The Colorado Adventure

Not to be confused with BCUT, so of course we’re speaking CAP terms here. Joel is at a 3 hour class right now for ACUT, which I think stands for advanced…..something, something…training. He has to attend this class in order to get a CAP call sign and have the training to be issued a radio for a SAREX or for the real deal (search and rescue.) Yep, he’s 15 this summer, so if CAP is called out he can go and do ground team searches, operate the radio back at base or direct air traffic.

I kind of (ok I DID) coerce him into going to the mountaineering museum later. I said, ‘Hey Joel, how about we pick you up after class and go eat at Jack in the box (and then in a whisper) and then go to the mountaineering museum?’ He said yes, then said what? But, I think he will have a good time there with us, they have rock climbing and they are having a mountain fest outdoors (complete with the 6-10 inches of snow we got yesterday.)

Oh yes, Happy Spring!

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Joel has CSAP’s today, so I dropped him off and then went to Stickworks by myself.

I was using the serene setting as a kind of prayer garden.

I love the way the stick sculpture looks when there is snow on the ground.

Anyway, I wandered the park praying for Joel, not that he would ace the test, but that he would be calm and remember things he needs to remember.

I am no fan of standardized testing, it does not show the true knowledge of a person as a whole, just how well they can take a test.

Look at this sculpture of two people huddled on the bench.

This pic doesn’t do it justice, it was very intricate from the folds of the man’s coat to the fingers on the girl clutching his shirt. Tomorrow we’re going to see this movie with some friends.

Today we are dancing, I have to get Joel around 2 and take him home so he can get ready for CAP (he’s being promoted again) and then I have to get back to dance for classes. So, it’s a busy day of doing nothing.

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Hmm…wish this would have come tomorrow….but anyway, Alicia over at Magic and mayhem reminded me that today is Pi day.

Here is a great idea for looking at the numbers in Pi – Make a paper chain representing the numbers. Use a different color of paper for each digit and see how long you can make it. Ask the kids if they can find any patterns in the colors. We’ll be doing this the rest of the week, wonder how long our chain will be……

Why is it today? Write out March 14 and you’ll see (3/14.) It’s also Einstein’s birthday, love that guys hair!

(Pi Approximation Day is June 22 to celebrate mathematician Archimedes’ first rough approximation of Pi as being 22/7)

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Right now I’m full to the brim, I am reading my Bible, I am dancing, school is going well, Grace is getting better; I am full enough to give. But what do you do when the well runs dry? When homeschooling seems to suck you dry, when everyone wants a handout and you just feel like there is not enough time or energy to give out; you feel like you’re in a desert.

I have been burned out before, I have become the lackluster Mommy zombie of homeschool burnout. I have been emotionally wrenched, spiritually worn out and physically tired. I tried switching curriculum, stopping school for awhile, going easy on myself and trying to find ways to fill up so that I could give to my husband, children, friends, family, strangers. Being a mom is a full time job, being a wife/homeschooler/girl scout co-leader/field trip organizer/co-op teacher/HS board member/cleaner upper/chauffeur/playdate organizer – is a lifestyle. It is what I do, it is what we do, it is part of who I am. But, how do I do it?

Days go much better when I have a quiet time in the morning (or whenever I can get a break during the day, but morning is definitely better.) I read my Bible, right now I’m in Job, and take notes. I am going to start the 30 days of 1 book again, maybe Colossians, that was a great way to see the same thing everyday, but get more out of it. Days go much better when I exercise, even if it’s just walking to the park and letting the kids play for a hour (and it’s good for them too.) Days go much better when I know what we are studying, not that I have a schedule everyday, but that I know generally what needs to be done that week for core school work, what field trips/co-ops we have and what extra stuff we are doing. Days go much better when I do something for someone else. Maybe it’s taking a friend somewhere, having a playdate, taking food to someone or just visiting with friends. I need a few things a month, I need my daily dose of Bible and exercise (worship dance, yay!), I need my Bible study group that meets 2 nights a month, I need our HS groups teacher’s night out that meets 2 nights a month, I need our HS groups exceptional kids meeting that meets once a month and I need park days (which happen every Wed. as long as the weather is nice.) Some people need more to get full so they can minister to their family and others, they might need more alone time, more quiet time, more time with friends, more time with family, more time reading or doing whatever it is that makes them relaxed and fills them up – emotionally, spiritually and physically. Find ways to grow in those things too.

I love the Amy Carmichael quote that talks about being so full of sweet water that whenever we trip and spill the only thing that comes out is the love of Jesus, because that’s all that we have stored up in us. I’m not perfect and most times the stuff that spills out of me when I am impatient and mad is not sweet water. But, I strive to fill up with things that make me overflowing with Jesus, with love, with help, with service, with patience, with whatever anyone around me needs. I want to reflect beauty.

What are the things that suck the life out of you? What are the things that fill you up? Find a way to get more of the latter in your life!

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The new Sun chips bags say they are 100% compostable in 13 weeks (made with 90% plant based material.) Hmmm….sounds like a good science experiment, we just need another bag that is not 100% compostable to compare it to. Thanks for the science experiment Sun chips!

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and a dollar short, but think of how many people didn’t see this yesterday?!

Yesterday was Spread the word to end the word, you can read Maura’s post about it here. What is the word? It’s the word “retard”, used as an insult.

In our group we have “exceptional kids” of all kinds and they are truly exceptional. The things they face on a daily basis, the hurdles, the hurts, it is part of who they are – and they are exceptional without a doubt.

You can go here to find out more about the campaign and pledge not to use the R-word. It helps no one and hurts everyone.

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While Dr. Seuss is great, he makes kids think that everything has to rhyme (what rhymes with onomatopoeia?) But, The Cat in the Hat is great for beginner readers, it gives them confidence (I can read!) and that’s a good thing. I don’t think Theodore Geisel would have sold as many books if he had kept that name. Here are some cool sites about Dr. Seuss, here and here.

Speaking of reading, here are some games we play to help with reading. We play Boggle, Scrabble and our own invention – alphabet dice that we roll and make up words. We draw letters on the sidewalk and hop out words, we make word endings (like it, ed, op) and cut a square out to push a paper through that has letters on it to make words, we’ve done the same thing with a paper plate. We use playdough and saltdough to roll out letters, and soon we are going to sprout a word by planting grass seeds in letter patterns (great idea for Spring.) Of course we also practice reading by writing; writing out letters on Tea Tuesday, typing letters on the keyboard, doing repetitive hand motions that are used to form letters. We also read, but if we can’t read we listen to books, I used to go to sleep with an audio-book going – it makes for great dreams. Right now Bethany is reading a Gregor book, Joel is reading Rick Riordan books, Grace is reading whale books, I am reading The Fingerprints of God and Hannah is looking through Tinkerbell books.

We love, love, love our library!

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Sunday. We cleaned up the basement and kitchen and stayed home all day except for a library outing. Grace slept in my room in the chair so she could remain upright for the night; it helped. I cleaned up the garage and found tons of chewed up stuff from the mice, we need more traps. I don’t mind the mice as long as they stay in their hole and don’t propagate proliferously. At least they didn’t chew through my tent. I had TNO at Solid grounds in the evening. It had just started to snow a bit when I drove a friend over there. We had 7 moms show up and we talked and drank coffee. I drank more than normal trying to wake up after my 2 late nights with Grace, then when I got home I had to take a sleeping pill to counteract the caffeine.

Today the sun came out, Bethany had her first day of CSAP testing, Joel did school work at the library and now we’re at dance. If you happen to see an obnoxious 7 year old girl licking her hands and acting hyper, give her a break – it’s just a medicated Grace. Hopefully we will knock down the annoying, obnoxiousness this week.

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Oh, a busy day. Yesterday we had a storytelling co-op in the morning. The kids were introduced to how to tell stories, how to make eye contact, speaking up and then we played games. We played fortunately/unfortunately. This is a good game for large groups. The first person starts out with a statement like, Unfortunately I woke up late this morning. Then the next person adds another statement like, Fortunately I had the day off and we kept it going…. unfortunately there was a knock on the door and a man was standing there, fortunately he had a cookie, unfortunately he dropped it in the sewer and dirt, fortunately I picked it up and wiped it off, unfortunately when I looked at it under a microscope I saw bacteria, germs and poop, fortunately I entered it in a science fair and won a million dollars! That was fun and it could keep going forever. We played a react game where the kids were told something just happened and they had to show an appropriate response (like, you have your hand in the cookie jar and your mom walks in.) We learned about story mapping where you draw a picture to represent part of the story you are telling, then you can just think of the picture to remember the story. Another game the kids liked was telling a story with objects in a bag. We broke into groups and all started our story with ‘Once upon a time there were 2 kids that lived near a forest’…then we had to pull an object out of a bag and put it in the story – ours went like this….and they walked all over the earth trying to find their way home (a globe) then they saw a bear that had a basket of strawberries, then a pirate killed the bear and then a spider bit the pirate. The kids saw a pillow and fell fast asleep and then the pirate poked them with his sword.

Some storytelling resources that were shared with us, here and here.

After lunch we met our GS troop at Petco for a tour and some information for the fin, fur and feathers badge.

We learned about parakeets and small animals, reptiles and fish and fed the frogs and geckos crickets.

We learned about exoskeletons, hollow bones, nocturnal and diurnal, saw fresh water and salt water fish and learned that fish have no ability to feel full, so they will just eat and eat until they pop and they only have a 3 second short term memory (which is why our fish thinks you’re going to feed him every time you walk past the tank.)

I asked the guy how long he thinks Nemo will live since he’s already 6, he said we’d better start celebrating every month because 6 was very old for a fish! We still have varying things to do for the badge depending on the level of the girl, but this was a nice trip anyway.

Bethany and Joel were having a dual sleepover, so we had 9 kids over, 5 girls and 4 boys. The boys overtook the basement and went out to shoot airsoft guns. The girls had a makeover, played games, drew fashion designs and watched Kung fu Panda. I actually had to tell the girls to quiet down about 10:30, I couldn’t hear the boys in the basement but I’m sure they were loud too. It wasn’t that bad with all the kids here, they split up so there was just a group of either 4 or 5 running around. I had to make lots of pancakes in the morning though, I’m not sure how our friends the Carlson’s feed 11 children every morning, 9 was quiet hard.

More snow is coming and I think we have a quiet weekend ahead.

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Didn’t mean to. We visited M in the hospital yesterday and had a good time. He stayed awake to play cards with Joel, we ended up playing go fish and crazy 8’s because I can’t play poker. It was snowing pretty good all the way to the hospital and then stopped for awhile. They had closed down 225 because Obama arrived at Buckley to come into town for a fundraiser. After we left the hospital we had to go to the Denver Rescue mission and that put us on I-70 right about the time the motorcade was leaving downtown to go back to Buckley. Sure enough we saw cop cars blazing and then saw the limo pass by as we sat on I-70. With the snow and closures for Mr. Obama to get to and from the AFB there were angry drivers all around town (3 freeways were shut down at 2 different times.) But, it was kind of cool to see the limo fly by.

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Wow, you could tell it was a school holiday yesterday. Webkinz was so busy the girls had to wait and keep trying to log on because it was so full.

Bethany got moved up at dance, so now Ms. Darrah has all three of my girls one right after the other at 1, 2 and 3 pm. Fun for her!

By next week we’ll know what song we’re dancing to, Grace and Bethany said they heard their song, but didn’t start practicing on it. I am going to have to get the Andrew Murray book we’re going over because it isn’t under public domain like last time, it’s more in-depth than the last devotional too, so I need to have it in front of me. We’re also going over the quotes of Amy Carmichael, like these from yesterday: If the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love. There was another one I can’t find now, but it basically said that if I speak rashly and unkindly then I don’t know Christ’s love.

She said that we should always be so full of sweet water in our souls that if we trip and spill some, bitter water will never pour out – only sweet because that’s what we filled our soul with.

That was a ‘wow’ moment. I know that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and that we need to control our mouths and thoughts, but at the root it’s what is our heart full of? Because if it is full of love and joy than that is the only thing that will come out when we trip up, it gave me a lot to think about. We talked too much and were missing people, so after stretching we did some simple follow alongs and a few dance across the room follow alongs. Bethany and Grace went down to the cafe while they waited on Hannah’s class, they think it’s so cool to walk down there and order a juice and play a game. I really like the new dance schedule because it’s not rush hour on Broadway when we get out, I can get home and actually do something for an hour or so before Joel is ready to go.

Last night was the revealing of staff positions at CAP. Joel had interviews, written an essay and taken great care to tie his tie correctly and measure all his insignia. I had to take a pic for him to use on his encampment application, so here is MSGT Carberry the new head of ES for COWG Dakota ridge CAP unit (ES = emergency services.)

He worked really hard the past few months taking test after test to get promoted to MSGT so he could be considered for staff. Way to go Joel!

Today Joel’s friend M is going to have hip surgery. M is 17 and this surgery will remove the constant pain he is in, but it is surgery….so pray for wisdom for the doctors and everyone involved in the handling of meds. Pray for peace for his family and of course for a rapid healing for M.

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My Schnooke may be in Kansas today, but that’s ok. He passed his written IFR test with ‘flying’ colors and we’ll go to Taco bell tomorrow when he gets in. We always go to Taco bell (except, I think, one time when we went to a fancy place.) We do this because our first wedded valentines day we only had enough money to go to Taco bell, remember when they had a 59 cent menu? Anyway we still do it because it’s tradition. Besides we like to swap the little hot sauce packets that say things like this…..

and this….

yes, I think I will (marry James, not the hot sauce!)

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Next time you see travel bunny. The girls have a teddy bear tea co-op tomorrow and travel bunny was holey and filthy. I had been meaning for a long time to use pieces of ‘new’ bunny to replace parts of travel bunny (he is almost 8!) So, I gave Grace a choice, use a sock for bunny’s head and repair all the holes that way or cut off new bunny’s head and use it as a mask for travel bunny….one decapitated stuffed animal later travel bunny looks pretty good. Of course his ears are still ratty (we kept the old ones) and his outfit and hands are still grey, but his face looks just like new bunny. Hopefully this latest attempt will lengthen bunny’s life. I sewed up his holey spots as best I could and gave him a bath. Now he’s drying and I have to say, after you get over the fact that his head is way whiter than the rest of him, it’s not bad (and Grace likes it, so good.) That all may sound really, really weird, but travel bunny has been with Grace since birth.

He has gotten lost a few times, once we put up flyers because he was left in the front yard and a coyote dropped him up the street, a few times he was left in the library, once at Wal-mart and of course the height of being lost was when he was swiped from the bathroom at Disneyworld, God bless those lost and found people at Disneyworld! Out of how many thousands of items that were lost that day, bunny was found and returned to a grateful Grace.

He has traveled to many states, been to festivals, seen the beach, played in the snow and been in the hospital with Grace many, many times.

So, that’s travel bunny’s story in a nutshell.

In school Bethany is on geometry and since Joel is also doing geometry I can show her a higher level of things to do with yucky geometry. Actually I say I hate geometry, but I think it’s growing on me. Today Joel was finding area, perimeter and the apothem. I didn’t even know what an apothem was (An apothem is the distance from the center of the polygon to the midpoint of any side.) I guess it’s useful for finding the area of a polygon. So he had problems like this: Find the apothem in a regular pentagon with an area of 87.5 in. and a side of 5 in. So 87.5 = 1/2(a25) apothem =7 in. That wasn’t so hard after all. Here is a site about polygons, tilings and sacred geometry. Grace was reading about Richard the lion heart and Robin Hood in history. Now we need to watch 2 Robin Hood movies, the one with Errol Flynn and the Mel Brooks version or maybe the cartoon version. Grace had a book about fossils and a book about Knights to read too. Here is a site for Robin Hood info.

After lunch we went by Mcd’s for our EK meeting with our HS group, I thought it was going to be a very light meeting/get together, but we ended up with 6 moms and 10 kids. I wanted to use the time (besides talking) to make a periodic table card game. I had the scissors, glue, index cards and pen with me….but I forgot the printouts. I did have lima beans and sharpies though, so I made some alpha beans instead (lima beans with letters on them, for Hannah.) We had a good almost 3 hour stint talking and playing, then we had to come home and make dinner. I was interrupted AGAIN by the ADT guy trying to sell me a home alarm. No means no! And it’s suspicious when a guy has no car in sight and is walking around at night knocking on doors ‘claiming’ to be with ADT. I think it’s a scam.

Only three days till the ice fest!

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Today was dance day, which should have been a happy time, but our morning got off to a rough start. I’m not sure if it was the confusing thinking skills test Joel was asking about, the bleach that someone sprayed in their hair (it’s in an unlabeled spray bottle, but if you don’t know what’s in a bottle, you shouldn’t spray it on your head!), the cat peeing in his cage (and on himself), the dog traipsing around the house dropping snow everywhere, the girls in the tub screaming, the fact that Hannah put all the ballet shoes in a cubby hole and we had to sort out which ones belonged to which feet, yeah that could be why it tensions ran high.

We got to dance early so we could see what rooms we were in, Grace is first at 1, then Bethany at 2 and Hannah and I at 3pm. Which means we all get out by 4pm so we can drive home and rest before taking Joel to CAP. I convinced Hannah to leave her scarf at home and just accept whatever scarf she was given for free dance and she did leave it at home and said she was good in class. However, before class she found out Ms. Hannah would not be her teacher and she burst into tears. No scarf and a new teacher, oh the agony! She had a good time with Ms. Darrah though. I think we have 7 or 8 in the adult class, a really good number. We have 4 from last session, and the rest are new. We did a lot of stretching and I know I’ll be sore tomorrow, but it was all good. We will all be doing another book for devotions from Andrew Murray (The Vine was last session.)

Joel got a merit at CAP for shoveling snow in front of the church (we got about 5 inches or so) so he was happy when he got home. Maisy was happy to prance in the snow and chase her squirrel, I swear if that squirrel ever moves away I’m going to have a depressed dog.

I know tomorrow will be a better morning (or so help me….just kidding.)

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the weatherman was right. It started snowing yesterday, which is good, we haven’t had any snow in a month. I’d like to swim in the creek this summer – we need snow!

You know it’s cold when the mice insulate their hole in the garage. I think our snake, Gus, that lives under the porch is hibernating right now. The mice have taken advantage of that and procreated a bit. I hope Gus wakes up hungry.

Dance starts today, Hannah is excited! I changed the hours again so we will get home and have a breather before I need to take Joel to CAP, nice. Tomorrow I have a painting co-op (musical painting), I think it will be fun. Wednesday is a kids meeting at Mcd’s with our HS group, Thursday is a co-op (Teddy bear tea, which reminds me I need to fix bunny before that), Friday is a co-op about storytelling and then we’re going to CU Boulder to do some Navajo weaving.

That’s our week in a nutshell.

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