Dwayne traveled to Chicago for work, so while he was gone, I took the girls to visit a friend, another homeschool mom, in rural New Hampshire.

Even though she homeschools her kids, they are allowed to participate in sports through their local public schools. Avril watched and cheered while her kids played soccer one afternoon.

My friend lives minutes from Polar Caves. Norah and I wanted to visit there anyway, since we're doing so much reading about caves recently, so I took the older kids and my friend stayed home with the babies.

The kids enjoyed playing hide and seek in the rock garden leading to the caves. It's like a natural labyrinth of rocks.

Then on to the caves.

The caves were cool (but we were working up a sweat, so they felt nice) and they were also very dark (thank goodness for my camera's flash).

The view from the top.

On the nature trails.

One rock we saw on our walk gathers water and makes a natural wishing well.

My friend's kids had to get back for another soccer game the day we went to the caves. But, before we headed home to Connecticut, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that we were so close, so I took my girls back to do some sluicing and mining for more rocks to add to our growing collection.

Norah found some fossils and shark's teeth.

While I drove home, the kids slept off all the fun we had.