Fun stuff

Spring has been crazy CRAZY, but I'm tired of complaining about all the scheduling stuff I do to myself. If I dare to mention one more new thing that I've added to my schedule, just beat me. So today I'm going to talk about the fun parts of out busy schedule so I remember why I'm doing this.

1. Homeschool. One thing I think is a HUGE benefit of homeschooling is that learning isn't confined to a classroom or to a teacher. My kids ask questions about all kinds of things at all times of the day. Just this week, our car conversations have taught us about mummies, the water cycle, and modesty. We've covered personal and household responsibility with "See a mess, clean a mess" because I want my kids to become adults who can look at a situation and figure out what needs to be done. Their future husbands and managers should thank me. We've also fit in plenty of worksheets and phonics and history reading and lessons on mean, median, and mode.

2. Science Olympiad. One new part of our school this spring is getting ready for the NC science olympiad. K is paired with another 5th grader for 3 events - Describe It, Build It (a technical writing thing), Secret Structures (building a structure to meet requirements given at the event), and Newton's Notions (elementary physics). I'm coaching the first two events and the other mom is coaching the last. We get to spend a couple of hours every Friday learning a whole lot of physics and having a blast with all hands-on activities. We're less than 2 months out from the competition and K is really looking forward to it.

3. Band. K is learning the trumpet and loves every minute of it. I don't even have to badger her to practice.

4. Community Bible Study. We're wrapping up our 4th year and have signed up for next year. The girls love their classes and they're getting a whole lot of in-depth Bible knowledge. K thanked me for CBS a couple of weeks ago saying that it helps her tremendously when the kids play Bible Trivia at church. And we have a family with 4 children adopted from China that we often go to lunch with afterwards, which makes it all even more fun.

5. Softball. K's been playing in this league for 5 seasons. We know many of the girls and parents and like them. The league is competitive enough that it's fun to play, but the coaches are still nice and supportive. K gets lots of exercise, she plays well, it helps her set goals for herself, she has friends there, and it's something she enjoys. Even L is starting to play catch with us; she can throw very well and she's started to catch more since she stopped moving out of the way whenever a ball came to her. Don't worry, she still declares that she will never choose any sport over dance.

6. Dance team. L is taking 5 classes a week (all grouped on 2 afternoons) plus an extra rehearsal here and there and she LOVES it. She and I went to dinner alone on Monday and it amazed me how knowledgable she is about dance and competition and what the judges like and what they mark off for. She's definitely paying attention to class. She likes the trips for competition and we're both excited about going to the beach this weekend.

That's about all I have time and attention for right now. Next up, church activities!

Unfun tasks

Have you ever woken up and been unexpectedly motivated? That long, boring, unpleasant task that you've put been putting off suddenly looks doable and you hop out of bed ready to go!

This morning in North Carolina is beautiful. It's sunshiny and even though the wind is yet again whipping mercilessly through the treetops, the temperature is supposed to head into the mid-80s for one day of summery glory. It's the perfect day for putting away the girls' winter wardrobe and pulling out all the shorts and sundresses.

A long, boring, unpleasant task that suddenly looks doable.

Well, actually, only parts are boring or unpleasant. First, the girls pull all their winter stuff out of their closet and pile it up while I explain that, no, that need to keep a few pairs of pants and a jacket or two accessible because there will be times they are needed. Next, we pull down all the boxes of summer/hand-me-down clothes and a big fashion show ensues. That's the fun part. All those clothes must be tried on to see what fits after all. But then the unfun stuff must still be done. The girls must be motivated to put their "new" clothes away. The clothes that could possibly be used another year by L and all the winter clothes must be packed into bins and stored. The rejects must be either taken to consignment, stored for winter consignment, or dropped off at Goodwill.

See? It's a full day's work of work and one I tend to put off until the last possible moment. But today the weather and the empty schedule make it the perfect day for it. I got the girls' schoolwork all laid out and planned it so that I did one child's clothes while the other did their worksheets. But then...

But then!

L and I walked into her room to get started and I remembered. Monday is laundry day. It's absolutely useless to try to put away winter clothes when they're dirty. So all that motivation, all this warm sunshine, all my planning and arranging was useless. Today we will wash clothes and maybe, maybe, we'll be able to cram the wardrobe switch in somewhere else this week. If you see L running around the beach this weekend in sweatpants and snowflake sweater, well, you'll know I tried.

Softball and Butterflies

Today we're talking softball. Because it's spring and softball is a huge part of our lives in the spring.

K's softball team has 2 usually good pitchers with experience at 10U and one up-and-coming pitcher who's new to 10U. Experience at this level is important as the pitching rubber moves back 5', it's all girl pitch (no more "modified" where the coach steps in after 3 balls), and the skill and intensity and dedication of the players jumps hugely between 8U and 10U. Unfortunately, only 1 of those 3 pitchers is actually pitching well right now. C is on fire, while her twin, who is historically the better pitcher, gets freaked whenever there's a batter at the plate. Last season, she hit a couple of batters and ever since she's been so worried about hitting someone that she consistently throws outside. The new pitcher is doing okay, but she's got some work to catch up.

So we're training up some new pitchers. There's a couple of girls who've been working on pitching, but only one has pitched in a game. K had pitched a few games last year, but she while she wanted to pitch, she wasn't committed enough that she wanted to actually *practice*. She has finally decided that she does indeed want to pitch enough to practice everyday, especially since our 2 main pitchers will be missing Saturday's game and they need someone else who can get the ball over the plate periodically.

You'll be so excited when I let you know that I told you all of that backstory just to get to the following funny little nugget.

Today we had a mini pitching session here at our little park before the pitching practice with the coaches. L accompanied K and I to the park and she brought along her own hand-me-down glove because she wanted to play, too. We formed a little triangle and began tossing the ball around to warm up.

Now L is a fairly athletic little person. She may not want to play sports, but she has some natural abilities that show up pretty quickly when we're playing around with a softball or soccer ball. She can throw a softball strongly and accurately, but she can't catch it because she's always jumping out of the way so she doesn't get hit. She's also not all that committed to the game.

Case in point:

Today I had thrown her a ball which had bounced past her because she moved *away* just as it got to her. She turned and ran after the ball. As she was running, she suddenly exclaimed, "Butterfly!", and turned to chase a bright yellow butterfly that happened to cross her path.

The softball was completely forgotten.

So we'll leave softball to K and let L revel in her dancing. She and I are off to a dance competition in Myrtle Beach this weekend, so I'm liking the dance thing pretty well myself. I'll be the one sitting on the beach, watching the waves roll in and the little girls splashing and laughing, as bright and carefree as butterflies, as they dance along the sand just for the fun of it.

Pictures of Cindy Jae at "college"

Southeastern Guide Dogs, where Cindy Jae is off at college, has a blog called the Blue Coat Journal. The trainers post stories and training tips and lots and lots of pictures of the dogs in for training. I often get a post in my Google Reader from them with pictures of dogs - lots of black labs and yellow labs and they never post any names. I mean come on, how in the world do you tell one black lab from another in a picture? Even when Cindy Jae was here and all the dogs were running around, sometimes the only way I could tell which one was her was by calling her name and seeing which one ran over to me. If they were still, Cindy Jae was shorter than the others and she had a blockier head and a thicker tail, but you still had to compare them to tell which was CJ.

But today's journal post? I am 100% certain that several of those pictures of a black lab are Cindy Jae. Go look at it here http://guidedogsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/funday.html. The pictures of the black lab and the white lab are Cindy Jae and her sister Angel. You can tell Cindy Jae by her Superdog pose, with her legs stretched straight out behind her as if she were flying through the air.

She looks happy and is doing well from all accounts. She just needs to keep growing up and one day she will be an awesome guide dog.

Shiny new toys

Mr. at Home recently had a surprise birthday.

No, actually I didn't mean a surprise party, though that was part of it. He had a surprise birthday.

You see, back in January when the real anniversary of his birth came around, the transmission on my van, well, broke. As in spontaneous combustion. As in the service guy said it would make a nice paperweight, but it would never be repaired, rebuilt, or otherwise reincarnated. Transmissions are dreadfully expensive, so Mr. at Home decided that he would rather postpone his birthday so I could buy him a nice present without guilt. I suggested the whole idea of randomly choosing a day and declaring that his surprise birthday. He loved it and his birthday was officially postponed indefinitely.

I tried a couple of times to arrange a dinner out with friends, but between sicknesses and trips and work and activities, I couldn't pin down a date. This past Friday afternoon, I sent a text to friends and we had everything arranged in about 5 minutes. A stop a Best Buy for a gift, a run into the grocery store for a cake and candles, and a few extra minutes of decorating at my friend's house and Mr. at Home had a fun and fabulous surprise birthday. His birthday present was the Nexus S smartphone he'd been drooling over for months. Apparently, even after actually possessing it and using it, it's still just as drool-worthy, so that's a good thing.

Today, I stole his old iPhone to replace my little android with the cracked screen. The ever-patient Mr. at Home reset everything to my accounts, but we still couldn't get the data service working. I figured that there's a difference between android service and iPhone service and AT&T would have to make the change, so I raced over to the AT&T store while L was in dance and the amazingly helpful sales guy didn't bat an eyelash when I explained that I wanted to switch my SIM and my service to an unlocked, jailbroke iPhone without reupping my contract, losing my unlimited data, or paying more per month. No problem, he said, took care of it, and walked me to the door in about 5 minutes. I was *impressed*. So if you want a good AT&T salesperson in the Charlotte-area, I can point you to a great one.

Since the iPhone was going to work out and it had been done so quickly, I had time to go across the parking lot to the mall and buy a cute girly cover for my "new" phone. You know, *for protection*. So it's now sporting a light blue cover with orange and white and dark red swirls. And I *finally* got to play Angry Birds. I had tried playing it on my little android phone, but the processor was so slow that "Angry" was about all I got out of it. Now, I think I'm slightly obsessed with figuring out how to destroy those green pigs.

Yes, it's a hand-me-down phone, but it's still cooler than the one I had and did I mention the cute cover?

And I'm about to get something else that's brand-new.

Yesterday the FedEx truck stopped at our house and dropped off a small, slim package. A bright orange Smart Cover for an iPad2. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPad2. Yet. But I do have one on order. We decided to take the plunge and we ordered a black iPad2, a white iPad2, an orange cover, and a navy cover. I get the white one with the orange cover. They are shipping each part separately and the orange cover was the first to arrive. I pulled it out of the box and rolled it back a forth a few times, but it just isn't as fun as I hope it will be when there's, you know, AN IPAD under it.

Then I can play Angry Birds *bigger*!

Dance team trips

Warning! This will be another picture heavy post, but they *are* cute pictures and I know you'll enjoy them.

The past two weekends have been busy with dance competitions - first in Durham, then in Smithfield (which is just past Raleigh). This whole dance team thing is a wild and crazy adventure and there's a steep learning curve for newbies like me.

Our first trip, L and I stayed with another mom and daughter from her team. We're both homeschoolers and the girls are both the same age with the same high level of energy and crazy, so it's a good fit. L and I arrived early so we watched part of the solo/duet competition Friday night, then we met A and her mother at the hotel where the girls were WOUND UP. It was a competition! They were in a hotel! Together! The next morning we honored A's request for a "fried egg" for breakfast, then we headed over to the venue.

There's nothing quite like the chaos that is a dancers' dressing room for a competition. Stuff and people crammed into too tiny spaces. We lucked out when the boys' dressing room was moved just as we arrived so we quickly took over their vacated space and had room to breathe for a few minutes. I shot these pictures of A and L stretching.

Don't they make adorable pirates?

The very next weekend was competition #2. A's mom had to go out of town for a homeschool conference, so we took charge of A for the competition. Mr. at Home and K got to go with us and we decided to break up the long drive with a stop in Raleigh to get L an American "birth certificate" and take the girls to the Museum of Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, the person who could take care of the paperwork for us wasn't there, but the museum was.

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is an awesome place to visit. The kids were fascinated by the butterfly exhibit and the large skeletons of whales and dinosaurs. There were snakes to pet and gemstones to admire. For young kids, it wouldn't be terribly fascinating as there were precious few things you were allowed to touch. It was mostly a look and read kind of thing, but even the 7-year-olds were well-entertained for a couple of hours.

The little girls were ready to go fairly early, so we headed down the road again to the hotel and their indoor pool. Where my girls proceeded to show A how mean they could be to each other. Sigh... They don't often get in fights, but having an audience brought out the worst in them. Thankfully, a time-out showed them the error of their ways, but the pool fun was over so we went back to the room for showers and hair braiding and dinner at Cici's.

A wasn't too keen on the idea of Cici's, but she stuffed herself just as much as the other girls. An early bedtime and an early alarm for everyone, then two little girls needed buns and full make-up, the room had to be packed up, and then we raced out the door for the competition venue. The dressing rooms were a little bigger this time so they didn't seem so crowded, but we still didn't have much room. Thankfully, K helped get A dressed and kept track of all her clothes and costume pieces.

It was a long morning waiting to perform then waiting for awards, but the team had improved somewhat between competitions #1 and #2 and we came home with a higher rating this time around. It was a good trip, but somewhat crazy with 2 high-energy 7-year-olds to keep track of. Next competition isn't until April 9th, so we have a nice long break AND it's at the beach where we're staying all weekend in a beach house with some of the other moms and kids. Can't wait!

Finally posting about our trip to Texas

Spring is beautiful in North Carolina. The trees are budding, coloring the landscape with brilliant whites, soft greens, vibrant yellows, blushing pinks, and startling purple against gray trunks. I'm enjoying it mightily.

Through my windshield.

It's been a busy few weeks. Good weeks. Productive weeks. Just lots of time getting people where they need to be. I did actually have a little time to blog and such, but it's been tough getting to a computer around here. Mine is in Texas, gremlins attacked the back-up disk and then the Mac desktop (don't worry, both those are back up and fully restored), and my kids keep wanting their laptop. When I do steal their laptop, I end up just playing around a bit before it's off to the next thing.

BUT

I now have the pictures from the Texas trip on this computer and I have time to write about our awesome trip!

First, we arrived in Texas where we were promptly snowed in, which was followed by week's worth of visiting with various branches of the family tree. We got to spend lots of time with my younger brother and his wife. Dinner, bowling, laser tag, and late nights of hanging out and talking about everything made it a really neat trip. It took awhile, but my little brother is finally old enough to be interesting ;-) I got to help teach cursive to the class my mom was subbing, the girls got to visit a real classroom, and I found myself back in the familiar doc-in-a-box for the inevitable sinus infection, but I *finally* got over weeks of illness.

At the end of the week, we got up early and took off for Vicksburg with my parents. Our first stop was the Civil War battlefield in Vicksburg. That is a really, really cool place. I would *love* to live close enough to just explore all the monuments and the sites for the battles. It's a huge thing that you drive through while listening to a man on CD explain things. There's simply too much to see and experience that he can't cover it all.

You start at the visitors' center where we were joined by a large ROTC group to watch a movie. There are also large cannons and an example of the breastwork.

The girls got Junior Ranger books and started to work on them, but they were quickly overwhelmed trying to look out the windows, listen to the CD, and answer the questions. Those workbooks were WAY harder than normal, too, so we quickly dispensed with the Junior Ranger idea and concentrated on enjoying the memorials, like this one.

There were so many neat things to see and learn about. There's a Union ship they raised from the riverbed and so many artifacts they recovered from it.

Across from the boat is the cemetery where some of the Union soldiers who died in the battle for Vicksburg are buried. It's sobering to see the many, many graves scattered over the hillsides, so many of them for unknown soldiers.

We stopped at one particularly well-marked battlefield and I tried to get the girls to visualize the battle. We were parked at the top of the bluff on the Confederate line and blue signs showed exactly how far the Union army advanced. A sign told of one hero charging bravely across the field.

You can read about the War Between the States all you want, but there's something about standing on the ground where a battle occurred that makes it so much more personal.

Before it got too late, we left Vicksburg and headed south along the Mississippi to Natchez for another day and another history lesson. We watched Gone With the Wind as part of our Civil War study and I thought they would enjoy seeing that those amazing houses really did exist.

On Saturday morning, we went and got tickets to tour 3 antebellum homes, then we decided to add another impressive one to our day's activities.

Our first home, Monmouth, is now a beautiful bed and breakfast and restaurant with a lovely garden and gorgeous decor.

The girls were taken with this cute little "courting bench".

Our second stop was Dunleith, also a bed and breakfast.

We decided it would be the *perfect* place for a wedding. The best thing about that tour was that the guide had grown up as very good friends with the children who had then lived in the home. He had allll kinds of stories to tell. He was also not one to follow all the rules and let us into closed rooms and showed us things not normally seen on tours.

He allowed the girls to sit on this sofa, only afterward telling me that the set was worth many millions of dollars.

After Dunleith, it was onto Auburn, where L found a tree full of beautiful blooms had dropped a few onto the ground just for her enjoyment.

By that point, Grandad and L were a little bored with the whole house tour thing and they opted to wander around outside while K went with Grandma and I to see and admire.

This house was a little different in that it sat empty for 60 years before a society stepped in to rehabilitate it with the help of the city. Only a little bit is known about it's history, but it's really a very pretty place, especially with this staircase.

Our last stop was the unfinished Longwood.

It's such a neat concept for a house, but the Civil War pulled out all the workers before anything more than the "basement" was completed. The owner soon died and his wife raised the children in the basement, which was really far nicer and larger than most homes.

After a long day of house tours, we took the girls to a local park and let them run off some excess energy.

A highly successful, fun, educational trip. You know, I might procrastinate writing all my blog posts from now on as it's been kinda fun to relive the trip in the telling.