Beautiful day.

It is just gorgeous.  My oldest son apparently has recovered from his work shifts (ah, youth) and went kayaking today with some friends.  It turned out to be a great day for it.  It's hard for me to sit in the house and work today.  The younger kids and I went on a trip to the mailbox/fossil hunt.  We had creek rock delivered instead of regular gravel for our driveway so now every trip to the mailbox brings interesting fossil discoveries.

Summer Fun List?

So far we have swim on our list and that's it.  We're also going to go on a field trip to mammoth cave this year with the homeschool group.  We don't vacation in the summer usually, but in the spring, winter or fall, to avoid crowds, so that's not on the list.  We do have rope to put up a swing and need to get  holes drilled in a board, so we can put that up.  We'll pick blackberries when they get ripe, go to the state fair, participate in the 4H county fair exhibits as we usually do. 

Okay so that gives us.
swim
mammoth cave
put up swing
pick blackberries
state fair
county fair

I'd also like to try some new foods we've never tried before.  I've always wanted to try rhubarb but have no idea where to get it or how to prepare it.  A couple of weeks ago we tried a food, that believe it or not, none of us had ever tried before, marmalade.  Reviews were mixed.  It's not my favorite, but it's okay.  We should also make homemade ice cream because that's fun.  There's a new coffee shop in town that I'd like to visit, but I don't know if the kids would.  We should try and visit the science center this summer.  It's been a while and our membership runs out in August.

So that adds

Try rhubarb.
make homemade ice cream.
visit the coffee shop.
science center.

Also, we would like to walk on a path that goes by the lake.  We see it as we drive by and is there anything more irresistable than a path that winds around by a lake and you can't see where it goes?

Walk on path and see where it goes.

I'd also like for someone to take the kids fishing, but I don't want to because I'm squeamish about worms. 

So probably not fishing.  :-)

Hey, at least it is a start.  What's on your summer list?

The air is fixed.

It's nice because today the pool temperature is only 74.  The crazy kids are in it, but I don't think I could take it.  I'm way too much of a wimp for that.  Tonight's low is going to be in the 50s, but then it is going to start warming up, up, up and then it will be warm enough for me in the pool.  I did get in the day before yesterday when it was just so incredibly hot in here, but yesterday and this morning, we kept it under control with the cooking outside, turning some computers and things off and putting a ginormous fan in the living room window.  Now that summer really seems to be getting here, I need to get a summer fun list together.  I've been looking at this site to get me started.  :-)

Terrariums.

My son's terrarium.  I don't know why the picture is distorted.

My daughter's terrarium from the side.  It's kind of dark.

My daughter's terrarium from the top.  There are seeds planted in the soil area, that hopefully will grow and fill that in.

A tiny necklace terrarium my daughter made, with some moss, some dirt, some sand and a tiny seashell from the gulf coast.  :-)

Can you spell anything with these letters?

My letters in last night's Upwords game, all consanents consenents consonants.  Obviously, I can't spell even with all the letters of the alphabet at my disposal, but this was challenging.

My mom's selection of letters.  She has all vowels but one.  Fortunately, these bad hands came halfway through the game and so we could use the letters already on the board to work with. 

Summer planning.

This is the last week of school.  Three more days.  The summer looms ahead of us.  12 weeks.  In my opinion, we have 3 priorities to accomplish this summer.

1.  Finish the refinance plans we have been working on procrastinating about for over a year.  (Don't ask.)
2.  Exercise/fitness.
3.  Have fun and promote family bonding.

There will be other things we'll do but these are the main things.  I also want to do some volunteer work and work on my book some more and take a little time to stop and smell the roses. When one of the kids asks me to play something or do something with them, I'm going to try most of the time to say yes.

A fun experiment.

If I read about a fun science experiment somewhere I like to go ahead and do it while I'm thinking about it.  The one we did today involved a tea bag and a match and we had tea bags from the salvage store which contained some really disgusting apple cider tea.  We weren't going to drink them, so we set them on fire.  Here's what you do. 

1. Make SURE you have the supervision of a responsible adult.
2. You can choose to go outside or not.  We tried it outside, but the wind kept blowing it over on its side and it wouldn't work, so after watching the video on Youtube and seeing that it looked pretty harmless, we tried it inside. 
3.  Take the staple, string and tag off the tea bag.
4.  Empty the tea out.
5.  Straighten the tea bag out so that it is about a 4 inch tall cylinder.
6.  Twist one end together and stand it up on its open end on a cookie sheet.
7.  Light it on fire just under the twisted part, near the top.
8.  Watch it.  The teabag will catch fire, then when it is almost burned up, it will rise up in the air about 4 feet and then gently float down, while it is going out.  

If your house catches on fire, keep in mind, that it is not my fault.  I told you to go outside.  

A funny twist on walking the dog.

Today, on our walk, we decided to let Freckles set the pace.  When she trotted, we trotted, when she walked, we walked and when she stopped we stopped.  Some of the kids really got into it and when she'd scratch her ear, they'd scratch their ear.  When she had to visit the little doggies room, we turned our heads and took a time out.  It was funny, to all freeze when she'd stop and she couldn't figure it out, so she'd give us a funny look and then go on.

There's a good post about the hidden costs of homeschooling over on The Common Room.  I'm too lazy myself to do a good post about homeschooling.  Youngest son missed the deadline today by about 20 minutes and therefore is grounded this evening from all screens.  I'm hopeful that he'll get it tomorrow.  He did get it done tonight before 5 so he didn't have to do an extra chore.  We took a walk again today and I've finally started my post-Easter resolutions and am trying to drink water and exercise.  The water is in lieu of southern sweet tea which is really sweet and sweetened with sugar.  I'm still going to drink some tea, but I'm going to cut calories by alternating with water.

Unexpected math lesson.

My son wanted to do another experiment from the Big Book of Boy Stuff yesterday.  He wanted to make homemade root beer.  So while I was at the store, I picked him up some root beer flavoring (who knew this even existed?) and some soda water and when we finally got home last night from all our after school activities (9:30 p.m.) the younger 2 kids made root beer.  I didn't expect it but I kept hearing them doing math calculations.  It seems that their syrup was supposed to make 3 cups, but it only made 2 1/2 cups and they were supposed to add 5 ounces of soda water to every 1/2 cup of syrup.  Youngest son wanted to just pour it all in, the whole 32 ounce bottle but the girl wanted to be precise.  I heard them arguing him saying "It's not an exact science!" and her insisting that it was.  Finally I went in and helped them, but we used the girl's math, because she was so determined.  It ended up being a little strong and needing a little bit more club soda added to it, so the boy was right.  For some reason, it smelled like root beer, but tasted kind of like wintergreen life savers.  It was fun anyway.  Today, they are going to do a more old fashioned recipe with that does not have club soda, but instead uses yeast to make the bubbles?  I can't say that sounds appetizing to me.

Zombie raisins.

My youngest is still going through the Big Book of Boy Stuff.  One of the experiments says that you can rehydrate raisins in water and they will turn back into grapes.  The infamous box of raisins from the fair the other day are now soaking in water.  They've been in there since yesterday.  They have plumped up but apparently they don't taste anything like grapes, hence, my oldest son called them Zombie Raisins.

A few photos from recently.

The candyland float for the Christmas parade we were in.

Gingerbread house #1.

And the second gingerbread house.

Latest Projects.

 

We saw these pillows on Pinterest and we're trying to make our own.  So far we are still working on the tops so they aren't pillows yet.  Mine is on the left, my daughter's is on the right.  Her projects always look better. Pillow tutorial.

Freckles needed to try this one out right away, to make sure it was comfy.

These owls, we also made from a pattern we found on Pinterest.  I forgot to put a beak on mine, which I am going to try and remedy today.  They have already gotten names, Errol and Hedwig.  :-)  Owl Pattern

Fun!

Every now and then I like to go into the Goodwill store and prowl around for books, movies, games, etc.  We have gotten several of our best board games there for a dollar and several times they haven't previously been opened.  Last night, I scored this science kit still in the shrink wrap for a 1.50.  My youngest son has been having so much fun today with it.  He's made a clock run with 2 potatoes, lighted up an LED with 3 bottles of water and even made a little musical thingy play a tune (very softly, we all kind of felt like Horton hears a Who or maybe the Who marching band...) using, of all things, the mud from 2 flower pots.  Fun, educational and cheap.  Enviro Battery

Candle jars we made at 4H.

Pumpkins.

Our pumpkins this year were star wars themed, Jabba the Hut, Yoda and Darth Maul.  I think the kids did an excellent job.  We printed the templates off of the internet.

Cool idea.

I'm sitting here waiting for some work to be dictated so I could type it and I did some browsing via Pinterest and found this web site.  She features all these adorable things she mails for 13 ounces or less and calls it Happy Mail.  Apparently in the United States you can mail a package weighing 13 ounces or less for regular first class postage?  So much fun.  I may have to send out some happy mail.  :-)


Givers Log - Happy Mail

Boom, Splat, Kablooey.

This afternoon my youngest son pulled out his Klutz book, called Boom, Splat, Kablooey and did one of the experiments in it, which was to put a fourth of a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave to watch it expand.  It was very entertaining.

Notes:  Since I've been asked some questions about this in comments and some of you might try it, I'll give some directions.  Cut the bar of ivory soap into fourths.  Put 1/4 on a paper plate and put in microwave for 1 minute.  It turns into this foamy stuff that breaks easily into little bits, so you may end up sweeping some of it up but it's not terribly messy.   By foam, I mean a dry foam, more like styrofoam than anything else I can think of.

Wednesday/Wednesday.

Last Wednesday, we were at the beach, then playing Goofy Golf, then having pizza at the Mellow Mushroom, which has the best gluten free pizza in the world.  It's funny because several of my family members couldn't remember the name of it and it got called Mellow Yellow, Magic Mushroom and several other names in our conversations.  At this point in the vacation, we were getting really tired so we would giggle about just about anything.

This Wednesday, we've got school and work and a little bit of chauffeuring and we're also babysitting my mom's dog, Tinker, which we call Tinkersitting,while my mom stays all night with her sister.   As for school, it's going okay.  My husband did decide on Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 for the book this year, rather than Life of Fred and it seems to be going pretty well.  My youngest told me yesterday that his scores so far on the lessons were A+, A+, A, so I guess he's getting it.  I'd hate to see what my scores would be as my math is so rusty!