Business Trip

Joseph with his briefcase, ready for work.

At one point, after I had had a flurry of activity and spent several minutes talking to parents, I turned around and found this sign on the table.

Looking pretty official (he got tons of compliments on how nice he looked on Saturday)

Posing in the booth

I haven't updated in a few days because Joseph and I had a "business trip". We went to an Austin Homeschool Convention to show Moving Beyond the Page on Friday and Saturday. It was a very long quick trip. We left on Thursday afternoon, spent the night in Hillsboro with my parents, got up at 4 am and left for Austin to make it there by 6:30 so that we could get set up before the conference started. We stayed on Friday until 6, checked into our hotel, collapsed, went back to the conference Saturday morning and were there from 8:30-5, broke down the booth, loaded it all back up in the car and drove back last night.

Joseph was such a trooper! He didn't complain about being there for so long and he was such a pleasant travelling companion and associate. ;) He chose his wardrobe himself because it was a business trip. The pictures are of him at the conference. He came complete with a briefcase and a tie.

More blueberries....

More blueberry pictures!
I omitted a major detail in my previous post!
After we got our buckets and ventured out to the bushes, I found a GREAT bush, FULL of plumb gorgeous blueberries. I reached for the first blueberry of the day and immediately felt stabbing pain. I pulled my hand back and a wasp flew out of the bush. :p
My finger throbbed for several minutes. I soaked it in our ice water bottle until it was numb and then was fine. Every now and then I get a weird stabbing sensation in it, but it seems ok.

Blueberries!

Today the kids and I all went blueberry picking in Sadler at the Berry Patch. The kids have talked about the last time we went in 2005 (!) many times and were very excited to go back. Joseph is completely stuck on making blueberry pie, and I think we should be able to accomodate that. ;)

We got up "early" this morning and were on the road by 8 am. We got there at 9 and stayed for a couple of hours.

The blueberry bushes were amazingly full of fruit and all five of us could sit and pick on the same bush together for a long time.

Turtle Dance

Summer Time

Today feels like our first day of summer since it is the first Monday that we haven't had a camp to get someone to.
We were at the pool at 8:30 this morning and stayed for two hours....we had the whole thing to ourselves the entire time.
The kids are in rare form today and were coming up with some things that had me giggling.
Joseph told me that he has an "inspiration":

I am not pushing the bush

and

I am not pulling the bull.

Ummm....OK.

Then he told Caroline that she looked really cute withe her hair straight (it was wet) and her goggles off.

Caroline says to me, "I am over teared with joy."

What does that mean?, I asked Caroline.

She replied, "I don't know, it is just something I heard somewhere. But, that is the first nice thing that Joseph has ever said to me and it made me really happy. "

The swimming pool has these two new floating turtles that are anchored to the bottom of the pool. Joseph spent most of the two hours climbing on it, balancing on it and choreographing a "Turtle Dance".

Last Day of Softball Camp

Today was the final day of softball camp and the girls had a scrimmage. Both Caroline and Ashton got hits (yay!) and they look SO cute out there on the field!

Just softball and swimming

Today was Day 3 of Softball Camp for Caroline. No rain today, so she got to be there the entire time. The had batting practice for the first time and Caroline had hits with 4 out of 4 pitches! WOW! If she plays on a team this fall, she would still be on a t-ball team (next year too), so it's not really a beneficial skill to have yet, but how cool is that?
After she got home and had a sandwich, I took the kids swimming. We had to go to the "other" pool today (there are two in the neighborhood) because our regular swimming pool is being repaired and is closed for the week.
Caroline was so exhausted that she asked to go to bed at 6 pm. I went and laid down with her while she read her book and she was asleep before 7. Softball wears a girl out!

Rainy Day Fun

Today was day 2 of Softball camp and after a quick chat with the coach, Caroline and Ashton were together (and not with Avery, the name-caller). A huge storm moved through late this morning and Nicole managed to get both girls in her car before it started raining. We were so glad she picked them up early today. We had been watching the weather online and she had decided to go over there a little early just in case.

This afternoon, the kids have been planning a movie. They are working on a remake of Star Wars. Most of the time has been spent making props out of Uberstix (yes, Uberstix again!). They have made bounty hunter bombs, lightsabers, and blasters. They are trying to figure out how to create a Millenium Falcon. Joseph is the Director and is quite concerned with his editing cabilities since the Vidster has very limited memory. They have also raided Alex's room for R2D2 and a real Light Saber. This should be good. ;)

I forgot to tell Caroline's impression of softball. She is having fun at camp. I asked her if she might want to be on a team in the fall to play real softball games. Her response was, "Would there be humans watching me?"

Um....yeah......

"Well, I don't want to do that then. I get a little shy."

Wildcat Softball

Today is Caroline's first day of Softball Camp. She looks so cute with her pink and black softball shoes, softball, glove and bat! The camp is put on by Plano Senior High and is for 1st-5th graders, so she looks pretty little out there too! She was so excited when I dropped her off...I hope she is still excited when I pick her up.

Father's Day Weekend

This weekend Nana and Papa are here (Ken's parents). The kids love having them around as they get lots of attention. This is the first time we have had a chance to visit them since Christmas time. They are up here househunting trying to figure out if they can move back up here and be close to the grandchildren.
We have had Nana and Papa both on the Wii Fit and everyone got a kick out of that.
Oh, yesterday I went to the McKinney Farmer's Market and picked up a few things, including a chicken from Reheboth Ranch because for a long time I have wondered if Alex's poultry reaction was actually to the bird or to some kind of additive/hormone/antibiotic. It's the chicken. :( He ate a few bites and seemed fine but it hit him about an hour later....and HARD. His face was red, swollen, hot. His eyes were swollen and his throat was itchy. We got it under control with four benadryl and he slept really well last night. Today he seems fine though, so I didn't permanently damage him.

The egg reveal

Here is the video!

Last Day of Cub Scout Camp

Well, yesterday was a bust for us. Libby woke up saying that it hurt to swallow. My gut told me that it was probably allergies, but I couldn't really wait to test that and take the chance that she was really sick. She has been acting like she is coming down with something all week long. So, of course, by 9:30 she was fine. We missed Thursday at day camp though.
Apparently, she is not a morning person. If we haven't learned anything else this week, we learned that.
This morning, she woke up crying and cried until I dropped her off at Lil' Buddies, but she never did perk back up. The staff said that she did perk up a little bit at 9:37 and ask for a snack, but it didn't last very long. She didn't eat lunch (nor had she had breakfast), when I took her back after lunch she fell asleep...in the middle of day camp and slept for quite a while.

Joseph's day went pretty well though. He actually played badminton, so that was good. Although he refused to do archery this time (I think he had a "been there, done that" mentality). The egg drop went VERY well though. Our "country" of Cyprus had 8 successful egg drops out of 9 eggs! Woohoo!
The "reveal" in the video is from our trial runs the other day. Joseph packed his egg into a tissue box with cottonballs, but the secret weapon was the frame uberstix inside the tissue box!

Cub Scout Camp

Today was day 2 of cub scout camp. This is the only picture today because I had no memory card in my little camera (ahem....this would be because the kids were taking videos with it yesterday and then watching them on the wii). So this one was taken with my phone. Joseph didn't play soccer today (just like he didn't play flag football or shoot bb guns on Monday). I figured it had to be a Kodak moment if Joseph was going to do something that might require some physical exertion.

It was another fun day at camp! The girls came home singing the Bazooka Bubble Gum song and doing the dance moves and Joseph made a Pirate Ship at his woodcrafting station. We also had great weather today, which is a major thing in Texas in June! If we can keep this breeze going for a couple of more days it will be all good.

I think that Joseph is probably the only one there that has started on his egg drop project. I hope that a lot of kids participate in it. Yesterday would have been the perfect day to work on the project since camp had been cancelled and the kids needed something to do anyway! :)

That was pretty much our day today. By the time we get home at around 1:30, the kids are pretty wiped out and lay around the rest of the day. Libby did a lot of drawing and coloring and Caroline laid around reading. Joseph just sort of hung out. Libby asked me at 3:00 if it was almost dinner or bedtime yet.

Day 2 of Botany: Roots

Who would have thought that botany would be so incredibly entertaining?;) The kids really enjoyed learning about roots today....seriously! They each cut a radish to see the insides. We drew pictures of a whole radish and cross-sections. The best part? Using the radish to actually make the red and green colors on our pages! That seriously impressed all three of them. ;)

Egg drop from bedroom window

Today Joseph worked on his egg drop contraption for cub scout camp. Here is our trial run from today. The egg survived all four of our drops, but I won't do the reveal until after the real drop. I don't want to give away any secrets! :D

First day of Scout Camp

No pictures today, but we had our first day of cub scout camp. We had to leave the house at a time when the kids are not even normally up yet (7:30). That made for some sleepy campers this afternoon.
The kids had fun. The girls went with the "lil buddies" and Joseph and I were with a group of wolves and bears. Joseph refused to do two of his four activities today. He participated in a group painting and building a bird feeder, but he would not do flag football or bb guns.
Libby woke up crying this morning and cried until I dropped her off. Then she was fine all day. Until it was time to go home. Then she cried some more. She calmed down long enough to get bathed and convince me that she was OK to go see Kung Fu Panda before German dancing. Well, she made it through the movie and then promptly went to sleep at German dancing. When I picked her up to bring her home, she was very warm.
So, now I am wondering how we will work that out tomorrow. That was not part of the plan.

Summer Fun

Today when I got home from Super Target (where I spent $60, because $210 wasn't enough at the grocery store yesterday), I found the Slip N Slide set up and the kids were having a blast!

Botany and Balloons, part 2

While I was grocery shopping today, I picked up 200 water balloons. Do you know how difficult it is to fill up a bunch of water balloons?! Alex and I spent about 45 minutes and ended up with about 40 of them. The kids enjoyed them though and were ready to do more after the 30 seconds it took to explode the first batch. Perhaps another day!

Botany and Balloons

Today, the kids started their Botany unit. Since today was the introduction to what we are doing, they tasted different parts of plants. They had pepitas (seeds), radish (root), asparagus and broccoli stems (stems), spinach (leaves), marigolds (flowers), tomatoes, red bell pepper and cucumber (fruit). Libby was our most adventurous...she tried all of them! Actually, I told them that they all had to eat at least one little bite of each, but Joseph and Caroline were much more resistant and refused to even try a few things.

Libby enjoyed some of it so much, that she went back for more pepitas, spinach and cucumbers.

Oh, did I mention that I even provided Ranch vinaigrette spray to make it more palatable?

I guess it was inevitable

I have to be the last person on the earth that has all of the conveniences of the 21st century, but hasn't started a blog.

Will I be able to keep it up? I am not a writer. I think it must be why my 8 year old hates writing so much. I tend to be very sparse with words and would prefer to SAY what I am thinking than try to write it down.

But, I should have a way to document and remember what happens to us in our daily adventures, right?
Maybe someone could benefit from reading about what we do. Maybe my family might like to see our day. It's not everyone that has a kid in college, going through eye surgery and three more at home being homeschooled.

Except that right now we are pretty boring. Gas prices are high, so we are staying home more...very unusual for us, but I guess that is what made me think about the blog in the first place.

I guess this is a good way to upload a few pictures without boring my dear friends at Dallas Area Moms. :) The one today is a picture of Caroline at the pool.