Safari Sally
Well, after a great weekend camping at
Eleven Mile Reservoir with our friends, we tried to take it pretty easy today just cleaning the house and getting stuff put away.
And then we remembered about our tickets to the Safari Sally show at the Belmar library! Of course, remembering isn't the same as knowing where they are. After hours of uncleaning our newly cleaned house, we still couldn't find the tickets! I called the library and spoke with a nice man in the children's department who told me we could still get in. Whew!
The show was magnificent! We got to meet Fred the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach and each of us took a turn touching his backside. He was pretty cool, although I sure learned from
Jen that I probably don't want one as a pet. We also met Legs - a
Giant African Millipede. We also learned a new word, detrivore, which means a critter that eats dead critters. Fred and Legs are both in this category.
We met But Sure (his sister is Slow) who is a
hingeback tortoise and Squiggly, an
amelanistic corn snake. Sally said we should not refer to reptiles as cold blooded, but rather as ectotherms as the blood of these critters isn't really cold.
We learned about rodents and saw a beautiful, yet shy,
chinchilla. But the real treat was meeting Bindi, the
red-neck wallaby baby Sally kept in her backpack. She is about 8 1/2 months old and from a breeder in the US. They are great in number in Australia and sometimes culled like prairie dogs are here. This little guy is still being bottle fed - it sure looked adorable in that little pouch. And WOW - what big feet it has! That taught us our new word - macropod.
So this was an exciting afternoon for us! Ronnie chose several books about the animals we saw and Clayton decided to join the childrens bookclub. We also FINALLY got our copy of
Muzzy (Spanish) level I so we will be starting that this week - YEAH!
Family Home Evening
One of the MANY things that the church has taught us is Family Home Evening. This is where we set aside one day a week to be free from worldly distractions and we spend time together as a family actively enjoying eachother.
Last night we played a game called "
Somebody". There are actually different games within the game, and we chose to play one where you place body parts, mainly internal organs, on to an illustration of a person. What I like about this game is that you can play two levels of difficulty at once, giving Ronnie the ability to compete with the rest of us. So we learned some great information about the spleen, liver, trachea and more!
Afterwards we went on a LONG walk. We walked around a lake at
Stone House park and Leia pulled Ron in the water, again! Silly dog.
When we came home we talked a lot about prayer, and how often we should be praying. We also talked about why we pray, and the kids were GREAT about listing their reasons. Since Ron and I have not been accustomed to constant prayer in our lives, we have decided to help eachother remember to pray throughout the day. We decided that for now we would focus on morning, noon and night, mealtime (which the kids are awesome at already!), before we travel, and family prayer time after scripture study. Obviously, we can pray at other times as we desire, but we feel with these guidelines we can receive the blessings that come with constant communication with our heavenly father. We talked about not saying prayers out of routine, or because you feel like you have to, but because we have something to talk to Heavenly Father about. It was real awesome and I just loved how we felt when we closed our Family Home Evening last night.
As Ronnie would say, two more night-nights and we will go camping! I can't wait.
Labels: Dogs, FHE, games, Leia
This week!
We had such a great time this week and enjoyed many fun things. Well - some were routine, but we enjoyed them just the same.
Monday we took a class on North Africa taught by a new friend Deborah as part of the
Mile High Co-op. Clayton looked up many facts about some countries he was assigned, and together we learned about Niger, Chad, Morocco and Sudan. We learned their
flags, population, major religion(s), government system, and more! Clayton then made his own
Mancala board and we played together - he winning everytime (the kid is good!) We discussed a little about the history of Mancala while putting the game together using and egg carton and some dried chickpeas. Afterwards the kids were able to eat some Moroccan food, including
Leek Salad, an eggplant dish, some
Beef Stew (which was a HUGE hit) and Baked Bananas.
After that class we decided to check out the library on that end of town. The kids played a clue finding/treasure hunt game over there and loved it! We also came home with several more books.
Although I had to work both Tuesday and Wednesday, our evenings were wonderful. Tuesday night we spent time together as a family, which is always a great experience, and on Wednesday our
home teachers came over. That was really spiritual as well as fun to chit-chat with other grown-ups!
We were supposed to go on a hike Thursday, but it was threatening to thunderstorm so we decided not to attend. Instead ~ we cleaned out the kitchen cupboards. Now, to normal people, this may not be that big of a deal. But to me - it was out of control. So I was able to
freecycle a ton of kitchen gear, including appliances, dishes, and cooking utensils that I was no long using. I also put my Nordic Trak (did I mention how much I HATE that thing) and my AbDoer up on frecycle as I am not using them anymore. I'll just stick with my treadmill and my crunches.
WE had a chocolate tasting co-op on Friday with
CCHF's coop. What a blast - the kids got to sample chocolate from Hershey's all the way to 88% dark! They had a blast. We went shopping afterwards at the ARC where Clayton got an "army shirt" and I was able to finally get some sleeping bags for camping. Shopping on such a tight budget stinks!
Yesterday was a blast for sure. We went up to Ellsworth Park to celebrate
Pioneer Day. We had a big barbecue with members from our Stake, and then the kids participated in several different activities, including beading, making nature necklaces, whittling, horesback riding, and "fishing" (for prizes!). There was violin, songs, and stories. Our family ended the night playing volleyball with a bunch of the youth and the missionaries - there must of been 12 people on each team! We are studying pioneers right now for our homeschool and it was a fun event to tie it in with. Plus we just love being with our church family.
Speaking of church - it is about time for me to head off. Hopefully I won't be cramming a weeks worth of info into one blog in the future, but hey - I might!
Aurora Reservoir
We had a great day at this swim beach! Clayton got together with some of the homeschool boys and they made a HUGE volcano in the sand. Afterwards, they decided to create two ponds and connect them with water, which proved a little more difficult than anticipated.
Ronnie teamed up with a girl from our group and they rescued bugs from the lake, putting them into the house and playground that they built for them. It was real sweet! All in all we spent about 4 hours at the Reservoir and the kids really had a good time. It was great for me to see Ronnie lose his fear of water and just go right in. We definitely will go back soon!
We also went to the Kaiser Permanente smoking cessation class tonight for Ron. He found it very helpful and has set a quit date for July 20th. I pray that he can quit for good ~ his heart needs him to.
Labels: bugs, field trip, smoking
Yeah for Treadmills!
I got a treadmill tonight. I just LOVE freecycle! I am really excited because I was wondering what I would do if the weather was bad and/or I got home late at night. Now I know that I will just hop on my treadmill and go strong!
I also went to the library again and got several more books. I think I am addicted.
Frogs, Library, and Reading!
I started the day with a long walk and some visiting teaching, then we were on our way to
Hudson Gardens for our science club with
Mile High Homeschoolers. The kids enjoyed learning about the life cycle of a frog and then seeing several real live frogs with their own eyes! We even saw one that was gianormous to say the least!
We then took a trip to the library where Clayton was able to get his very first
library card. He was so excited! The kids picked out several books, Ronnie choosing books with CD's as he is still learning to read.
Speaking of which - Ronnie read his first two books today. We started with
Bob Books and Ronnie read Mat and Sam all by himself. He is so proud (and mom is too!) I love watching my children learn.
We also fed the missionaries tonight - they bring such a warm spirit into our home. I enjoy having them over. We are going to spend the rest of our night enjoying a family home evening watching a movie together and then reading some scripture.
On a more somber note, my neighbor passed away today. It was very unexpected ~ she had a massive stroke last night and was unable to recover. If you would please keep her children and grandchildren in your prayers ~ I know they will be in mine. It has caused me to pause and be grateful for my life and all that is in it, as this woman seemed perfectly fine this time last night.
Love to you all - and hey, two posts in one day! Maybe I am back *grin*
Labels: field trip, homeschooling, reading
It's only been about a year or so....right?
But now I feel like blogging again. I have so much going on in my life and it really helps sometimes to write it out.
Hopefully I can keep blogging regularly. Mostly I am centered around
losing weight, but also will post on Mental Illness,
Church Stuff, and, of course, Homeschooling.
Lets see if I am still posting in a week.
