Field Trip!!

(updated to include photos)

I am sitting in the dark in our hotel room. Nothing fancy. Just a Super 8. It's clean and it's a place to sleep. I am in San Antonio. It is expected to get into the 20's overnight. By midday it should be in the warm 50's. Brr! Well, it's warm in here and the kids are sleeping soundly. That's all that matters at the moment.

Today we came out to the Witte Museum. The latest exhibit is Our Body The Universe Within. It is actual human bodies. I'm sure you've at least heard of it. Well, believe it or not the kids wanted to see it. So here we are, in San Antonio. I couldn't take pictures or video. Too bad! If you get the chance, go see it. Parental discretion is advised. These are actual human bodies and are anatomically correct. We did not have a problem with it. Neither did the kids. It really shows how "we are wonderfully made". They had a complete human skin laying encased in glass. It looked like a large piece of dried out leather. The kids liked the Prenatal area. They had babies from 12wks of gestation up to 36wks. They even had clean organs and diseased ones. Very interesting. Especially since I had just had a gallbladder attack a few months ago. We were there for 2hrs, but I'm sure we could've spent more time inspecting.

I hope we get to go again before the exhibit ends in May.

School At the Beach

The weather was beautiful today! Homeschooling indoors was definitely out. Outside that is. We took a blanket and our book to a park by the water. We read for a while, but the temperature outside was a warm 81 degrees. With the sun beating down on us, we got pretty hot. No I didn't take pictures. We did get to walk by the water so Brandon could pick up some shells. His new venture is making art out of shells. He was pretty excited when he found a shell that was intact and partially open. We almost brought it home. It seemed all dried out. He placed it in the water to be sure and yes, it did close. Obviously it was alive, so he put it back in the water. After walking the beach a couple of times, we decided to go home and get a long drink of water. Tomorrow will be cooler. Maybe we will take a trip to the library. No other school allows this kind of freedom or this type of motivation.

Ups and Downs

That's how it's been lately. We schooled a little on Thursday. Mostly bookwork. Friday I was not feeling very well. Then I had many errands to run. By the time I was ready for school, it was 3pm. The kids were ready to do something else. Sometimes I have them school anyway, but it was Friday. We didn't do any school on the weekend either. By Saturday, I could tell the little one didn't feel well. He had an earache and sore throat. We ended up missing Sunday meeting. He was in bed most of the day. Poor guy. He is finally feeling better today.

School today consisted of some reading, language arts and of course he loves to do math.

Jamie worked on Phonics, Critical Thinking and reading.

We'll see what's on for tomorrow!

Today's Homeschool Fun!

We did not have traditional school today. Here are some pictures of what we did.

We had a field trip to Chuck E Cheese!! We even took Mamo. I didn't get pictures of her playing the games, but she did like shooting the alien from Aliens. Ha ha ha It was yummy and a lot of fun.

After we came home, we read 5 chapters in A Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.

Then Brandon made dinner. He made Italian Chicken Sandwiches from a recipe from a Kraft magazine. Yum! He loves to cook.

School Day!

Ah, Monday. It was cloudy and drizzling all day. The temp was between 66 and 69. Not too bad. A day in the life for the kids was as follows:

• Breakfast
• visit with dad (he got home from work around 10am)
• cleanup
• school (for Jamie)
• playtime (for Brandon)
• Brandon went with dad on motorcycle to grocery store
• Jamie helped clear school work bins (probably had papers in there from last year)
• late lunch
• more time with dad (they went to the grocery store and movie store)

All the while we were listening to songs on You Tube. Brandon loves High School Musical so we looked up songs from the movie.

A day in the life for me is as follows:

• wake up and make bed
• get dressed and put some clothes up from the day before
• wake daughter (son is already awake and boiling water for Rahmen Noodles)
• clean sofa entire sofa with Resolve (cleaning up Brandons cheese flavored noodles)
• daughter finally is up and in bathroom
• unstop the overflowing toilet in the main hall (which dumped out what seemed like an inch of water)
• keep son entertained by giving him a lesson in plumbing while I do the work
• throw load of towels into the washer (the ones that got soaked in the great flood)
• clean restroom now that we had a nasty over flow (might as well, I'm already there)
• make breakfast
• get things ready for school (clear off dining table and desks)
• still making breakfast
• turn on computer to put on upbeat music to help ME start the day on a positive
• Oh forgot coffee so I beg hubby (who just walked in the door from having worked nights) to make us some coffee
• serve breakfast, feed animals, grab my plate to sit at the computer to IM my brother at work and look for more music on You Tube
• visit with hubby
• get daughter out of her room again to school
• entertain son
• send son outside with dad
• took a quick ride with hubby on his motorcycle around the block (trying to squeeze in time for him too)
• school daughter
• dear hubby folds laundry that is waiting for me on the sofa
• still IM'ing
• play with my blog
• send hubby and son on errand to grocery store
• still schooling daughter
• checking on laundry/sending son to get clothes out of dryer
• (sigh) is it lunch time? throw corn dogs into oven
• do breakfast dishes
• heat myself up some leftovers so I don't pass out from low blood sugar
• give up on schooling son (sigh)
• sit at computer again
• pick up whatever is on the floor
• try to clear dining table a little
• start dinner (boiling chicken for casserole)
• no more school, but still listening to You Tube
• finish dinner and sit down for the day (on the sofa and ready for a movie)

All this takes place by 5:30pm. Now today my daughter made the statement that I have been at the computer all day. Ugh! Hahahaha!

I still have to wash dinner dishes, but I was waiting for everyone to finish up their showers. Dad took and short nap and joined me for the movie. It was Nanny Diaries. Then he put them both to bed. The little one gets and story and says prayer with daddy. The older one just gets tucked in and prayer with daddy.

Of course this is by no means typical. Anything can and will happen. Wake up time can have an effect on our day as well. This is just what took place today.