Camping Follies Part2

 

I just had to start out with this picture.... It was truly just Little Dora trying to be cute but it seems to sum up the way this trip turned out... Here is another one...

 

I already explained how we have learned the limitations of a Chevy Uplander on good ole country roads. Those same country roads did give us a view like this one...

 

I really need to get Photoshop so that I can get rid of the big power lines going across the photo. However I must mention that those power lines buzzed like nothing I have heard before... but I digress. We ended back at camp where we decide to go Crawdad fishing. I will have to share those photos later because some of them are really cool in my biased opinion. When we got back and were cooking the crawdads up (of which I opted for the less mobile hot dogs instead) I proceeded to trip out of our camp trailer and twist my foot trying to take the brunt of the landing as I was carrying Bubba as well. We met the ground fast and hard and it was not a nice "howdy do" My ankle swelled up to the size of a nice grapefruit and I couldn't walk the rest of the trip. It ends up I have a severe double sprain which has caused much unwanted pain and beeeaauutifful marbling of purple, green, black, and yellow on my foot. We ended up having a nice trip besides all the afor mentioned (plus Bubba burning himself on a propane lamp) events. I did end up with a cool picture of my foot x-ray... they put them on CD's now. I can add that to my ever growing school supply list. But instead of sharing these uneventful pictures of my foot to you I will leave you with this one of Bubba and the soon to be lost bucket. Ain't he a cutie??

 

The Great Outdoors - an adventure

We decided on the spur of the moment to go camping in what we all call the "high country". We were all tired of the heat and the "high country" meant lazy days of no heat, possibly some rain, beautiful views, time for me to practice my photography, and many other things that would give us good reason to leave the comfort of modern day living to rough it in the Great Outdoors. Now with 3 children you end up really wanting some comforts of home, so we hitched up the family pop up trailer and away we went. It is such a nice place to visit in September and becomes such a learning ground for children who can only keep one thing in mind... S'Mores. So this is where we went...

Well this was actually a road by where we finally camped. This is actually the road that took us to a look out where we mistakenly decided to take another less travelled road trying to find... well we had no idea what we were trying to do. This is our less travelled road....

Now that I have been down this road I am thinking this picture should have given us a clue to why we should be using better judgement... but our baby was asleep and our adventurous sides were showing and we took the path straight on. We did not anticipate the ear piercing screaming of our seven year old (and the things that were coming out of her mouth in any other situation would have us rolling on the floor... but I digress), or the ruts that could have hidden a cow (OK i exaggerate a bit, but they were big), or the fact there was absolutely NO place to turn around. Well Princess K and I got out (the 2 scaredy cats of the group got out and went ahead to try to find a place to turn around while Techie Guy maneuvered our Chevy Uplander (yes we were attempting this adventure in a minivan) around boulders and ditches. After several attempts.. one leaving the van on two wheels... we did get the van turned around and made it back to safety.. I mean camp. And we thought our adventure had ended... well that was just the beginning. And it is here I will leave you till tomorrow where I can bore you with more details of our Camping adventures. I will leave you with this image of Princess K completely back to normal and calm. She nearly kissed our camping area when we parked the car. Poor thing.

Change is a Good Thang....

Ok I had to change back to my original site. I am not blogging savvy enough to make it do what I want. So with that said I will be using this one until I can figure out things on my own and design something that fits this crazy life I live in. As soon as I can kick (well not really) Little Dora off the computer, I will be posting with pictures YEAH! But here I wait until I have the heart to send my baby girl off to a new and exciting adventure... yeah that's it Little Dora.. a new and exciting adventure !

This Day... How do I teach my children

This morning I got up and as usual unaware of what day it is... but how could I forget. I ventured over to one of my favorite blogs and dear Jessica at Trivium Academy had put up a reminder... this became my reminder and the begining of a long set of thoughts about This Day. I thought back to that day which seems just like a couple of months ago, what was I doing, what did I do that entire day, who did I talk to, who did I pray for, and now my heart weeps. I pray Dear LORD comfort those whose hearts are ripping right now as this anniversary is more than just a day of rememberance but a day in which they will feel their loss.

Little Dora sits here and sings and I am reminded of my grandparents (as she is singing about hers). How did they teach their little ones about the bombing of Pear Harbor. Since I did not know my grandparents, I do not know the answer. I am sure that they probably felt what we feel in this generation. I guess it is at this point you can either teach about hate or love. Teach about vengence or about prayer. I will teach of prayer. Praying for those mourning, pray for those defending our country (God Bless our Brave Soldiers!!!), pray for our leaders, pray for those that hate us so. And teach to look for the day that Jesus will soothe all our wounds and bring peace to those that follow him. Look up dear children because the answers abound from Heaven.

A Month in Review

Well we have been at it for a month and I am quite happy with our pace. I love how God has just put things into place without us even realizing it. It looks like we will finish our tour through Ancient History sometime around mid October. That will end our first quarter and give us a fresh cut into the next Sonlight Core... Core 2. Math is doing far better than we expected and Princess will be taking a final level assessment on Friday. This puts her in the level C book for Right Start. It is a breath of fresh air to hear her "get it". Math is clicking for her and I see her using it all day.

We started our new grammar... Sonlight LA for Grade 3 Readers. Even though Princess has already read all the 3rd Grade readers, I wanted to start her here seeing that it will be a bit light for her. She did not like First Language Lessons and thus has a bad taste for Grammar. I figure if I go easy on her then she might like Grammar again. I will have to report later on how we like this new flavor of Grammar.

Science is a bit rocky. We are enjoying it but we aren't as far as I would like. It looks like we will be studying Biology until the end of the year. The experiments are fun as long as we can get them to work. We had a mishap with the making of the heart model. We had a leaky valve and couldn't get it sealed up. Poor little heart could barely pump that red colored water, but Princess got the idea.

Little Dora is coming right along. She loves to be read to and loves to "read" to us. I am introducting sounds to her ala Ruth Beechick. She is slowly picking them up. She is picking up writing her letters very well. We do this very loosely. I am also doing some Right Start Level A with her. She is picking this up faster than the reading. She likes to play with her brother more and more, which is a GREAT help as he is mainly interested in seeing what he can destroy. The both participate in Bible time and then it is off to the races with both of them.

This weekend is Bubba's second birthday. I cannot believe he is 2 years old. We will be making a trip to the small Zoo near us if it isn't too hot. Seems we make a habit of a zoo trip for second birthdays.

Well I think that is it for now. Once I figure out how to post pictures easier than last time, I will try to update with the ones I have been taking lately.