Eleven Years of Mackenzie

It has been an amazing journey. The photos speak for themselves...

Keeping Busy With the Furballs

Life is busy around here, trying to settle into our fall routine, celebrate Not Back to School Day (pics to come), get ready for Lego First League robotics season, and take care of the small animal farm we've got going (10 chickens, 2 guinea pigs, 2 cats, 4 kittens, and 2 rabbits we're watching for a friend right now!). The kittens are a few weeks old now and just really starting to play and have fun. If you go down to the basement where they're living, you just get sucked into watching them and before you know it an hour has passed!

Eleven Gorgeous Years Old

Yep, our boy is eleven today. He decided to decorate his own cake, with his favorite thing in the world: hippos! I love his cake idea, which he drew out on paper ahead of time.
















Then it was off to the pool for some fun with friends (and a splashing from grandma!)

















And to the park for presents, cake, and lots of playing with his friends. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone on us despite forecasts of clouds. His friends are all so much fun, he definitely has a great group of people who love him. And he's such a cool kid, I can't begin to express. Well, maybe this sums it up. I heard him telling his best friend on the phone (who we thought would be out of town for his birthday, but as it turns out could make it): "I don't want any presents, don't worry about that. I just really want you there." He's got a big heart and a sweet and funny way with words, a ready smile and is a true friend. I'm lucky to be called his mom. Happy Birthday punkin.

Best Thing About Karate

For the last two weeks, our karate classes have been combined, which means I've gotten to be back in the class with the younger kids. I have to say, the best thing about karate is watching these little girls with curly ponytails and barbie t-shirts come in, get in karate gis and kiyai (yell) so loudly they scare the heck out of you. It's a far cry from the silent little "seen but not heard" proper girls of our parents' generation. Go karate girls!

They're Here!

Late Monday night, our pregnant cat Patches was starting to wander around restlessly. She crawled way back into our closet, and I was pretty sure she was going into labor. I tried to stay awake, but probably drifted off around midnight. At four in the morning, I woke up to the sound of mewing, very close by. She was having her kittens on our bed!! There were three kittens already born, two alive and one that looked like it had been stillborn. I quickly woke up the kids and my husband and we all got to watch as the last two kittens were born. Talk about your homeschooling biology lesson!
















Patches has shown herself to be a conscientious mother cat, cleaning up all of her kittens (though not unfortunately my down comforter, which is off to the drycleaners!) and getting them settled in and nursing. We ended up with two orange tabbies, one that looks like it will be a calico, and one light grey with a dark grey mask over its eyes. They are endlessly fascinating to watch, and "kitten TV" is the pastime of the day.

No Kittens Yet

The kids are on kitten watch, hoping they will be able to see the blessed moment (unschooling biology and sex ed in action there!) but so far no births have occurred. Just one every-expanding mama cat. She is not terribly happy about staying indoors but we don't want her to wander off into the woods to have the kittens. She does get to go out on the upper balcony for some fresh air though. Stay tuned...

Summer's Half Over, And We're Busy As Bees

I just realized today that summer is about halfway through. This one has seemed to go unusually fast. My hubby's been out of town a lot more than he's been in, which makes my days a whirlwind of trying to do all the stuff I normally do (take care of 14 animals, two kids, all the kids' activities, housework, etc.) plus all the stuff he normally takes care of (mowing lawns, fixing things, pumping bicycle tires, all the little things I never notice he's doing until he's gone and then Wow, they add up!). Still, we've managed to do a lot of cool things in the last couple of weeks since I posted last (as you can tell, getting around to blogging is much more difficult when he's gone, and I'm asleep before my head hits the pillow on more nights than I can count!)

So, since a picture's worth a thousand words (and it's 11:34 pm already and I'm running short on both brain power and words), here's a little picture history of our last two weeks:

We went to a homeschool park day, took a hike up a local butte, and discovered an Eagle's nest complete with at least one baby eagle we could hear (we've seen the parents flying out over the playground to the river to bring back some dinner). The nest is huge!



















The very next day, I crazily packed up the car to go camping at the beach with some friends. The walk-in campground that we love to go to was full (and they don't take reservations) but we used that as an opportunity to discover a new campground (at 6:00 in the evening, hoping we weren't going to be sleeping in the van at the side of the road!)
The beach was beautiful. It was warm and sunny and there was lots of sand and blue water. We had a kite. Who could ask for more?
The next day we went to a different beach, with a small river coming in, a lighthouse, tide pools, and lots of seashells to find.

The very next day, after unpacking all of our camping gear, and packing all of my triathlon gear, we set off for Washington so I could do a triathlon. I qualified for the National Age Group Triathlon Championships next year! And Asa did her first triathlon ever: 50 yard swim, 3 mile bike, 1 mile run. Hubby ran with her the whole way (including trying to keep up while she biked) so she would feel safe. She finished with a big ol' grin!
And a medal, of course. Now doesn't that just make this triathlete-mama's heart beat with joy!

















After the triathlon, we got to have dinner with my sister and brother-in-law who live in Washington, and also with an old friend of my husband's who lives in Texas but was up for a wedding and to compete on the bagpipe at the Highland Games. So of course, we had to go see her play. It was really cool to watch, I've never seen an individual bagpipe competition before, and she is amazing (she has been playing since she was old enough to hold a set of pipes)! We got to watch her father compete as well, and enjoy the rest of the games, look up a family clan (each clan had a tent there, ours is the Kerr's), and watch big burley guys in kilts heave big stones and hammers and poles around a field. Unfortunately it really started raining and we took off for home.

Once back at home, we took our newly adopted cat to the vet to have her spayed. I also wanted to ask if we were feeding her too much as she was getting rather round. Surprise! She's pregnant! We are about to have kittens. The kids over overjoyed. Cat may never give birth with children hovering over her every move.

Also on the homefront, our spring chickens began laying. The Aracanas lay the green eggs, aren't they cool?

And finally, this past weekend, we went to a Living History Festival at a local historic ranch/park. They had lots of old-fashioned kids' games like fishing. Here's Mackenzie hoping to pull out a cool prize.












And of course, the piece de' resistance, the Civil War re-enactment. Lots of big booms, horses rushing around, big guys playing soldier. Fun!

Well, that's two weeks of summer in a nutshell. Imagine all of this plus our usual karate, Asa's violin lessons and playing at the local marketplace, the kids' never-ending play, crafts, creativity, playdates, science experiments, trips to the library, etc. Wow! Think I'll go to bed now before I nod off at my keyboard

The True Magic of Harry Potter

One of the best things about unschooling for me is how I get drawn in to my childrens' worlds. How the things that interest them, I find interesting. It stretches my own imagination and boundaries to encompass the things that excite them. In a sense, that is a truly magical thing. Which is why, of course, Friday found us running around to thrift stores, a beauty supply store, and an Asian food market to buy supplies to wizardize ourselves for the Harry Potter release parties on Friday night. Asa went as Hermione, I couldn't talk Mackenzie into going as Draco Malfoy (though he looks so much like him when he gets out of the shower with his hair slicked back!) and the kids thought I should go as Tonks. My mom was visiting and came with us in costume too.!

Now of course though, I have to fight them to get to read the book myself!

Fun at the Science Museum, and Body Worlds

We went up to the science museum to see the traveling Body Worlds exhibit. It was really fascinating! I didn't anticipate how much information and presentation there would be along with the full-size bodies, and was pleasantly surprised. The kids didn't want to go in, I think they were a little intimidated by the idea of the dead bodies, and their friends we were there with also did a little bit of persuading because they didn't want to go in and wanted to go have fun in some of the rest of the science exhibits. So my mom friend and I took turns hanging out with the kids and each got to go in to see the Body Worlds exhibit. Now, after hearing me talk about it, the kids are interested in maybe going back up to see it, so we may be revisiting the skinless people. I thought it was really fascinating, once I got past the fact of seeing people without their skin on. I'm glad I got the time to walk through it alone without a million discussions with the kids because there is a lot of information presented about the human body, but I would also enjoy going through it with them and seeing it through their eyes! There was a wealth of information presented, not just on the full cadavers but on all the little body parts like spleens and joints and lungs and stuff (including these bizarre thin slices through the body that let you see a cross-section of organs.) Very cool stuff!















Meanwhile, the kids had a blast at the various rooms at the science museum. Asa and I merged our faces together in a magic mirror, with the eerie effect of aging her into a teenager (or reducing me to one, I don't know which!), and of course the kids spent a ton of time in the foam ball room, and some in the Chemistry lab, and the other experimental areas. I wish we lived closer to a really big science museum because the kids really enjoy hanging out there. I love how each time we go, it seems like we find some other new little exhibit or experiment we haven't seen before. It's so much fun.