I am thankful for:

Our health, right now everyone is healthy and we haven’t had an ER trip in awhile (I know I’m jinxing myself with that statement.)

Our families, though far away are still a part of our lives thanks to the awesome power of the internet, snail mail, and the incredible digital phone.

Our home school group. Many have looked far and wide to find a group like mine. We are eclectic, inclusive and quirky. We have the best people in our group because we realize that everyone brings something to the table (even if its sushi, because someone likes sushi.)

I am thankful for the fact that I live in a very nice homeschool state where we have every advantage to school our kids the way we think they need to be schooled.

I am thankful for my husband who works 2, no wait 3, no…sometimes 4 jobs (yes, even jobs that require work on the computer count) to provide for us. And not just bread and milk (sometimes mellocreme pumpkins too), but stuff we don’t need like dance, ballet shoes, bloomers and CAPSQTR stuff. He does this because even though we don’t need it, he thinks we deserve it.

I am thankful for our church, we have an awesome pastor and even though we lost our drama dude, things seem to be going well in that category.

I am thankful that Jesus loves me (this I know) even when I’m not the person He’s made me to be. I can only hope to be like a fine cheese and get better with every year (Hannah really likes cheese.).

I am thankful for my 18lb fat, lazy cat. Even thought he sometimes misses the litter box (quite frequently now) and sheds, he’s nice to lie on. I’m not quite as thankful for the other cat, AKA evil cat, but she’s ok.

I am thankful that Maisy the dog had a bath the other day; I might make that a weekly occurrence!

I am thankful for my house and car, my clothes and food in our pantry. I am thankful that we have the ability to have these things too.

I am thankful for my children (well, I didn’t mean to put them last.) I love them when they irritate me (because I have them to irritate me), I love them when they make me tired (because I have children to make me tired), I love them when they make me happy and when they make me sad, I even love them when they are very, very bad (sorry Dr. Seuss is coming out through me.) I wanted so very much to have children when James and I got married and it was 2 ½ years later before Joel came, that was a very long time it seemed. I can’t imagine life without them.

So, I hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving Day. Of course I have a poem for you to read, it’s short though!

Thankful hearts turn to You and pray,
As we join with family and friends,
To celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

Let us remember to thank in good times and bad.
For what we need and what we have.
For friends and family,
For laughter and sorrow,
For this day and for tomorrow.
-Liese

If you have kids that love trivia learning, hop on over to Sporcle. It’s pretty neat (and amazing how much history I don’t know.) Try filling in the Gettysburg address or coming up with all the names of the Civil war battles! I haven’t even begun to find everything on the site, trivia games for language, history, science, etc. Have fun!

Our field trip to can land was a hit. Joel brought a bag of cans and gave them to a friend to redeem. He made $1.22! Joel also brought an aluminum easel and traded it for a brass giraffe for Hannah and a brass dolphin for the rest of us.

He assured us it’s a museum piece and as such will be available for everyone to look at, but he owns it.

Can land doesn’t just recycle cans. They take pipes, boats, pots, pans, wire, kitchen faucets, knick-knacks, and all kinds of stuff.

We saw the giant bales of cans and found out it takes about 4,000 cans to make 65 lbs. That 65 pound bale is put on a pallet with others until you have a pallet 5 bales wide by about 10 bales high of crushed cans. I guess most beer drinkers fail to clean out their cans before bringing them because it really smelled like beer in there. We watched the cans roll up the conveyor belt and get crushed into the bale.

Then we went over to another row where they had big cardboard boxes full of wire, faucets, brass, copper and pots.

We saw bed frames, hubcaps, bike wheels and a car hood that were brought in for recycling. The only thing they don’t take is steel.

The kids had all kind of ideas for things to bring. We could get free metal stuff off craigslist, out of the trash, off the road and bring it in. They have their sights set on more than cans (since that was only 68 cents a pound.) I hope they don’t rifle through the house and I suddenly find pots and pans missing. I told them they could start a pile in the garage and if I see something on craigslist and it’s in the area we’d pick it up. Can land is about 40 minutes from our house, so I expect that next time we go we’ll get more than $1.22 out of the deal.

The cockpit demo was cancelled until tomorrow, so we’ll go to park day and then the demo in the Springs.

Well, the girls won’t be doing the Nutcracker. Grace got understudy for snowflake and Bethany got snowflake. So why aren’t they doing it?

Well, it is very apparent that Cherry creek doesn’t want non-Cherry creek dancers involved, so we said no. First off they charge non-Cherry creek people more money to dance with them in the Nutcracker. Secondly, they were saving spots for people who weren’t there to audition (but were with Cherry creek.) So Bethany couldn’t be an angel because they had 4 slots they were saving for people who weren’t even there. If I paid for Grace to take lessons and go to rehearsals for 2 ½ months she may still not get to dance in December if 3 of the 12 snowflakes aren’t deathly ill or have a broken leg.

So, we said no. If they really don’t like people who don’t dance at Cherry creek maybe they shouldn’t allow people from other dance studios to try out; just my opinion of course.

Clearwater Marine Aquarium just got $22 and $10.50 (well, they’ll get it in August) from the sale on E-bay of 2 of Grace’s whale pics. I have more donations on the way as people have said they want a pic too, Thanks guys! Grace is very excited that she will get to go on a behind the scenes trip at CMA and give them some money to help all kinds of sea critters.

You can still request a pic by e-mailing me at: liesecarberry@hotmail.com

Grace and a piece of baleen.

I found this really cool site called Wordle. (caution, some people make nasty ones.) You can make words into art, here’s mine called Family.

And HS’ing.

And flight (James just got back from his flight school this morning.)

(Click on them to see them bigger.)

For presentation club the topic was endangered animals or ways animals help us. Joel did prairie dogs. Target is about to build on the prairie dog site by our house, we also found out there are burrowing owls on the site (which are federally protected.) It remains to be seen if Target can evacuate the prairie dogs and owls.

(Joel)
When land development occurs what happens to the land and wildlife? Natural land is necessary for animal habitats and it is also nice to look at an area in its primitive state. Plants and trees in an undeveloped area support our atmosphere. The air you breathe may depend on land areas remaining uncultivated. The safety of where you live may depend on animals having a proper food source. The chain of cause and effects of homebuilding in our area is rapidly growing into a huge problem.

As a result of the new homes, prairie dog colonies are sucked up with a special machine and relocated to prairie dog farms. Shea homes ships more and more prairie dogs until the farms are full; consequently Shea homes turns the animals over to a ferret program to be used as food. Soon they might just have to kill the prairie dogs as the farms are full and the ferrets have plenty of food. Some people think prairie dogs are a nuisance but they are a vital part of the food chain in their natural environment. In fact, we now have a problem with coyotes by our house because their main food sources, prairie dogs, are slowly being eradicated by Shea homes. Now the coyotes are eating small dogs and cats in our neighborhood.

Bethany did lady bugs, no they’re not endangered, but they do help gardens. We brought our ladybug habitat. We now have some eggs around the tank too.

(Bethany)
The life cycle of the ladybug is between four to six weeks. In the spring the adults lay up to three hundred eggs in an aphid colony. The eggs hatch in two to five days. The newly hatched larvae feed on aphids for up to three weeks, and then they enter the pupa stage.
The adult ladybug emerges about a week later. However, they usually do not have their spots for their first 24 hours of adulthood. There may be as many as six generations of ladybugs hatched in a year. There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs worldwide and 400 which live in North America. A female ladybug will lay more than 1000 eggs in her lifetime. A ladybug beats its wings 85 times a second when it flies. Aphids are a ladybug’s favorite food.

Grace did blue whales (which are endangered.) She used her blue whale puppet she got for her b-day and I asked it questions (M = Mama, W=Blue whale.)

(Grace)
W: Hi, I’m a blue whale and I am the largest animal that ever lived on Earth.

M: What do blue whales eat?
W: Krill.
M: How do they eat them?
W: I eat them with my mysticeti.
M: What’s that?
W: It’s baleen.
M: How many blowholes do you have?
W: 2 blowholes.
M: What other kind of whale are you?
W: I am a rorqual whale.
M: What does that mean?
W: I have throat grooves.
M: How many do you have?
W: 50-70.
M: Is it true you grow to be 80 feet long?
W: Yes and I weigh about 120 tons.
M: How big is your heart?
W: As big as a Volkswagen bug car.

Today was Tour Thursday. Since we haven’t taken my mom anywhere Coloradoish (Amazing Jakes doesn’t count) we went to 3 of our favorite places today.

First up was Hammond’s candy.

They’ve been around since 1920 and they still hand make their candy today using some of the oldest machines around (like the ribbon curler machine – late 1800’s.)

We went on the tour and got to see them pouring the candy, pulling the yellow candy until it was white and we watched this guy put together a batch of cherry candy canes.

Hammond’s uses 3 ingredients: sugar, corn syrup and water to make all of their candy. Everything is yellow at first, and then they add the coloring and flavoring to each batch. Did you know that candy canes and barber poles only have flavoring on the inside? The jacket that is wrapped around them is just sugar, no flavor. Also they pull the candy on that old machine to change the colors from darker to lighter. If you pull it long enough it gets white (they only color they can’t make by pouring a coloring in!) Want to buy a 5 lb candy cane?

You can get them here and also a 5 lb lollipop. The candy cane is $75; I think the lollipop is the same. Last time we were here they were making special lollipops for the Martha Stewart collection at Macy’s. Today they were making cherry canes and some ribbon candy.

At the end of the tour we saw them packing up the candy.

They were wrapping Mitchell sweets and we got to sample some of those. They are handmade marshmallows dipped in chocolate or caramel; they are very good, but really sticky. Here’s the tour guide asking if anyone wants a sample (duh!)

She also had peppermint samples, lemon samples and art candy.

Here is the newest art candy - a menorah.

This kind of candy really is art; they have to layer the inside of the jacket with tubes of colored candy in just the right places. Then when they roll the jacket around and cut the slices of candy they have Santas, trees, flags, flowers and now menorahs. Very cool (and it tasted good too.) After going through the shop we sat down to eat ice cream (yes, right after breakfast.)

Hannah spotted a ‘ho, ho, ho’ in the cabinet (we don’t do Santa so she doesn’t know his name, but she knows he says ‘ho, ho, ho’!)

After a look at the Hammond’s candy truck we left to go to the tea factory.

Celestial seasonings is a great place to visit. You get free tea, a free tour and the mint room will clear up you sinuses! Here’s a pic of the hippy who started this tea factory with some bundled herbs he found growing in Boulder fields (not that kind of herb.)

All of the Celestial seasonings teas (actually they’re herbal infusions) are made right here. They also make a whole other line of stuff like cereal bars, potato chips, skin care and health products that are made somewhere else. First we sampled some tea (tropical fruit served cold was good, chocolate caramel chai was gross.) Then we sat through the video that shows the beginnings of the tea factory, the owners, farmers, locations of the farmers who grow their herbs and tea and other products they offer.

This was the first time I had been on the tour (Hannah can’t go so someone has to stay behind with her.) We donned our hair nets and started out.

(No pics allowed.) We saw the mixing room and rows of herbs (mostly hibiscus, an ingredient they use the most of.) We went and saw the tea room (green, black and white tea all come from the same plant, it’s just how they are harvested and dried that makes it that color tea.) Then we stepped in the mint room. Peppermint and spearmint galore and it was strong. After one sniff my whole head opened up. I’m pretty sure if you got locked in that room, you’d die. We walked around the packaging area and got to see the line working on Tropic of strawberry tea. We watched the boxes (made in Texas) zip around full of tea and get wrapped, stacked and loaded onto pallets. Coming to you soon! Back in the gift shop we picked up some tea (but now I’m bummed because there is actually no tea in any of my teas at home) and looked at the tea cups.

Outside we walked around the garden and then took a final pic in front of the gift shop.

We stopped by Mcd’s for a late lunch (we’d had snacks of ice cream, candy and tea up to this point) and then headed over to our favorite museum, the Longmont cultural museum. They changed their quilt display to Japanese kimonos.

Bethany is in front of some of the oldest ones on display there, wedding kimonos from the 1850’s.

Here are some depression era ones that are made from lots of different silks.

Here are some Obi’s (that’s the big band that goes around the middle.)

Here’s Hannah’s favorite one.

We went through the Colorado through time exhibit and went backwards. Sometimes we mix it up by going from present day to ancient times, other times we start at the beginning and go forwards.

We saw the accordion, radio, 1930’s kitchen, water games, sugar beet puzzle, rang the schoolhouse bell and traded at the Indian post/fort.

Then we went up-stairs to see the view and play some games. Bethany dressed up as a crow (so did Grace and Hannah but I wasn’t quick enough to get a pic.)

After looking through a book that had the history of Colorado as seen through post cards we went back down and headed home.

I took the scenic route home (to avoid the freeway traffic.) So we had views of the Flatirons and foothills all the way home.

Tomorrow we’re playing tennis, making banana bread and going to a concert at the park.

Our ladybugs came out today.

There are about 5 out and I guess the rest will be coming out tonight or tomorrow.

This pic is from this morning and they were still yellowish, tonight they are turning a little darker.

Hannah finally got her Tom and Jerry iron-on’s in the mail today. That took forever (about 4 weeks.)

There were 2 in the package so I put one on a bag and one on a shirt.

She’s sooooo happy!

We didn’t have much planned for today and it’s a good thing because on the way home from lunch my tire blew out. We had to wait 1 hour from the time we called roadside assistance till it was fixed. Now I have to take it in tomorrow to get a new tire, good thing we didn’t have much planned for tomorrow either.

We ate breakfast at the hotel again and while we were reading the paper we spied an article about the festival. Joel was in the pic behind a lady at the egg toss. We showed Joel the paper when we got back upstairs. Then we packed up and almost left Mr. Otter in the room. Imagine the cleaning lady’s scream when she saw a lifelike otter sticking out from under the curtain! So, Otter in hand (and bunny too) we headed back out.

This time the Colorado River was on my side of the car for awhile. First the sloping green mountains.

They start to get some rocky ridges in them.

We pass up the exit to No Name (isn’t that a name?)

Also Gypsum (where they mine…….gypsum) and Silt (where they have……silt.) All of a sudden we get to rocky outcroppings more than green slopes.

You’re almost to the tunnel again.

Climbing back up we get more snow too (there was still 3-5 feet in some places.)

Vail valley here with their ski slopes, not sure why you still can’t ski there, looks like plenty of snow to me.

We also saw some buffalo and lots of big horn sheep on this side of the divide, but they were kind of hard to snap a pic of when traveling at 75 mph downhill.

We made it home early enough to clean up and relax before taking the rental car back. The kids lathered love on Maisy and the cats. Maisy was jumping for joy to see us back. Joel’s friend Austin was supposed to come over and feed/water them, but his aunt never brought him by. They all had enough food and water though, but the cat litter box was full (and they hate that.) Maisy hasn’t been alone overnight like that, she probably thought we were never coming back!

We were all happy: James got to drive in the mountains, I got to do the games at the festival, the kids got to stay in a hotel, this was a really great trip!