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I was looking for Steve Taylor's original video for his song "wanna be a Hero". I didn't find it, but I did find this...which was kind of a nice melding of the show with the song...



Steve Taylor was a genius, anyone remember "Meltdown"??

I wonder what he was like as a boy?? I bet his mom has stories to tell...

(spending the afternoon sucked into 80's Christian music nostalgia...)

Here are the highlights of our train trip to San Diego.

Once there, Sky met us at the station with the van and we took the kids to breakfast...I did mention earlier the forsaken hour of our departure, didn't I?? We then headed to Point Loma to visit the Cabrillo monument and tide-pools. The tide-pool beach was not one conducive to playing and sand-castle building, so we packed it up and headed over to Laguna Beach- where we had lunch and relaxed.
It was a good day.

Here is the history book we read from to learn more about Cabrillo and why he has a statue...


Our Golden California by Juanita C. Houston

Labels: family, field-trips

We are currently having some weather events here in Southern California.

It is all very exciting, because we don't have much weather here. On the few occasions that it actually rains during the day...we take a few steps out the front door, with an incredibly sour-put-out-face (that says plainly..."I ordered another perfect day, what is THIS?!") and then we wonder vaguely or frantically (depending on how hard it is raining) - where in world did I store my umbrella after the last time I used it, 2 years ago....

So yesterday (and today is supposed to be a repeat performance) we experienced several rain showers (the first while it was sunny outside) and some thunder. Very, very exciting here. We love a good thunder and lightening storm.

Later in the day I heard on the radio that there was a tornado warning -warning as in actually on the ground- for Moreno Valley, which is close to where my sister and mom live. Then I heard people calling in to describe it and I ran and flipped on the news to see footage of a train that had been knocked over by a tornado. This is all happening about an hour from us.

I called my sister to make sure she knew...and then we had this conversation...

Sister: "So what am I supposed to do?"


Me: "Go turn on your local radio station to hear if there are any tornadoes near you, or better your t.v. to see the photos- they're pretty cool"

Sister: "just great, we don't have t.v. right now, ever since the sandstorm knocked out our satalite."

Me: "well, try the radio, or try the LA station I am listening to...lots of people from your area are calling in right now."

Sister: "so if one is heading my way, what are me and the kids supposed to do, go in the closet? ..it's really small in there..."
(she has 2 boys and a baby girl...2 very busy boys)

Me: " I think the bathroom is a good place, the one without any windows. I think you are supposed to seek shelter in the tub. Because they are good and heavy. But wait, that was the old tubs made out of cast iron, is your tub in your new house cast iron???"

Me: "well, good luck" "I'll call you and tell you if I hear of one coming your way."

cleary we are on the cutting edge of bad weather preparedness...

we kind of prefer the earthquakes.

We had the chance to join a group for a field-trip,
the reduced fair of $6 a ticket was the only real reason I found myself at the train station at
6:15 A.M.

My offspring look way too chipper here, at this un-earthly hour....









Did I mention the 6:15 A.M. part? You do realize that this means most of these moms had to get up before or around 5 A.M. to make this magic all happen.

This is a preschool co-op group, they all have preschoolers, toddlers and babies. I am simply astounded that everyone made it on time!

Round of applause all around!







This magic-potion -in- a -patch-was the only reason I would step foot on a train...

another festivus miracle








We took the train from central Orange County to downtown San Diego. Kind of a once in a childhood experience, since the tickets are pricey. Trains are a very exciting, magical thing to little kids- I knew the memories of this trip would be worth the pain of getting to the station way-way-too early for sanity.








Here's Amie catching sight of the beach.



Childhood really is a time of wonder.

Labels: field-trips

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me...

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra... #R&^*^(!.... Reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

**hat tip to JudoMom over at the hive boards

Saturday night, Sky and I went with his family to see the new Narnia movie. I have to give it a thumbs-up, we really enjoyed it. We are going to take the kids to see it later this week, when, hopefully- we can get free tickets.

I enjoyed most, the feeling the movie conveyed that as Christians, we really are not of this world, that we are sojourners here for a short time only. At different times in our lives, we catch glimpses of grace- much like the scene in the subway, as holes appear in the tile and glimpses of Narnia show through.

..."These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Hebrews 11:13

Here's a link to hear the last song in the movie, it was perfect. There's no movie music video, just the song, so I will only link it.

Next, I have to mention that the book, City of Ember has been made into a movie- we saw the preview when we went to see Narnia. The book was really, really well done-
I did a book review here*. I hope they did a good job with it. No talking dogs or obnoxious fighting pandas- but a good story that actually requires thought. A rare thing in children's movies now a days, it seems...

Demi: (running into the house to look for his swim-trunks)

Mom: (said with a southern drawl) "Hunny, I AM your super-suit!"

Demi: laughing his head off at himself and me

I was so impressed that he pulled off saying it just like in the movie, it's really fun when your little ones move beyond the knock-knock jokes that make no sense, to actually being funny in a clever way.

Conversation overheard between Meg and Josie...

Josie: "that was really funny at the airport when you asked the man at the exchange counter if he had any common-sense to trade for your United States coins..."

Meg: "yeah, that was fun to do...but it would have been even funnier if he had got the joke."

homeschool nerd humor I guess... Background story- when the girls traveled to Washington State with Sky, Meg went up to the exchange counter in the airport- where you can exchange currency and with a straight face asked him for "common sense".

Labels: family

Homeschool Show & Tell

I have to share with you one of my favorite teaching resources. We were first introduced to these books when Meg was in a preschool co-op, oh so many years ago.
A Child's Book of Character Building by R. Coriell presents 13 different character traits such as "attentive", "obedience", and "contentment". My girls can still, years later give you the definitions of many of these traits.

Each trait is introduced with an easy to remember definition and a Bible verse, then you are given 4 stories-
for example: "Attentive" - "listening with my ears, eyes, and heart" the stories that follow are; "Attentive in the Bible", "Attentive at home", "Attentive at school" and "Attentive at play".

We always started with "obedience" - it's just flat out needed if you are going to homeschool... then followed with "Attentive", also really needed for homeschooling- if for example, I have a student goofing off during read aloud, we can talk about what part of attentive they are missing...are they using their ears?, are their eyes somewhere else? Can you just imagine all the teachable moments for these traits?

I wrote earlier about adding a new student to our homeschool, we fairly early hit on some behavior problems- and I immediately reached for these books and introduced them as a subject we tackle first thing with the 3 youngest students. Because of the dynamics we were facing with our new student, I jumped to Book 2 of this series and started our first week with the word "responsible", which means "doing what I know I ought to do".

We start each day repeating the word and definition together several times, and we try to point out how they are demonstrating the word in our day to day life or when we see it in others. When we were in co-op, the lesson was stretched into two weeks and we were given a chart with the word, places to put stars for the child saying the definition daily, and a place for stars when caught demonstrating the word. I am skipping with the chart this time around, and just chanting it a lot with the kids.

I really cannot praise this series enough, it is really time well spent- and wonderful, needed attributes to hide in your children's hearts.

Labels: book review, homeschool, show and tell

Exciting times at the bird-feeders outside our window; we have two outside our big front window- this one here is technically a squirrel feeder. I placed it in the backyard to bribe the squirrels to leave my bird-feeders alone. So far we have mixed results...

Seen here are my favorites, a pair of band-tailed pigeons. Seldom seen in the city, they are larger then regular pigeons and have yellow feet, not pink. A royal class of pigeons.



This bird was very exciting- and hard to catch a photo of... it's a male black-headed Grosbeak.













This one is maybe the female Black-headed Grosbeak... Mrs. Wonderful Neighbor told us what bird it was ( I run to her to show her my pictures in my digital camera because to me the birds always look like 5 other birds in the bird book) but now we are debating if that was what she said, I thought she said it was another type of grosbeak...though good luck remembering which.
We were pretty excited about this one, too- it looked like a sparrow on steriods.



Last but not least....

well, she thinks she's pretty special...










Bird books that are helpful; The Burgess Bird book - a favorite Charlotte Mason resource,
Kaufman Birds of North America,
Stoke's backyard birdfeeders guide

Labels: nature

Because there is no else to like, really...


and then, because we read to much perhaps...

Labels: hens, Wordless Wednesday

Meg's orchestra had their final performance of the year a few weeks ago, Meg is in the center of the photo... They did a great job this year.

I just love it when learning comes as easily as breathing. Yesterday, the whole family was out in the street, playing football with the neighborhood kids...when I looked behind me and saw a small swarm of bees in our yard. I gathered the kids to make a run for the neighbor's house across the street...but we noticed the swarm move to the corner of our yard and get smaller.
It was a spring-time swarm looking for a new home, and they picked our fence. The first photo most of the bees are inside the rock column, but you get the idea...





Today, as we loaded up the van to head to the library, my 3 youngest students began asking all manner of questions about bees. I picked out several books on bees of course, and a dvd. I think we have our science for the month decided on...

So far, we have Bees (under the microscope),
Honey in a Hive, and Time for kids-Bees!

Labels: homeschool, nature, reading basket