Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Our Memorial Day Weekend

True learning doesn't stop. I'm always impressed by what my children are learning. I'm impressed that they rise to the occasion to read challenging writing, to write in a mature and fun way, to solve math problems on their own, to learn about animals around them, to want to help with breakfast and dinner.

Just the other night, my second girl, made herself gluten free biscuits. She had trouble listening halfway through and added a little extra milk, but that's a learning opportunity, and I helped her finish them, rolling the sticky dough in more powdery gluten free flour. My wheat free girl has a hard time sticking with her wheat free diet. She is jealous of the things the rest of us eat. She is the only one allergic to wheat in our family. But, making her own goods, gives her a feeling of self-control, and she learns math to boot.

Our weekend this week went something like this. We got ready for friends Saturday morning (and get a deep house clean done to boot). Had friends over Saturday evening. My step-daughter (older than my first girl) was here this weekend. She became ill halfway through the evening. Bummer. Yet, we had fun with our friends.

Friday evening and Saturday evening there were big thunder storms. On Saturday, there wasn't so much lightning, but both days the sky really opened up and dropped its contents. My main flower garden was buried with six inches of water. Usually, even in periods of great rain common here in the Northwest, it is moist, but rarely under water at all. Friday, my daughters and I tried to take a video of all the lightning, but the video just looked like flashes of light, you couldn't see the lightning in it.

Sunday, my step-daughter was still sick. In fact, she slept most of the day. We stayed home from church and we ate German Pancakes (our traditional weekend meal). Jon worked on the fence to our new small animal field. This is the field where we keep our hens, pullets (not yet laying hens), meat chickens, and turkeys. We might also keep a goat or several sheep there in future years. I was going to weed, but my hip was bothering me, and even kneeling to weed was bothering it, so I ended up getting a beach towel and going out in the field to sit by Jon (my husband). He liked that better anyhow. He usually likes me near him. Isn't that sweet? That was most of our day.

By Sunday evening my step-daughter was feeling mostly better. By Monday (Memorial Day), she was all the way better. We ended up going to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (which is mainly a bird sanctuary). They have a drive through touring section of the refuge and that is what we did that day. Jon mainly goes along because he knows I like it and he finds it relaxing (to sleep in the car while we look at all the birds). Isn't that sweet? The kids all loved it, even though the birds were not as plentiful as they are some times of the year. My step-daughter, in particular, commented how much she liked it. That's always momentous to me because I want her to have fun with us and also develop a love for learning. I'm not able to homeschool her, so any progress in that direction is huge to me.

Well, here is a picture of one of the birds we saw. This was a bird I'd never seen before, but had read about, the Yellow-headed Blackbird.

yellow_headed_blackbird

And, here is a video of a rabbit we saw, who was totally unafraid of people.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Getting Back To Things

I so want to get back to blogging about our homeschooling. We are nearing the end of the "year". My plan is to continue school through the end of June and then just do some minimum schooling. Maybe we'll do math (and of course they'll do free reading) when we don't have plans.

We've got a lot going on at the end of year here. One performance this week and one the next. After next week our schedule clears up a bit.

Here is a video of my oldest girl singing a solo with her choir class. I'm so proud of her. She's usually a fairly reserved young lady and she really stirred up her courage to do this.

 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Heehee

natalie_face
Heeheehee. That was the sound she made too.
I love my children.

Jack of All Trades

He really is a Jack of All Trades. Luckily, he is NOT a master of none. weld_one weld_four weld_three weld_two

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Spring Has Come & The Super Moon

Spring has come and now is almost over. Spring always seems really busy for us. As homeschoolers, there is always a lot of wrap up and pushing through towards our goals happening this time of year. At the same time, the weather is turning nice and we want to be outside.
 
rhody_flower

Here recently, we got to experience a scientific event, really neat for the girls to experience. I know most of you got to experience it too. It was the super moon. I'm sure many of you got even neater views of the moon than I did. The moon here at our place came up over a hill. So, if we had a view of a flatter horizon, the moon would have appeared even bigger. But, it was pretty neat and pretty big, as big as I've ever seen. I do hope I get to see a moon like that sometime again in my lifetime. Here are my moon pictures, however. They were shot with my Canon 30D and my 70-200mm L 4.0 lens @ 200mm. I can only imagine having a really long lens for a shot like that.
 
moon_1 moon_2 moon_3 moon_4 moon_7 moon_8 moon_10 moon_11