Next Retreat

I forgot to blog about the kid's teen retreat last weekend. A, J and C went and Phil and I were home with some one-on-one time with R. I think he would be fine with being an only child. LOL!
Here are some pictures taken at the retreat by a friend.

Here you can see A next to Aubrey during praise and worship. According to our photo source, terrorizing our youth was a common occurance during the weekend. Here you can see the terror on my son's face! LOL!
Now, this was early March. The water is freezing. But, the kid's decided a "Polar Bear Jump" sounded like a good idea. J is on the end. So that you do not think our kid's go out and do these crazy things on their own, the guy 3rd from the left is our Youth Minister! J said it was colder than the river we go rafting down in Colorado. Ah, Youth.

San Antonio Visit Tuesday, Part 2

After bowling we went to my sister Lee's shop for haircuts etc. I always try to get my hair done when we are down here. She has been doing my hair for years and I love how she works with it. The boys also needed haircuts so off we went..

BEFORE

DURING

You can see how much they absolutely LOVE having their hair cut......

"Come on C, Is is really that bad???".........

He is such a clown!!!!! Already you can see they look so much better. Sorry I didn't get actual after pictures but I think you get the gist of it.

The girls had their eyebrows waxed and J had her haircut. Though I have pictures of the waxing, out of respect for their wishes those will not be posted. So, here is a before picture of A ...

and then the after. She has such beautiful eyes and it really brings them out more.
We didn't have a before for J but here is her after picture. She did NOT get a perm. That is all her natural curl. It so suites her personality. I just love it and so does she.

We went back to my mom and dad's house when we finished where some played cards and the rest of us watched the finals of "American Idol". I had never seen the show before and neither had the kids. There were some talented folks on the show. Will we watch it again? Since we don't watch TV at home it will have to be when we visit again. So, who knows. Tomorrow? Who knows what exciting adventures it will bring.

*Quick Note: Please know that though we think it is fun to have our hair done etc. we do not believe outward beauty is what makes anyone beautiful. It is the gentle, quiet spirit within a person that comes from the Lord that helps anyone to shine. Physical beauty is deceptive sometimes. "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" Psalm 31:10

San Antonio Days...

Since I last blogged we have had a quiet weekend. Sunday I was down with a terrible sore throat and missed worship. I didn't think I would be able to drive to San Antonio on Monday. But, Cold-eze is a wonderful supplement. It has always shortened my colds and lessened the severity. So, Monday we ran some errands, packed and hit the road. We spent most of the day Monday driving. We did get to listen to some really funny "Adventures in Odessey" CD's and some good music. About 2 hours out of San Antonio, I began to feel my cold hitting me again. I was getting tired so decided to get some fluids in me to perk me up. I know most of you think I mean coffee, well, it was getting late and I did NOT want to be up all night so we hit the last few minutes of happy hour at Sonic. Thanks to my dear friend Laura T. LemonBerry Real Fruit Slushes are my favorite treat!
When we arrived, we said our hellos, chatted and off to bed we went.
Tuesday
This morning was a much better start to the day. Well rested and taking it easy we enjoyed my parents and a great breakfast. Two of my sisters and my nephew arrived and we were off to the bowling alley. It was lots of fun but rather amusing at the same time. It has been a LONNNNNGG time since we last went bowling.
Here are some of the highlights....

Here is R with his older cousin giving him some pointers. His cousin is the youngest of 4 boys so he had always been the recipient of the teaching. Now the student has become the teacher!
I love this picture!

Here R is explaining to his aunt the need for one of the bowling helpers since in the forefront.

The Thrill of Victory!

And, the Agony of Defeat.

Lito (Grandpa) has always been a great bowler. However, we all have our off days! He did get back into the swing of things as the game went on though.

Even teachers have less than perfect turns at times....

If you look closely in the background you can see why he is not thrilled. He did much better later in the game. Afterall, it has been awhile since we were last bowling. I will have to remedy that !

One of the problems with bowling is the weight of the balls and being the youngest in the family. Though everyone helped R out with his bowling, his arm just got tired which made for some....hmmmm....gutter attracted bowling on his part. This was very frustrating to him. He couldn't get one pin down and he was getting very distressed. However, he has a wonderful aunt who has always been gifted with kids. When we suggested bowling "granny style" he was even more upset because he wanted to bowl like everyone else. So, his Tia (Aunt) Let came to the rescue as you can see below.....

First she bowled a few "granny style" balls herself, as did I and a few of the others. He was still very upset and unsure if this would work so he tried a few and he still missed. So, after a few pointers, his Tia Let bowled with him...

Maybe if I lean really far it will help the ball roll in the right direction.....Wait for it......

YES!!!!! The pins went down!!! VICTORY!!!!!!!

The rest of the game went much better for him. He hit more and more pins down. We all enjoyed the game and then off we went for haircuts etc...

*Please note that I did not realize the genders in the Victory/Defeat posts above. However, I did find it amusing to see when I was reviewing the blog before posting! *grin*

Spring has Sprung...

Spring has sprung here and so it is time for an updated blog look. This look is springy but I don't like how the pictures look. They show up better and look better on a darker background, but it does reflect Spring and my Spring time attitudes of freshness and brightness so I think we will stick with this look for a little while.
In the meantime I did catch up on my blogging. Only 2 weeks since the last posting this time. So feel free to catch up with our daily antics. Maybe next time I post it will be only a week in review.......LOLOLOLOL!!! Okay, maybe it will happen!

Final Post of my 2 weeks in review...

It was another blogging marathon but not as long as before. This time I managed to blog after only 2 weeks instead of a month. So here is my last post of my 2 week review. Scroll down and you will be able to catch up on our antics for the last 2 weeks......
March 3, 2009 Marshmallow Molecules
My boys are using the science series "Real Science 4 Kids". It is a great introduction to the sciences and a great review for my older girls before jumping back into high school science. We are in Chemistry right now but will complete both Biology and Physics before the end of the summer. They are 10 chapters each and can easily be done one chapter per week.
Because of various other studies we simply did the chapter reading over the last few months. So, we are now taking the time to do all the experiments. We have had nothing but science this week as we gear up for our Spring Break.
Tuesday we studied molecules. We first started by making molecules out of Marshmallows with no rules. Simply, put together some molecules using marshamallows for atoms. I discovered my children are very creative as you will note below.....

Needless to say, anyone who knows anything about Chemistry will recognize that only 1 of these models would actual work according to the laws of Chemistry. We wanted to show our kids that rules even apply to the natural world. Our Creator is a God of order not chaos. We then gave the rules for the number of bonds each atom could hold and had them build molecules with these "laws". They then understood how atoms combine to form different substances. This was a great way to grasp this concept and it was yummy too!

Here J and C discuss how it was much easier to make the molecules without the rules and how much more creative they could be. We discussed that creative did not necessarily bring forth function but we did all agree that it was fun.

A really enjoyed this as she is a very orderly and careful individual. Her molecules were put together very nicely.

Here is one of R's creations. He named it very aptly. He call this...."Chaos". LOL!

We are really enjoying our experiments this week. We have done chemical reactions with household items, learned about different forms of chemical reactions and will be working on acids, bases and determining ph today.

As a person with a science degree, I highly recommend this series for younger students. It really is Real Science 4 kids.

Advent, Lent- keeping our focus on Christ (Week 2 in review cont.)

Scroll down to see the rest of our 2 weeks in review....

During the Christmas Season we choose to focus on Christ and the "Advent" of His birth. We have used a series of books that give us a daily reading of a story following a Jewish child during the time right before the birth of Christ. It also has a little "devotional" after each night's reading to focus us on Christ and His birth. You can find the books here Jotham's Journey Series.

However, Easter or Resurrection Sunday always seems to sneak up on us and that which should be greatly celebrated, The Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, seems to get overlooked too often. The author of the above books has written a book leading up to the death and resurrection of Christ much like his advent books for Christmas. You can read about it here: "The Mystery of the Temple Court" Unfortunately, it is not in print yet. So I was looking for a way to focus on this season and as usual, I found some fabulous ideas at my friend DeEtta's blog, Choosing Joy. She got the idea from another blogger to make a "Lenten Cross" and do devotionals similar to our Advent Devotionals but instead focusing on the death and resurrection of Christ. Well, for those of you who celebrate Lent regularly you know I started late. We should have started on Ash Wednesday but I did not read about this idea until later. But, better late than never.
So, off I went to Hobby Lobby to find items to make my Lenten Cross. Here is what we came up with.

I love the piece of wood that I found to build our cross on. It just symbolized the tree our Savior hung on as he thought of us in the greatest act of love ever given to man.

Here C is helping R out with the lighter. Remember he wasn't feeling well? He was still not doing well here either.

The lighting of the first candle. There are 6 candles, one for each Sunday of the Lenten season. There are 5 purple and 1 pink . We also found some devotions and Lenten ideas online. You can go to Choosing Joy to link to some of the materials we found and are using for this.

I am so glad we are able to do this and to help focus the kids, once again, on Jesus. It is a great, fun way to help them learn and grow in their understanding of the greatest gift ever given to them, Salvation through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If you would like to learn more about this incredible gift, please leave a comment and a way to contact you and I would love to help you learn more.

Jesus Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Our 2 weeks in review- Week 2

Scroll down for our first week review. Here we start March 1, 2009

Saturday was beautiful and so we decided to go to the park. We played Frisbee Golf. You had to fling a frisbee at a certain tree and counted how many times it took you to actually hit the tree as your score. The lower the score the better. There were no handicaps in this game so I took pictures! LOL


J is a lefty and so it took her a little more effort to get the frisbee to hit the tree. Notice R through these pictures. He is the one up against the tree above.

C was pretty good. He had really good aim and was able to catch the frisbee when it was thrown back to him. Once again, notice R....

Dad, of course did great. Oh, I forgot to mention. You had to keep your hand on the previous tree when throwing to the next tree on your first throw.

A would have won had high score been our goal! LOL! She had a lot of fun but it took some doing for her to hit the tree. Good thing I didn't play or I would have taken high score away from her!

Once again, notice R...

I just love this picture but it is very telling along with the other pictures. He did not feel well but we didn't really know it until the next morning. Here he is on his favorite tree. Poor little guy.

2 weeks in Review

Ok, so at least it isn't a full month this time! LOL A lot has happened since the last time I blogged almost 2 weeks ago. We have done school, had the flu, stomach virus, muscle ache virus, gone on field trips, had a date, enjoyed the warming of the weather and many other mundane things like taking care of hospital bills, going to eye appts. etc. etc. etc. So I have decided to make a "2 weeks in Review" post. The last time I blogged was the 15th of Feb. I don't really remember what happened from the 15th to the 20th so I am sure someone was ill during that time.

Glass Blowers
But the 20th was a good day. It started out with a field trip to a glass blowing factory. It was amazing and if you get a chance to go see this I highly recommend it. Here is a quick step-by-step sequence that took an hour to complete.

Here they take small pieces of glass and put them in the oven an melt on really high heat. He is shaping the first small blob of glass that they melted to start the piece.

Next they blow the glass. (This is not the actual piece but I missed that picture so here you can just see how they blow the glass).

You can see the piece taking shape on the end of the pole. The final piece looks nothing like this.

After heating the glass again in the oven they shape it by hand. You can see that he has a pad in his hand to shape the glass. It is just a thick stack of newspaper. They moisten it and let steam help shape the piece and keep the paper from sticking to the glass.

They use blow torches to keep the glass heated as they shape it. They had these going non-stop and walked so close to them I was certain someone was going to get burned. But they are so comfortable around flames.

After heating the glass and making it pliable again they take what look like hotpads and stretch the glass to shape it further.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the final piece. It ended up to be a goose-necked open wine decanter.

Friday Evening 3D Movie "Coraline"

Later in the evening Phillip and I actually got to go out on a date! Everyone was well and we were free to go. We went to see the movie "Coraline". I do not recommend the movie but, the 3D was fabulous. It really was better than the 3D of the past. I really enjoyed it even if I did not enjoy the movie.

Here we are in our very fashionable 3D glasses. LOL!