsciously balancing out all the veggie meals with extra amounts of dessert.  ;)

Besides the celery, carrots, and artichokes we had salad, brussel sprouts, asperigus, kale, cabbage, sugar snap peas, avacadoes, bell peppers, and leaks, and a few other kinds of veggies too! 

 We bought a couple new plants to swap out for the ones that burned up in the heat this summer.  Going with the them we chose two vines and an Aloe Vera plant.  The picture above is when the girls were making a mud fairy house.  It's gone now, but there's still a little "fairy path" through the flowers.

 Random silliness from the oldest.  ;)

 The girls have been enjoying some time learning how to use "Paint" and making pictures that we've saved.  My oldest wants to turn one of her pictures into a Jamberry in the Nail Art Studio that they have, so that might happen in a few months. 

 We went to the children's garden at the Arboretum so that we could look for Veggies and vines.

 They have a whole section called the incredible edible garden.

 Looking at all the tiny growing veggies.  I forgot to take a picture of our cucumber plant, but it's quite a long vine now and has a lot of little veggies growing!  Kind of perfect timing really.

 Make a face with the magnetic veggies - this project was in the edible garden area.

 Artichoke!

 Two peas in a pod.

 Celery slide.

 Because being outdoors isn't fun without some sort of game on a screen.

 Which was kind of fun, but hot and we moved on pretty quickly.

 They were memory match type games and so forth.

 The oldest wanted a picture of them in this little "fort" area that they found while we walked around.

 In the building a bit to cool off and they had fun with this giant touch computer making pictures in the "Paint" program like I'd just started letting them use at home.

 Very bright and hot this day!  Standing under some vines.

 Putting the giant hibiscus together... which is pretty big already in real life as you can see compared to my long fingers. 

And more vines!  The mist was a nice little break from the heat.

 And near the end of our "V" time I wanted to take them to the museum downtown thinking we could look for Vincent van Gogh.  Also, I needed to learn how to get to downtown without using the freeways so I could do it by myself.  Hoping we can make this trip more often in future weeks.

 Goofy grins.  It was cold in there so they were glad they had their hoodies.

In case you were wondering!  This is the info next to this particular painting.  There were only 3 or so paintings by van Gogh, but it worked.

Something that I got for myself.  I think I like it!  I could do something very similar with just my own visual journal, but I wanted to start with this to sort of get the idea of it.  You can find this and all her other books here.  I'd like to possibly get more of her books to use with my kids school even, but can't find more info about them to know if they'd be helpful or which ones to get and all that.  So I took a short video of this one at least so you all could see it and know if it's something you'd like too.  It's a nice way keep up our own reading and growing and thus modeling for our children a life of learning.

The books I chose for it.. and in typical "me" fashion I ended up reading two or three totally different books that weren't in this list/pile at all.  This is how my to-do lists work as well... I'll make the to-do list and then do things that I didn't write down at all.  Not sure why I bother to make the list or stack!  Well, I'll eventually get to the "plan" anyway.

 Got my September Stylebox which I LOVE and my "mystery lacquer" that was their special thing this month other than the two exclusive sheets of wraps was this lovely violet color!  Which goes with our "V week" even and I put some on the girls as well.

This months stylebox is a great time to join!  You normally get $30 of exclusive products for $25 or less (and free shipping!) and usually it's two sheets of wraps or a sheet and an exclusive bottle of lacquer with application tools thrown in.  THIS month it's $45 of products for $25 (or less if you get a longer subscription than the 3 months!)  It's easy to skip a month if you hate that design (you can skip once every quarter) and you can also choose to "gift" a month with just the click of a button and your friends address.  For more info look here.
 
 Now they even have three different options with slightly different styles.  It's really fun! 

 I chose the feminine because I liked the wrap designs the best.  The "mystery lacquer" for me was "Long Weekend" which I hadn't hardly looked at before, but it turns out to be my favorite color!

Everyone has till the 15th to sign up for Stylebox and get this months (one of the above) and it's nice to know for sure what your first one will be.  The surprise is fun though too!  I watch out for their Youtube video each month so I can see if I want to skip or change the style or gift it.  This months was so extra good with the lacquer as well that I got a subscription for my mom as well for her Christmas present!  (She knows so it's okay to say something!)  It's nice having this little fun hobby to connect over even from a distance.  She liked the "Feminine" style best too.  :)

The final highlight in the last few weeks was how my husband won "Team Member of the Year" award where he works.  It is a huge deal and we had to keep the secret from him for about a month!  Not an easy thing to do, but he was totally surprised!  When they were doing their conference down town the girls and I had to wait backstage and when the video above started playing on the big screen, that was the first time he knew about it and was so shocked that he hardly knew what to do with himself.  I don't have a picture of him all dressed up like a rockstar that he was at the time (it was the theme.. just go with it.)
Driving downtown was a bit traumatic for us girls but we made it and the parking garage that was too low for our Land-rover was NOT my fault as I was just going where I was told to go.  But over all it was a success and he's still amazed that we all kept a secret from him as he didn't think that was possible. 

And I think that's it!  Best highlights from our adventurous "V" time.  :)