Some more pictures.

The well from the 17th century fort we visited last weekend.

Another view of the well.

The only sunflower we successfully grew this year, despite planting quite a few.

Freckles eating blackberries.

And looking for the next one.

The only place we could figure out to store it when my son came home with a kayak.  It may need to move to the garage at some point, because I can't see the clock behind it.  :-)

This week in pictures.

Fireworks

Mammoth Cave natural entrance.

Exiting Mammoth Cave.  Getting ready to leave the 55 degrees and go to 105 degrees in just a few steps.

Inside the cave.

Zelda.  Her facial expression tickles me.  She always looks kind of grouchy, but shes' really very sweet.

F-I-E-L-D T-R-I-P!

We took a field trip yesterday to Mammoth Cave National Park.  Our home school group planned the trip, but several families had things going on and so only 2 families went.  We took advantage of not traveling with a large group and were a bit more flexible than the group usually is.  We took in the walking tour of the cave, then went to Big Mike's Rock Shop and Mystery House, which has one of those houses with the crooked floors and walls where the water seems to flow uphill.  It was a ton of fun.  Then we had a picnic on a scenic overlook and then went to a really great salvage grocery store where I got Gluten Free Bisquick for 75 cents among other things and then came home.  It was a really good day.  I share pictures whenever my photographer (my daughter) feels like sharing them.  For some reason, attaching her camera cord to a computer and uploading pictures is a really onerous chore for her. 

Kentucky law says
KRS 158.080 states the minimal school term is 185 days, which includes 177 days of instruction KRS 158.070 and 10 non-instructional days.

I think someone did the math wrong here, and 177 plus 10 really ought to equal 187, but that's beside the point.  The point is that these 10 noninstructional days are supposed to be teacher meeting days, but since I really don't have any need for a teacher meeting, we try to do 10 field trips a year.  :-)

So the first one for 2012-2013 is done.

Trip pictures.

Lego mini fig.

Most amazing, awesome Lego creation.

The Union Terminal/Museum Center as seen from the Carew Tower. (My youngest son has always wanted to go to the top of a tall building and look down.  He finally got to!)

The Carew Tower, the one we went to the top of, is the tallest one in this picture.  This picture was taken from the Union Terminal/Museum Center.

Skull of an ancient fish, Museum of Natural History

Me.

Mastadon skeleton, Museum of Natural History

Field trip!

Yesterday, we took off and went to Cincinnati again to Ikea for my birthday, but this time, instead of my daughter and I just going, we took the boys (all except one) and made a family mini-vacation out of it.  My oldest son didn't feel good and stayed home.  So 4 of us went.  We got to go to the Lego store, the Carew tower which is a 49 story building with an observation deck on the top, to Ikea, to PF Chang's and to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural Science.  It was cool, but we are all very tired.  I'll try and upload pictures tomorrow.  

I've got

a busy 3 days ahead.  Today, I've got to take Mom to the pain clinic (which I pray will not be as long as usual!) and then tonight we've got the Wednesday evening stuff that lasts from 5:30 to 9:00 pm so I'm really hoping to be able to get a break in between the two events.  I'm tired just thinking about it.  Then tomorrow, we're getting up early and going on a field trip on our own with one other family..  Then Friday, we've got a meet and greet with the homeschool group, just to visit for a while since they haven't planned any field trips lately (hence the need to plan our own, I guess).  I don't know if we've got anything for Saturday because I haven't looked ahead that far.  Really, I think I prefer a minimum level of busy-ness outside the home because if I am here all the time I will start to think that I really should do housework and I don't want to.  :-P


Wow today is a pretty day.  I hope we get a similarly nice one for our field trip tomorrow.  This one is going to be wasted on the pain clinic, but hopefully my mom's back will feel better afterwards and she will be able to get out and do her spring gardening, so it will all be worth enduring the abysmal way that place is managed.

A better day.

I guess it is.  It started out better.  I didn't drop anything in the toilet and that is always a plus.  I am at my mom's house working now and it is going okay.  I'm typing echocardiograms mostly.  My husband has a plan for fixing the Suburban and has ordered parts which we hope will arrive tomorrow.  I kind of hated missing the field trip yesterday, but at the same time, I didn't mind all that much since we've been to that same orchard several times before.  I looked at my blog posts from 3 years ago in October and I had mentioned going there and also we were reading the same read aloud book that we're reading now - Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, a funny coincidence.

I'm still debating whether to take a couple of days off from school later this week and call it fall break and do some fall cleaning and home maintenance.  I keep waiting to hope that I will feel better physically, that maybe my iron pills will kick in and I will be full of energy, but that has not happened yet.  

Whoops, I forgot Friday/Friday.

I forgot to post yesterday about my Friday last week and my Friday this week.  Last week, we got up in Athens, Alabama in a really beautiful hotel, drove home and then while the boys were rebooting the house (turning on the air, the water heater and the computers), doing the trip laundry and unpacking, the girl and I went to pick up the dogs and get groceries.  It worked out really well.  We found a terrific dog sitter this time and the dogs got spoiled rotten all week.  ;-)

This Friday, not as fun.  I woke up not feeling good.  I was having palpitations and feeling short of breath.  I went to the doctor and found out that I'm anemic again and that's probably the reason for the palpitations, but it also could be stress :-(.  I get to have an echocardiogram and a Holter monitor next week.  That should be fun.    So, anyway, of the 2, I've got to say I enjoyed last Friday more. 

Thursday/Thursday

Last Thursday, we left the beach and drove up to northern Alabama to the NASA Space and Rocket Center.  The temperature was in the 90s when we left Florida and in the 60s when we got to Alabama.  We had a pretty good time there.  The rockets are just so huge!  Some of the things that were most interesting to me were about how the astronauts ate, slept and used the bathroom.  I really think I enjoy my comforts too much to ever be that kind of pioneer. 

This Thursday, I was off from work so I did some minor housework  (not as much as I needed to do in other words), cooked a yummy chicken, broccoli, rice and cheese recipe from the Zatarain's web site and went and got my hair cut.  The kids did school and not much else.   I had to go to my mom's house 4 times, first to take care of her little dog and then to help mom with her medications.  She's got a very confusing regimen of about 2 billion eye drops a day since she had her cataract surgery.  :-(

Last Tuesday and This Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, we woke up in Birmingham and drove to Destin, Florida.  I kind of enjoyed this part of the ride because the view outside the windows was changing.  There were pine trees like the ones  I remember from my cousin's house in Georgia from visiting there when I was a kid, the ones with the long needles and big pine cones. We don't have those here, so I kind of felt like I was going down memory lane.  We stopped and bought some peaches but those were kind of disappointing, not as good as I remember fresh peaches from my childhood.  Soon after that, it seems, we started seeing palm trees.  My daughter had been so excited to see a palm tree IRL.  Finally, we reached the coast and the kids got to see the ocean for the first time.  The gulf coast at crystal beach did not disappoint.  It was beautiful.  They do not exaggerate when they say the crystal clear waters and the sugar white sands. 

Today, we've got 4H and we are going to make fall tea light lanterns out of jars and tissue paper.  I'm going to go to my mom's house to do my medical transcription work in a few minutes and hope that the kids get moving pretty early this morning so they can be done with school by 4H, which is at 3.  Yesterday, someone was still doing school work at 10 p.m.   So, we're back to real life now.  :-)

This Monday and Last Monday.

We're trying to get back into our being at home groove and today we start back to school  and my husband has to go back to work, although I started back to work on Saturday.   The vacation we took last week from Monday to Friday was the longest one we have ever taken.  Most of the time, we only go 1 state away and we only stay 2 nights.  This time we went 3 states away and stayed for 4 nights.  This time last week, I was having my "what-in-the-world-are-are-we-doing?" moment, when I was thinking about sharing a car, hotel rooms and only 1 bathroom with my family.  My oldest son couldn't decide it he wanted to go or not and I was just ready to call the whole thing off, if it wasn't for that whole thing about it being nonrefundable .... anyway, we went.  The first day, we drove to Birmingham, Alabama, directly to the McWane Science Center.  We were able to visit there for free because we have a local science center membership.  We really enjoyed it.  The things I enjoyed most were stepping into a hurricane simulator which simulated 80 mph winds without really realizing what it was - I just stood there and laughed at myself.  Luckily I was able to keep in my contact lenses in my eyes, though I felt that they might fly out!  Then my sons did a pretend weather forecast with a green screen and I laughed at them trying to point at the right place on the map, by looking at the monitor.  This was a great place for playing and pretty much all of the exhibits said "please touch".  That's the best kind of museum.  Everyone in our family likes to play.  :-)

A very big field trip.

I have a confession to make.  We went on a vacation starting last Monday and just got home today.   I typed the blog posts for this week before I went and I have spent 5 days kind of off the grid.  I did check my email a couple of times, but mostly I just spent time with my family.  We went from Kentucky, to Birmingham, Alabama to the McWane Science Center, stayed the night, then went to Destin, Florida for a couple of days and then back to Huntsville, Alabama and visited the NASA Space and Rocket Center and then today we came back home.  My kids have finally seen the ocean, or at least the Gulf of Mexico.  It was really great.  I'll post more about it when I'm not so tired!