Field Trip Friday!

I know it is late but we all ended up catching a stomach bug (again.) Ugh!

This week we went to Standish to visit a friend who was camping there.
We went on a hay ride

We played in the camp store

We collected firewood

We hung out and had a good time!

Nothing like indoctrinating them early, right?

BBC NEWS | UK | Monopoly swaps cash for plastic

Color me inpressed

One of the great things about having a Blog is seeing the pages that brought people here.

I was pretty darn impressed with myself when I saw that a Google search for "plato what we do in life echoes in eternity" brought someone to my blog. That is until I saw that a Google search for "mashed taters lotr" also brought someone to my little corner of the Internet.

I'll stick with Plato, thank you.

A totally serious question...

Why are some people *allowed* to be rude on TWTM board?

I have posted things in the past that were not half as rude as *someone* was in the Organics post and it was deleted. It seems if you add *Cheers* to the end of your post you can say anything.

I didn't write it...

If you have a problem with profanity, look away.

For some reason I came across these definitions on urbandictionary.com and had to share. Of course these are completely unbiased. I did not edit these...


1. homeschool

Someone smart enough to get out of sitting through the daily 7 hours of bullshit our nation calls "school". Generally the all-around coolest people ever, along with being the best educated element of society.

Typically hated by governments who want to indoctrinate youth, and clueless fucktards who secretly wish they didn't have to go to school either.

Damn! That homeschooled guy just got laid twice last night! Too bad the guys who go to school are socially inert, castrated sheep, or they could have some fun too...


They also have definitions for Homeschooler.

My personal favorite is #4, followed closely by #3.

4. homeschooler

According to nonhomeschoolers...they’re different. Everyone has his or her own assumptions about this strange race of students, the ones who choose to sever their relationship with the public school system. They must either be a genius that feels restricted in a normal classroom, a socially inept and reclusive introvert, or maybe both. Besides that, they are devoutly religious and spend five hours a day on bible study. They don’t swear, smoke, wear skirts above the ankle, or drink anything stronger than orange juice. Homeschoolers are geography bee winners, girl scouts and boy scouts, participatants in civil war reenactments, and above all, they love every minute of it. But we're not, really.

See that perfectly normal person not dressed as a skank who could be considered a freak because they are reading for pleasure and don't throw wild parties? They're probably a homeschooler.


3. homeschooler

I typical person who does school at home. Usaly they get good grades but are some times thought of as nerds. Although, the only stupid ones are in New Jersey. (Emphasis mine.)

Wait, bears?

Ethan's smokejumping career might be over before it even starts.

The other day we were watching something about bears. One of the things they were talking about is how they train smokejumpers to deal with bears (by deal with I mean spray pepper spray in their general direction and run like hell.) His response?

"Wait, bears?"

Suddenly jet fuel fires don't seem so bad.

A boring, rainy day activity

Out of curiosity I did a Google search for my maiden name. Everyone in the world who has this last name is related to me* and I wanted to see what came up.

Nothing. Not a damn thing about "my side" of the family. My California/Nevada relatives have all kinds of stuff pop up about them, but nothing about the Ohio side. What's up with that?

Half of the California side I have never met and we don't really keep in contact with them. (My Ohio uncle talks to my Nevada uncle once in a while, and lived in Nevada for a while. I guess it would help if I talked to the Ohio uncle once in a while? I talk to the Croatian side more than I talk to the Ohio side.)

*How do I know that everyone in the world with this name is related to me? My maiden name is an Americanized version of a very Croatian surname. When my grandpa came to the US they changed it. Not even his brother (who came with him) got the same last name.

My grandpa is from Delnice, a town in western Croatia.

Your Brain on Conservativism/Liberalism

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Today is Ethan's 11th birthday.

We got him a hiking stick from the nature center (Hey, it's what he wanted. He is my outdoorsy-sports guy.) The plan was to go hiking with the new present, but we had thunderstorms this morning, so I don't know. If only there were a way to predict the weather of the future...

He requested Tortilla Soup for his birthday dinner, and so far hasn't decided what movie he wants for "movie night." (Another request.)

I was going to post a baby picture but I can't figure out how to use the scanner part of my printer-scanner thing, so you are stuck with a recent picture. Well, once Blogger fixes whatever it is that is preventing me from uploading a picture, that is.


He is having some friends up this weekend to have a hang out and swim party. We are still waiting to hear back from one friend. Hopefully they call soon... it will break his heart if this friend can't come.

Quote of the day

For no reason other than the fact that I was busy and therefore obviously needed to be interrupted, the other day Alex said to me "You know, I might look like I am just a gaming geek, but I'm not. I'm a science geek too."

A distinction I'm sure his future mother-in-law will appreciate.

You know your mom married into a hillbilly family when...

Step-sister 1 divorces her husband and marries his brother.

And then

Step-sister 2 (3 kids, all different fathers, married to only one of them, but divorced him before the baby was born) starts dating stepsister 1's ex-husband and they decide to get married.

What should we get the blushing bride for her 3rd wedding?

Cool Free Resources for On the Go Homeschoolers

This was posted to The Country Fair but it is so cool I thought it should be posted here, too.

Cool Free Resources for On the Go Homeschoolers

Opinions, please

I have decided to turn the dining room into a "school room" or sorts. Well, really I am just going to store our books closer to where we use them. The problem is, we only need a place to store our library books and I don't want to buy book shelves.

I have an old, beat up antique cabinet in the garage waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I got the *brilliant* idea to bring it into the dining room as a school cabinet. I am going to live with it in place for a few days and then if I decide to keep it, I will refigure the shelves and fix it up a bit. (As you can tell by my chairs I like the beat-up look.)
The back wall that is bare will be for our white board, maps and any other things we need/want to hang.
I don't mind having school *stuff* out in the open. so that isn't an issue. I just don't want the house to look cluttered.
What do you think?

Planning - The bane of my existence

Not really. I love planning. I love planning more than I love doing. I'm such a geek.

The good news is I don't need to buy too much. The bad news (for Christian) is I am going to be working on getting Christian to be more independent... and he is starting Latin. Oh yeah.

Today I asked him if he wanted to start back with German or start Latin first. "Latin, because I hate German." was his answer. Scheiße.

So far the big freshman year plan is:

Literature
The Well Educated Mind
Great Books*

English
Rod and Staff (Grammar)
Vocabulary for the High School Student
The Paragraph Book (Writing is something we haven't spent much time on, so I am starting him here and them moving on through the series. Once we are done with that, I'm not sure what we will do. Any suggestions?)

Math
The next book in the Margaret Lial series

Foreign Language
Oxford Latin
Rosetta Stone German

History - Ancients (BC 5000-400 AD)
World History: The Human Odyssey (Spielvogel)
Timetables of History (Simon & Schuster)

Geography
Runkle (He has already done one part of this, so I will have him finish up the workbook part)

Typing
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Logic
Traditional Logic I (Cothran)

Science
Fogware High School Biology CD’s
PASS Biology Workbook
Biology Demystified

Art
Artistic Pursuits

*I haven't decided which Great Books to read yet (and Christian doesn't care) so any suggestions?
The Bible: Genesis, Job
Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500 BC)
The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (c. 850 BC)
A Day in Old Athens by William S. Davis
History of the Persian Wars by Herodotus (485-424 BC)
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (Livingston abridged edition) (460-395 BC)
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (c. 440 BC)
Medea, Euripides (c. 431 BC)
The Frogs, Aristophanes (405 BC)
Republic, Symposium, Plato (c. 387 BC)
On Poetics, Ethics, Aristotle (384-322 BC)
A Day in Old Rome by William S. Davis
The Bible: The Book of Daniel (c. 165 BC)
On the Nature of Things, Lucretius (c. 60 BC)
De republic, Cicero (54 BC)
The Aeneid by Virgil (c. 30 BC)
Metamorphoses by Ovid (c. 5)
The Bible: Paul, 1 & 2 Letters to the Corinthians (c. 58 AD)
The Wars of the Jews by Josephus (c. 68)
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Roman, Plutarch (c.100)
The Annals of Tacitus (c. 117)
On the Incarnation by Athanasius (c. 300)

So far, Alex's seventh grade year is going to look like this:

Literature
I haven't decided yet

Spelling
Sequential Spelling

Grammar and Composition
Rod & Staff
The Paragraph Book

Math
Basic College Mathematics (Lial)

History Ancients (BC 5000-400 AD)
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia

Art
Artistic Pursuits

Science
Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia
JVC Experiment Books

Latin
Latin for Children

Typing
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Logic
Fallacy Detective

Ethan's sixth grade year, so far looks a lot like Alex's seventh grade year. Alex will study the topic more in-depth and is required to write more.

Am I missing anything?

Field Trip Friday!

Did not happen this week. Yesterday we took in a Tigers Game with a bunch of friends and by the time we got home (after 10pm) we all decided that we would call the game our field trip for the week.

Can I pick good seats or what?? I can pick good days too. It rained right up until the game started (late.) I know. It's a gift.

This isn't even the ride home. It was the ride to dinner. Imagine how tired they were on the ride home.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Ethan already has his life figured out. He wants to be a firefighter... either in the Air Force or as a Smokejumper. As his mother, either option scares the hell out of me. The good news is that he is 10 so he might change his mind. The scary news is that he has been saying it for years and years so the chance of him changing hi mind is slim.

Alex wants to do whatever involves the least amount of work. (He is sooo my child.)

Christian is the one that I wish would pick something. He is like me... interested in so many things the thought of standing up and proudly proclaiming to the world that *whatever* is what he wants to do for-the-rest-of-his-life isn't appealing. Which I should be happy he has decided before he spends $30,000 of not his money on a degree he will never use.

I will never forget my first day at college. I was standing in line at the bookstore waiting to buy some overpriced book and the guy behind me struck up a conversation with me. (We were buying the same book.) He had just changed to my major (Architecture) from pre-med. I was curious as to what made him decide to change and well... it was something he did often. Twenty three times, in fact. Eight times the previous year alone. His dad had just told him that if he changed again they were going to stop paying for his school. His dad was a much nicer parent that I would have been, I think.

Anyway, the point of the story is that I don't want that to be Christian. We have been talking about things he is interested in and have decided to look into a few. We will see if that helps him decide. He is only a freshman, so we still have time. I just don't want to end up at his graduation party explaining that his big plans involve living at home and a job at the video store, KWIM?

The Truth Laid Bear

The Truth Laid Bear

A list of Israeli Bloggers, Palestinian Bloggers and Lebanese Bloggers.

Thunderstorms

Around 6:30, we were leaving the pool and the electricity went out. Luckily, ours at home didn't go out but B & K weren't so lucky. Consumers Energy estimates that their electricity will be back on at 11:59pm 7/20/06. Nice. Apparently, over 200,000 people lost their electricity, but only a small section of our sub did. Most of them are on the other side of town.

Sometimes it sucks to be Ethan

Alex and Ethan share a bedroom and always have. Even when we had five bedrooms, they wanted to share. Ethan has never been a sound sleeper (in fact, he walks and talks in his sleep) and now we might know why.

During lunch today Ethan said that he remembered Alex tickling his face, so he would slap it, thinking there was a bug crawling on him. Alex burst out laughing, saying he did it five or six times.

Ethan then said something about "Buddha" and again Alex burst out laughing. Ethan had taken his shirt off to go to sleep, and while he was sleeping Alex rubbed his (Ethan's) belly with his (Ethan's) hand and chanted slowly Buddha... Buddha...

Then after he was bored with that and decided that repeating the tickling with shaving cream in Ethan's hand was a bad idea. He left Ethan alone.

Tonight Ethan and I are planning to sneak into their bedroom and tickle Alex's face. We will be using the shaving cream, though.

River Days

Yesterday Marty was off so we headed down to River Days. River Days is a weekend long festival that started in 1958 (or so.) This year there was a riverboat we could ride, a canoe ride, a bunch of tents with cool stuff for the kids, antique tractors, a Revolutionary War encampment reenactment, a battle reenactment, concerts, a skateboarding competition, a Native American wedding ceremony (yes, it was a real wedding) ... and a ton more.
This was cool! There was a bagpipe band (is that what they are called??) there also.
The Wedding Party
A manly tattoo
Excited Alex













Christian is getting too good at hiding from the camera. I will have to snap some of him soon.

One of the displays there was Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. I found out that they have a program where a family can "adopt" a kid. They require that you meet the kids at least 3 times a month, and just do normal "family" things, like hiking, bowling, movie night, having them over for a BBQ, etc.

We have been looking for something for the boys to get involved with, and we think this might be it. I'll let you know.

Field Trip Friday!

Today's field trip was to the Auburn Corn Fest. It was not at all what we expected, but that's ok. We still had fun. (As much fun as you can have eating corn in the rain...)

The first thing we did was eat corn, of course. I really thought it would be cooked in the husks over a coal carnival corn, but alas, it was just boiled corn. Very, very boiled corn.
Alex and Christian eating corn. Well, Alex was eating it and Christian won't eat in public, so he just sort of looked at it. Yes, he always looks this happy.

I won't let them ride carnival rides (yes, I am one of those mothers)so there wasn't much to do. I gave them each some money to play games. Ethan blew it all at the very first game we came to. Alex had to analyze the games and see which one had the best prize (because "Of course I will beat it, mom. It is simple logic Blah, blah, blah." For the record, he didn't win.) and Christian came home with his money and put it into his bank.

After games we decided to get some caramel apples.

Schmidts are pretty amusing...

So after our adventure we headed to the pool where I finished off field trip Friday, talking while the kids splashed around like crazy people. (No, this isn't me. It is the person I was talking to!)

Dumb asses without car insurance really piss me off

My mom was in a pretty bad car accident Tuesday night. The jack ass that hit her doesn't have insurance and was driving under a suspended license. Her van it totaled, and it is going to take a week or so for her insurance company to take care of things.

The good news is her insurance company is going to nail the jack ass to the wall.

Why do people drive without insurance? Seriously... if you can't afford car insurance you really have no business driving. The two go hand in hand. Driving = insurance. Insurance = driving. It isn't a hard concept. Really.

What We Do In Life, Echoes in Eternity

Damn! I'm too late to get in on this. I, like Carin, was so totally inspired. BWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
What We Do In Life, Echoes in Eternity

Some days I wonder why I bother to get out of bed

I had three things planned for yesterday- wake up, work on lesson plans, go to the library. Seriously, that was my big plan for the day. So I wake up just fine. Then after a bit of normal, everyday "feed the kids, do the laundry, clean the house" kind of stuff I sit down to work on lesson plans. That's when I realize how tired I still am from driving to Alpena and back on 3 hours of sleep. So I decided to take a 15 minute nap. HA!

I was in my room for 10 minutes. Each of my children came in at least once (two of them twice) to ask me a question. Not some earth shattering, moving mountains questions either. No, these were dumb ass, could have waited until I was done with my nap type questions. (Can I call so-and-so? What's for dinner? Can we go to the pool?)

So I come out of my room to see that Alex was still on my cell phone, 30 minutes after being told he could talk for 5 minutes. I lost it. I yelled at him to hang up, put my shoes on and said "I'll be back." Of course, I had nowhere to go, so I went to the mall. I walked around, looked for books at B&N and then ate ice cream that made me sick. (That's what happens when you don't eat dairy for a long time and then eat it. Not a good thing.)

The sad part is that the whole time, Marty was out on the patio reading. Close enough that they could have asked him the earth shattering, moving mountains dumb ass, could have waited until I was done with my nap type questions, but not close enough to see/hear what they were doing.

Sometimes I wonder why I don't send them to summer camp - all summer long.

So when I came home I decided we should go to the pool. (At this point I was too pissed to even think about lesson plans.) While there, Marty and the two boys that will go anywhere near water were screwing around with splash bombs. I asked them over and over to stop, because I was trying to swim and it is pretty annoying to be bumped into every ten seconds. They didn't. I finally went over to where they were to take them away from them and that is when Christian decided to whip the biggest splash bomb as hard as he could at his father. Instead, it hit my eye. More accurately, it hit the goggle I had covering the eye, which pushed the goggle into the eye. I now have a lovely bruise. I got out of the pool, headed home and went to bed hoping today would be better. It hasn't been.

A bonanza of butterflies

After heading to the farmer's market (which by the way is the last place you would expect to run into Amish people who know your family from another state, but that's a whole other story!)we went to the Butterfly Bonanza. We had a blast!

After we did the scavenger hunt we headed out for a butterfly hunt. The group (about six kids) caught 10 different species of butterflies. Of course, they caught over 75 butterflies, but kept catching the same two species over and over. We also ended up with a bunch of moths and even a dragonfly! Of course, we let them go when we were done observing them.

Our first catch!












Alex was the official photographer for the day, so I have no pictures of him.

After we left the bonanza we headed for the fruit/meat market. We stocked up and then headed home for a cook-out.

The whole day was spent with our new friends, B & K. (B is the mom, K is the 8 year old girl Ethan spent the night with last night.) They moved into the complex the same day we did, and we met them at the pool. We have hung out at the pool with them almost every day, been on dog walks with them (they have a Weimaraner) gone to the farmers market and nature center with them, and even watched the fireworks with them. K's dad, E, is in the reserves and is headed to Iraq soon.

Tomorrow we are headed to Alpena for Christian's graduation from encampment. He has no idea we are coming, so hopefully he is surprised. I can't wait to hear about his rappelling adventure.

The plan was to start back to school (we took two weeks off) on Monday, but I think Christian is going to spend his Monday sleeping. We'll see.

Another busy Friday

In addition to our field trip we had quite a busy day today. First, I received a call that scared the crap out of me!

Them: "Hi, Krista?"
Me: "Yes..."
Them: "This is so-and-so from Civil Air Patrol. I am the rappelling instructor."
Me: "YES??!!!?!? What happe..."
Them: "Christian wants to reppel, but I need your permission before I can allow him."
Me: (To myself) ^$*@#&@%^@%@#&#)&!)&% (To him) "I signed the slip, he must have forgotten it..."

After I restarted my heart, we cleaned the garage (the van will fit in there now!) took the recycling to the recycling center, dumped a few odd things at the dump, stopped at a park to check out the BMX track (closed for repairs, but there is a really cool lake that we can swim or fish in), had a picnic in the big park across the street, headed to the nature center and then dropped a bunch of stuff off at Goodwill.

When we got home, Ethan and I headed to the pool while Marty grilled dinner and Alex played RuneScape. Ethan is now spending the night with a friend (a... GASP!... girl! More on that later) and the rest of us are headed out for ice cream.

Hope everyone had a great Friday!

Field Trip Friday!

Today's field trip was to Chippewa Nature Center. We watched turtles sunning on rocks, frogs swimming and Japanese kids try to catch fish in the pond. After that we hiked a good hike and headed home. We are going back tomorrow for the Butterfly Bonanza.

Ethan and Alex being silly


Doing the robot... in nature!

Nature

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