A little interruption....

Then back to catching up.

Sometimes, especially on a Sunday where we don't have a lot going on in the afternoon, we will allow the kids to take turns picking out, shopping for, and making something different from our usual diet.

Today was Keenan's turn. I was a little surprised when he picked Tabbouleh salad, Roasted red pepper hummus and Naan flat bread. So...off to Google and All Recipes and I found what I needed.

Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern salad that is made of Bulgar wheat (a kind of cracked wheat) that is boiled in chicken broth, 2 cups of broth and 1 cup of Bulgar. Then you cool it down and add a LOT of fresh parsley chopped up, a couple sprigs of fresh mint chopped up, the juice of a couple lemons, some chopped up cucumbers and tomatoes, a bit of garlic and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Toss it all together and let it marinate for a couple hours in the fridge.

The roasted red pepper hummus is just a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, about 1/2 cup of roasted red peppers from a jar, some cumin and salt and pepper and about 2T of olive oil. Put it all in the blender and puree until soft and smooth. Then you spread that on pitas or Naan.

The Naan, well, by that time I was tired of working on new recipes and didn't have time to figure out what Ghee was (clarified butter in case you are wondering) so we bought some at the health food store. It is like a soft pita bread that is a little bit fluffier. The next time I will make it because then I could use wheat flour.

All in all, this was a delicious dinner that we all loved! Thanks Keenan for having an interesting palate!

November.....

I am looking back on the month of November and trying to remember what we did, and basically it seems like it was school, Lego Robotics, School, School and School! I guess we didn't do much fun stuff in November though. We were kind of "on call" for some friends who were expecting a baby and needed us to watch the 3 year old, but that didn't happen until December.

I did spend a weekend with a friend's kids in November and had fun with that. In fact, I even took the little boy fishing, at his request. This is the first time in my life I have ever handled live fish...it was an experience to say the least! But, the fish was delicious, the pond was gorgeous, and I believe we will be going fishing with the boys this summer! I even learned, through the verbal instruction from W, how to gut and clean a fish....since he was too squeamish to actually do it! He was QUITE impressed that a mom would touch guts. (So was I)!


Here is a picture of the lake at Green Mountain Falls, where we went fishing. This is just a cell phone picture so it doesn't do justice to the gorgeous colors that were present, but it was truly a beautiful day! The reason Conner and Keenan didn't go with us to experience fishing is that they and Kevin were in Denver at a model train show with an older man that has really taken a shine to them. They got to see all kinds of model train setups, including, get this, a LEGO one! Of course they had a ball and Conner now has an idea for a hobby kicking around in his head....a hobby for when he is a grown up and has lots of space and money to spare, since it is apparently quite expensive!

On Thanksgiving, Kevin and the boys met up in La Junta with G'ma, G'pa, Aunt C and M&M. Aunt P and Uncle H were there too. They had a good day and it was pretty nice out so the kids hung out outside most of the day. I stayed home on baby watch, and had a deliriously relaxing mom day, all alone in the house!

During the month of November the Virtual Academy required each of the boys to formulate and submit a pretty extensive lab report and they did that, through much complaining! But it was good for them to have the experience....(at least that was what I told them)! It wasn't so much about the lab even, as just learning the formal, proper way to fill in a lab report. However, the grades that they got back from the teachers were less than stellar. When I contacted the teachers to see why, the answer I got was "Conner provided way more information that was necessary". Well SHAME ON HIM! I told him that for the purposes of the virtual academy we will do what is expected, but in the real world we know that doing prior research and going into an experiment with some concepts and ideas in place is NEVER a bad thing!

We are very fortunate to have the option of a virtual academy and have access to the K12 curriculum without paying for it, but sometimes the "requirements" from the school get a little tedious. We will, of course, continue to fulfill the requirements in order to have access to the education opportunity, but we definitely do a LOT of modification. Also, our expectations seem to be a LOT higher than the VA! Imagine that. For example, they expect that by May, the kids will have completed 80% of the curriculum in order to advance to the next grade level. Well, it is the end of January and they have completed 60% in everything right now! And I have told them that 80% isn't good enough and we will be completing 100% and probably still be done before May!

Virtual Academies, in states where they are permitted, are really a wonderful option, but the bottom line is that they are a public school, full of public school teachers, that must fulfill the requirements of public school...so there is still a lot of bureaucracy. However, we are grateful for the guidelines of the curriculum and we continue to modify it to fulfill our requirements and expectations of education and at least they will graduate with a high school diploma.

Lego Robotics

Last August, when we signed up to do an activity called Mind Storm First Lego League, we had no idea what we were getting in for! It seemed like a fun little Lego related activity....

Well, it was Lego related, some days were fun, but there was nothing little about this! For about 2 months it seemed to completely dominate our lives, leading up to the competition. I think they learned some things about being prepared, putting all of yourself into what you do (or the results of NOT putting all of yourself into what you do!) and the cost of doing something well. They had to create a project idea and present that to judges, program their robot to do certain tasks (and actually duplicate those for judges), do a teamwork competition and answer technical questions about their robot.

Here is our scared little bunch trying to act like it was "no big deal" on competition day.

The technical interview, AKA the only time the robot did everything it was supposed to that day!

The teamwork challenge. They were "judged" based on how they interacted, how the solved the problem and how tall their paper tower was.

Waiting for scores. They made friends with another home school team of all boys, in the blue costumes behind them. That team was one of the top placers of the day.

Running up to get their medals for the day.

The boys loved the robot and are looking forward to hopefully getting one of their own someday in the future, but they are not sure that they loved the competition part of it all. Since there are college scholarships associated with this, there are some teams that are VERY dedicated. So much so that according to Keenan "they are a little scary!" I think that next year we will order the kit and do the tasks at home, without the whole competition aspect of it.

Here is the video that I actually managed to capture of the only time the program worked in all the aspects the entire day! The robots are apparently pretty notorious for being inconsistent but they got it to work through all of its tasks on the first try in the technical interview. There are several possible tasks that the robot can be programmed to do but as a rookie team they didn't go too overboard, and if the robot performed properly they managed to get 4 tasks completed. Interestingly enough, the most consistent one throughout the day was the one that the programmed on the fly the day of the competition!

Happy New Year

And one of my resolutions...well, actually I only made two! One is to blog weekly, the other is to try to make school more FUN for the kids.

So, in light of the first one, blogging weekly, I am going to get started by backtracking a little bit to try to bring things up to date on this blog.



Art project from Keenan. They had to make a mask; so he made a "death mask".

The week after Bird City we went to visit mom and dad Lerwick in NE and had a great time with cousins...playing etc. We even got to see a soccer game that Kate was in and cheer her on. Then on the way home we had a field trip at the Aquarium in Denver. The kids got to take a "behind the scene's tour" that was really neat. They were able to see the tops of the tanks, what they do to keep the water healthy, where they prepare food for the animals etc. Then we even got to see the divers go in with the sharks!


Kate's Soccer Game

The Aquarium tour


Conner also had the privilege, through school, to do a WWII reenactment in the mountains near Colorado Springs. This was in October and he took his friend Alex along...they had a lot of fun but were not impressed by the MRE (actual meal ready to eat that the US Army gets fed) that they got to try out...in fact I think the term "cat food" may have been used to describe at least one of the dishes. They were "taken in" when they first got there and got their uniforms and paybooks. Then they had about 2.5 hours of education about uniforms, weapons, vehicles etc.
After that they ate their MREs and then it was off to the battlefield. They were divided into 3 groups, the Americans, Germans and Russians. About midway they all had to switch teams and play for the other side of the battle. No one was 100% sure who won these particular battles, but they got to throw smoke bombs, roll around on the ground and hide behind trees so it was all good!


Here are a few of the adults that had a lot of fun educating our kids!

After the "battle" which they thought was great fun

Well, last week we went to Bird City and had a wonderful time there, well until Sunday morning when Conner came down with the stomach flu bug. We stayed for the morning meeting and then took Conner, a bucket, lots of clorox wipes and headed home. We made it after only about 4 or 5 stops for sickness (and this mama doesn't do well with the whole vomiting thing!) and he slept it off, felt fine by Monday morning. So far, no one else is sick...

They are doing fine with school, making good progress. The goal is 3% a week on the curriculum. So far we have not had any trouble keeping up with that. We have started blocking by week, so an example of our week would be:
Monday: 5 math lessons and 1 history
Tuesday: 5 reading lessons and 1 history
Wednesday: 3 science lessons and 2 history
Thursday: 7 language arts lessons (includes grammar, composition and vocabulary)
Friday: 2 art, 1 music (for Keenan) and 2-3 Spanish (for Conner and that number depends on how many he fit in other days of the week).

Sometimes the kids don't block the same thing on the same day so that my attention can be one kid while the other does something more independent.

And now, just to be fair....a narrative essay by Conner. This one has been about 3 weeks in the writing as Conner absolutely does not like to be rushed!

My First Companion

As Dan Greenberg said, “Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near perfect method of writing avoidance”. I have been cat watching my whole life. This is the story of Forrest Gump, my first companion, and the many interesting things we did together. And yes, in case you were wondering, cat watching is a real distraction, from all kinds of important things. But it is such a fun activity.

Some children have an older brother or sister meet them when they come home from the hospital, but Forest Gump was waiting for me when I came home from the hospital. You may be wondering who Forest Gump is. Well, he was a Siamese cat that my parents got when they first got married. I suppose you wonder how he got the name Forest Gump. My parents got this cat about the same time they saw the movie Forest Gump. Our cat had lots of enthusiasm about everything he did but he was still petty slow about some things, like learning not to jump on the toilet seat when it was open and trying to get out from under the table when all the chairs were pushed in, since he was cross-eyed you see. When Forest was about 4 years old, everything in his world changed because my mom and dad brought home a baby.

A big brother might be disappointed to have a baby that couldn’t do anything come home from the hospital but Forest Gump and I loved to watch each other from the very beginning. My first day home I had to be under these ultraviolet lights for jaundice, or something wrong with my blood. The lights came in a little suitcase thing and my eyes had to be covered up with little glasses because the bright light would hurt my eyes. Forest was very curious and kept jumping up on the stand where I was laying in the lights but mom and dad were worried he would hurt his eyes so they had to keep chasing him away. Some cats are scared of noises but Forest was never scared about my crying. If I ever started crying, mom told me that he would come right in to check on me. One time my dad was gone for work for a few days and my mom was really tired and she didn’t hear me crying. Not to worry though, Forest was looking out for me! He jumped on my mom’s bed and kept pushing on her head until she woke up! As soon as I started moving around, Forest was always there, just a few steps behind me.

What a strange sight that must have been! A little boy and his cat sized shadow, traipsing around like they were two brothers who could not be separated. What was common between playtime and quiet time? My constant companion Forrest Gump. Whatever I did when I was playing he was always right there but unfortunately many of the things I did, he couldn’t really participate in. Well, except for messing up my Lincoln Log Houses, knocking my wooden trains off the track and mixing up piles of Legos. One time though, we had a toy we both agreed was the best, a cardboard box. You probably wonder why a cat and a 3 year old had so much fun with a box. This was a special box. For starters it was huge and my dad helped me make a 3 sided square hole for a door and another for a window. As soon as I left my little box house, Forrest would go inside and then poke his nose out the window to spy on all of us. We had the greatest time with me putting a string through the window so he could attack it. We shared quiet time too. Whenever I sat down on the couch to look at picture books, the next thing I knew, Forrest would be sitting next to me with his chin on my leg. It was almost as if he were reading along. I am sure I read a few stories out loud to him too, since cats are such great listeners!

The next stage in life was when I had to leave Forrest to go to school. We still stayed best friends though and he would sit on the fence and watch for my bus to come home, kind of like Lassie. When I raced up the hill his scratchy “meow” would greet me every day. He often wondered around the neighborhood during the day but somehow he always knew what time to be watching for me because every day, there he was, balanced on the top rail of the wooden fence around our small back yard. He loved that perch, like a hawk on an old oak branch, he could watch everything that went on in the park across the street and in our own back yard. He loved to sit there and watch my brother and I dig trenches and build construction sites in the back yard. He was probably the most patient cat that ever lived. Sometimes little boys can be pretty ornery. They get crazy ideas that there is just no explanation for. One day my brother and I thought it would be a good idea to use the orange hairspray my mom had gotten for crazy hair day at school and spray paint Forrest Gump. I am not sure what we were pretending but we were in Make Believe World. Even though Forrest got a bath out of the whole deal, he didn’t seem to have any hard feelings towards us, since he still waited for us after school, from his spot on the fence, and greeted us with a smile and “hello” in his own language. He had been there every day of my life, I just never thought of life without Forrest Gump.

The thing is, no matter how much we love them, animals get older. Somehow, I guess I didn’t understand what it meant when he started dragging his legs in the winter and couldn’t jump on things as well. My mom said things about arthritis but I didn’t have any idea what that meant. He seemed to sleep more but we could still get him to chase a string or a ball sometimes. Then he started to get ear infections all the time and didn’t feel well enough to even sit on the fence and wait for us, but when we were sitting on the couch or playing games on the floor he was always right there. Then one day when I was happily sitting at my desk at school, my mom and dad came to the door of my classroom. By the looks on their faces, I knew that it was bad news. They asked me to come with them and my brother Keenan to the car, but didn’t tell me why. Once we were in the car, they explained that we had to go to the vet’s office. Mom had taken Forrest into the vet that day for another ear infection but his ear had started to bleed. The vet couldn’t get it to stop and the only treatment was a really serious surgery that would make him deaf. Mom and dad explained that it didn’t make sense to put him through the surgery when he was almost 14 years old and he probably wouldn’t be happy if he were deaf, if he did live through the surgery. Besides that, the surgery cost way more money that we had right then. I still didn’t understand where they were going with this but then they explained that the best way to take care of an animal who was this sick would be to give him medicine to make him sleep forever. I felt sad and mad and a little sick to my stomach to think about that.

Forrest had been my best friend since I was born and to think of life without him didn’t make much sense. Who would I talk to? Who would meet me after school? Who would listen to me when I was mad or sad? Who would listen to my crazy ideas that other people laughed at? But what mom and dad said did make sense. Forrest couldn’t live with a bleeding ear and I couldn’t imagine him not being able to hear. He loved to sit on the fence but that wouldn’t be safe if he could not hear dogs or other dangerous animals coming close. He would have to be locked inside all the time and that wouldn’t make him happy. Besides, the surgery would be very dangerous and painful for him. I realized I would have to say goodbye to Forrest forever. Mom and dad took us into the room where the vet was with Forrest and they explained that they would put a needle in his leg and put some medicine in and he would just go to sleep. Mom and dad wanted us to say goodbye and then go out and let the vet take care of them. But I said “No way!” I wouldn’t let Forrest go through that alone. So we stayed in the room and hugged and kissed him while he left us. Then we cried all the way home. When we got home I just stood outside the door, by his spot on the fence, and remembered. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I couldn’t seem to move away.

After 10 years of cat watching, suddenly I found myself without any distractions. I guess I should have become the best writer around but somehow things didn’t turn out that way. It seems that easily distracted people can always find something to be distracted by. It probably wasn’t my cat that was distracting me, but something inside my own head, or maybe my little brother! It has been 3 years now and while I still miss Forrest, now I have 3 other distractions to my learning, Dexter and Ginger, our new kittens, and Keenan, my younger brother. It seems like as good of excuse as any to quote Dan Greenberg and say, “Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near perfect method of writing avoidance.”

Keenan had to write an essay today, and I thought it was worth sharing! I still don't necessarily agree with the whole "format" writing thing that is taught these days, but I understand that when they are tested on it they have to all write the same. We sort of deviate from that a bit. He obviously has some things to learn about paragraphing and things like that, but he has come a long way from his first essay this year.

Enjoy his personal narrative paragraph.

Barr Trail

“Ahhhhhhgggg! Stupid game! Just when I almost win, something happens!” My mom said it sounded like we needed to plan a day tomorrow that didn’t have anything to do with computers! “We need to do something for exercise tomorrow, how about swimming?”, nagged my mom, again with that exercise thing! “All the pools are too expensive and the YMCA is a letdown”, explained Conner. “I know! Hiking!” I exclaimed. “Great idea, how about Barr Trail?” suggested mom. “Sure”, we all agreed. The next morning, after my dad left to slave away at work all day, we got our water, lunch, and snacks ready to go. We all piled in the car and took off. When we finally drove into Manitou, the place was packed with people, all kinds of people! It took forever to arrive at the trail head through all the traffic and people walking every which way. Finally, we started up the trail, up, and up, and UP! I kept stopping to rest and whine, because I thought I couldn’t do it. Then we saw a poor bedraggled little 6 year old boy who had wiped out and torn up his knee and his face after climbing all the way up the incline. He was being so tough that I started to feel a little stupid about the way I was acting! I took off and got way ahead of mom and Conner, and wouldn’t you know, I got in trouble for breaking that safety rule about staying where mom could see me. But I have to admit, it just felt great to take off and do it! It took us 2 ½ hours to arrive at the 4 mile point but it only took 40 minutes to walk and run back down. It was almost 2:30 when we got to the car and Manitou was almost deserted! We stopped and Sonic and purchased ice cream to help us cool down before we went home. We had an amazing day after all, even though I complained a lot at the beginning. I cannot wait to try it again, and this time I won’t have a negative attitude at the beginning, just focus on having fun!

August! Back to school!

We had a great back to school the 2nd week of August and got a good early start on things.

First day!! Our classroom looks a little different than most but it works for us! The kids have desks in their rooms, but they seem to prefer to work in the kitchen/dining room because that is where I am most of the time.

And no, they don't do school in their jammies, at least not most days!





We have already changed our schedule a bit! Have to find what works right? Anyway, when we first started I was trying to get up and work from about 3-7am and then be available to get the boys up, feed them breakfast and start school. But with that model I was just too tired when they needed me to be on target for teaching so that wasn't working. Especially because I have a household full of night owls who didn't like for mom to go to bed at 8pm! So now we start our day around 6:30 with breakfast, bible reading and showers and are ready to start classes by 7:30. They each get a weekly schedule with all the lessons they have to accomplish on the schedule for the whole week, and they get to choose the order they do them in. This seems to work well for us and they seem to like to hit it really hard on Monday and Tuesday and have lighter days on Thursday and Friday. We finish school around 2:00 or so and then they have an hour or so of free time and then they have to help mom with chores, cleaning and fixing dinner. After dinner we all clean up and then dad gets them ready for bed while I go work until my work is done. I usually get done around midnight or so.

Our time seems to fill up really quickly! I laugh at these folks who question me about whether or not we are worried about the socialization that the kids do or don't get...I really don't think socialization is going to be a problem for them! Let's just look ahead at next week's schedule! Friday Keenan has a friend coming over. Saturday they are going hiking with dad and some other kids. Sunday we have 2 meetings. Monday we only have school, all day! Tuesday we have a library meetup with some kids from their old school. Wednesday we have meeting. Thursday they have Lego Robotics club and they have the booster buddies meeting (Moms work on planning field trips and kids play). Friday morning we have a field trip to the Olympic Training Center and in the afternoon they have a middle school meetup at the Penny Arcade in Manitou. And that doesn't even include the 3 live class sessions that each of them will be attending next week!

I may find that we are more busy doing home schooling than we were with public school! But at least I know who they are socializing with and what they are doing!

So far they are both progressing really well with classes. Conner really zipped through the first 5 units of math since it was all review and now he is getting into some new stuff. The great thing about COVA is that he has that option. As long as he passes the assessments he can go on to the next lesson. Keenan is flying through Vocabulary, which I am sure is a surprise to everyone who knows him! Of course that would be HIS favorite class! Neither of them just love history but we are working on making that more interesting.

And I am developing a much more profound sense of AWE for those teachers in my elementary country school who taught more than one grade at a time! This is HARD! Keeping track of everything, covering all this material! It would certainly be much easier if we had them sharing ANY of their classes! But nothing overlaps this year!

Oh, and Conner had his birthday August 26. We had a friend over for the weekend and they made slime...a way too much fun science experiment! The made about 400 paper airplanes and then they went swimming all day Saturday. I made his cake, and it is obvious it is an amateur job but they liked the flavor and that is what matters!





PS....when you put a straw into the center of a ball of slime and blow air into it...it makes a sound that only boys can appreciate!

July!

Dad took the kids to the waterfalls, their favorite place to hike and play, to give mom a bit of a break one day.


And Keenan said that "nature was a great place to practice yoga"!



My kids proving that even big kids can have fun with Lincoln logs! Actually I told them that they had to get away from their computers and do something creative...and there was much laughing going on downstairs. When I went down there, this is what I found, with the question "Is this creative?"


Keenan wanted to learn to make meatloaf, then decided it was gross!


But he ate it anyway!



Then the school supplies arrived! They were both excited on that day...because now they are both home schooled!




Then back to Nebraska for a little break before school starts!

Cousin H had her first birthday...


Conner was educating cousin H about the gameboy..because all boys need to know how to operate one of those!

The kids found a big caterpillar and saw it make a cocoon. Apparently it was big enough that it made Uncle G nervous when he put it in the jar!


Grandpa got a new grain cart and the size was impressive to these city kids!

And then there was harvest!



We stayed long enough to pick lots of currants for jam and help can lots of peaches and pears, go swimming at the pool in Scottsbluff, see lots of friends but not for long enough! And then we had to head back home! Almost time for school to start!

Um....catching up?

Since I am so far behind...here is a brief "catching up" of the past few months!

We had mother's day in NE again and everyone was home for a lovely lunch prepared by the men, with lots of good food! (oh and cousin E's first birthday that week too!)

















Keenan and cousin K got a little silly and had a lot of fun!



Conner made a distiller for science class, and there was much concentration involved! The greatest thing about home school science is that instead of a bunch of kids watching one kid do the experiment, he has to do the WHOLE experiment himself!


Keenan finished 4th grade at the public school and he finished it in grand style with a "Hawaii day".



He had a field trip to Garden of the Gods



Conner stayed at Dean's house for calving and then went to preps at Antioch for a few days but I don't have pictures of that.

Laura came to visit and we hiked the Manitou Incline





We went to Antioch and had wonderful days there! Keenan made a big choice!

We went to Chugwater..and lived to tell the story! And only found 2 hail dents on the car and the windshield was still intact. We were very lucky compared to others!



We had a beautiful day to hike up Barr Trail about 4 miles each way





Coming up next? Harvest and a visit to Grandma's house!