Flotsam and Jetsam

It's almost summer and around here everyone has been busy with a variety of activities. Asa just finished up her big end-of-year dance recitals, although their dance team will be competing at the "Dance Magic Grand Champions" this summer since they won 1st place in their division. So the excitement of dance team is not quite over for the year, which cheered her up immensely when she was feeling sad over dance being over for the season. She also just finished up with performances of Little Shop of Horrors a couple of weeks ago, which was a very fun production (and their theatre company has just been outdoing itself in every production, this was very good!). Now she's heading down to my mom's house for her annual week of Missoula Children's Theatre. She'll audition on Monday and hopefully will get a part again, so then it will be full-day rehearsals for a week and a performance the following weekend.

In the meantime, Mackenzie and I will take that week and go on another camping excursion like we did last year. This year instead of the high desert, we'll be heading to the coastal redwoods, taking both kayaks and both dogs. That should be exciting! Last year on our trip Mackenzie plowed his way through the first few books in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (this photo is of him celebrating Towel Day 2010). This year he's taking a book called Going Bovine that looked funny enough that I have even started reading it and now can't put it down. He just finished up with his computer science classes (where he was very excited to have earned an A in his first graded class ever), and has also been building computers with a friend.

Everyone is looking forward to some warmer weather after the unceasing rains of May and June. Asa optimistically made these wonderful popsicles this week, yet another hit recipe from the DK Children's Cookbook that she has checked out from the library enough times that I really ought to buy a copy! I got lucky last Saturday and hit the sunshine jackpot, squeezing my first triathlon of the season in between a rainy Friday and an absolutely torrential Sunday. I left the kids with Wayne (who had the unenviable job of getting Asa's hair, make-up, and costumes all ready for the first of the big dance recitals) and took off with some friends for the outskirts of Portland and the Blue Lake triathlon. As you can see, we really enjoyed ourselves! I always feel like such a big girl when I travel without the kids. It's so different to have them at these ages now where for large chunks of the day, or even for a weekend, I am not with them. Motherhood was so all-enveloping for so many years, but now suddenly it's not anymore. I'm going to have to adjust to this new phase of existence.

Sharing Wisdom

As people go through life, progressing through education and careers, gaining experience and knowledge, they often come to a place and time in their lives when they are suddenly not so busy as they once were with career, children, etc. There are a wealth of such people in the world with specific experience to share, and possibly plenty of time to share it in. Homeschoolers do well to tap into the variety of experiences available.

We have been the beneficiaries many times in our homeschooling adventures of people's specific knowledge - whether its in music or art, writing or science, gardening or cooking. Not all adults are interested in sharing their abilities with kids, but there are many of them out there who are, so finding them and matching them to things my kids are interested in is always a part of our unschooling lives.

Recently, a woman who works at our local market heard that Asa was interested in singing, and she has come over to the house to practice singing with her. Another friend is setting up a physics lecture with a local expert. Another homeschooling mom has set up a really really cool activity, using this cow eyeball dissection kit, and a friend of their family who is a retired surgeon. Mackenzie is especially interested in this, since he has been thinking recently that going into the medical field is something he might possibly be interested in. We've been watching M*A*S*H this winter, in chronological order, and while it's full of lots of funny humor the show also includes a lot of medical terminology and action, so it's something he's become fascinated with.

I checked out the book The Way We Work, a book on the human body by David McCaulay, the same author who wrote and illustrated the excellent The Way Things Work series. We also just went up to OMSI in Portland to see the traveling DaVinci exhibit there. Along with some of DaVinci's codices, working models of many of his inventions and ideas, and an extensive exhibit on his paintings (including a fascinating portion on the Mona Lisa, including multi-spectrum photos taken with a 240-million pixel camera recreating how it looked when originally painted) there was a whole section of enlargements of his anatomical studies and drawings.

Once again, I love how so many of the things we encounter seem to dovetail and weave around each other - once you become interested in a particular subject, it seems that there are endless opportunities to study it from many different angles. One thing may spark an interest, but many different things can feed that interest, and one big benefit in our kids' lives that I see is the number of people who are willing to share their time, expertise, and interest with them as they pursue these different interests.

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

Magic of the Garden

As my interest in photography has been rekindled by Flickr (it's kind of like having a non-stop photo gallery, show, art class, and coffee shop all at the same time), I've been turning my own attention to the magic of everyday things. Often in the morning or evenings I will prowl through the garden or woods, just looking with my photographer's eye. The kids have accompanied me, sometimes just one of them and sometimes both. It's become a wonderful time to spend together looking at things.

M. and I discovered these tiny spiders hatching on a sweatshirt in our laundry hanging outside. It's amazing how fully formed they are, and that they can spin perfect tiny webs, yet they are not much bigger than the head of a pin. I took this photo with my finger in it just for the size comparison. Within a few hours, all were gone from the sweatshirt, off to make new lives for themselves. As we just watched the new version of Charlotte's Web, we were reminded of the scene where Charlotte's babies all float away. We could imagine these spider's tiny voices as they walked around on my shirt.

On another morning, after a night's rain that left the garden smelling wonderfully green, Miss A. and I walked around looking at the raindrops on spider webs on the ground. I love how just the presence of a child can make you see the magic in things you might otherwise miss or take for granted. Since the weather has been unusually hot this week, the kids discovered mirages on the road. Ever since then, they practically shriek with excitement when they see them, and then there is the running mirage commentary "it's shrinking, it's shrinking, it's gone...". Something I haven't noticed for years is suddenly fantastic and wonderful when they get so excited about it.

Once again, I find myself amazed by the journey my kids are taking me on. They turn my eyes outward in new directions, or allow me to see old things in new ways. They see the magic of everyday things, and beauty everywhere.

A Backyard Full of Trampoline

Our backyard is not very large and it has a heck of a slope, but we still managed to squeeze in this wonderful device! Already the kids are loving it, even in the middle of winter they're out there playing. Some friends came over who had a whole arsenal of trampoline games to play, including "popcorn" and the one in the picture which included trying to leap over the kids who are rolling around (I'm not sure what that one is called).

We've been wanting to get a trampoline for awhile now, but a local sporting goods store that went out of business provided the final impetus by marking everything down by 50%. We got the last 14 foot trampoline in the store, and I couldn't be happier! Now if I didn't get so dizzy when I jumped (notoriously sensitive inner ears), I'd be out there more myself. As it is, I try to get out with the kids, but I can't do it for very long.