Housing Progress 7: Decking and Walls

The Adventures of Lewis and Clark

Well, I was just saying we hadn't had a history field trip in ages and presto--the opportunity for a field trip arrived.  We have been studying the presidents in chronological order and we just finished learning all about our nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson.  Of course, during our studies we learned about one of Jefferson's most known achievements as president: the Louisiana Purchase and his subsequent hiring of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his friend William Clark to explore this new territory.  Luckily for us, we live only a few miles south of the fort these two great explorers lived in during the winter of 1804-05.  They have a large interpretive center built there, as well as a recreation of the fort.  So, we called up another home schooling family in our ward and set up a private visit.  It was awesome!  The visitors center had some really interesting displays,

 

 

and the guy who was our tour guide of the fort was amazing.  I have never seen anyone do such a good job with such a young group of kids.  They loved it!

 

 

Mason especially loved this replica of the expedition's giant dog, Seaman.

 

When we were all done with the field trip, we bought a few books in the gift shop and then spent the drive home talking about how lucky we are to always be in the right place at the right time for our history lessons.  From Florida's St. Augustine and Fountain of Youth, to Jamestown and Plymouth, to all of the revolutionary war sites.  It's really pretty amazing that we have been so fortunate.  And even more wonderful that we are blessed with the resources to travel to those places even when we aren't already there.  This field trip renewed my love of learning history on site, and I can't wait to see where we will be off to next.

The Daddy Daughter Ball

We are very blessed in our little town of Bismarck to have some pretty darn amazing members of the church in our midst.  One of these members is our good friend Amy Frasure.  She has done music makers and preschool with us, not to mention taught a few of our kids in primary.  Recently she was switched from teaching Emma's primary class and made Madison's primary teacher.  In conjunction with teaching Maddi's class, she also received the calling to work as her Activity Day Girls leader.  Madison has always loved Activity Day Girls, but with Amy as her leader she has grown to love it even more.  Amy is simply amazing. She loves the girls and always goes all out.  The recent Daddy Daughter Ball is the perfect example of her dedication.

One week during Activity Day Girls she surveyed the girls about the possibility of doing a daddy daughter night.  Among the many choices of activities was a Daddy Daughter Ball.  The girls immediately gravitated to this idea.  They worked and they planned, and Madison was so excited for her big night. 

In honor of the occasion I pulled out her fancy "Hermoine Yule Ball Dress" and helped her get all decked out for the night.  Nick also got into the spirit of the night by getting all dressed up and presenting his "date" with her very own corsage.  She was beaming by the time she left.

Upon arrival the girls had their pictures made with their dad's, and then were escorted in for a lovely three course dinner, served by the boys of the same age group. 

Then the dancing followed with Nick taking quite a bit of abuse from the other dads about Maddi leading him around the floor.

Then the night concluded with dessert and the girls presenting their Daddy's with letters telling them how much they loved them.  It was a pretty awesome activity, and Madison loved, LOVED it!  I think she will remember it forever.

I think little Emma might remember it forever too.  She was so heartbroken when she didn't get to go that I spent the evening at home making her just as fancy.  She got dressed up, I did her hair, and even let her put on some of my make-up and jewelry.  She was excited to show Madison how fancy she was when she got home, and Nick even gave her the flower from his boutonniere to complete her look.  That made her beam almost as big as Maddi.  Hopefully she'll have an amazing leader when she is eight and get to go to a Daddy Daughter Ball of her own.

Classic Snapshot

Nick pulled this photo off of a recent video he made of Mason and I.  It was too cute not to post, and I have to take a moment to explain it.  When I made the decision to keep on homeschooling this summer, my original plan was to start Emma AND Mason in kindergarten this year.  Mason is still two years out, but he is such a smart little whip, I knew I could start him and he would keep up.  Then, one day Emma overheard me telling someone this plan and became very upset.  She wanted to have her own kindergarten year--Mason wasn't old enough yet.  After much thought and prayer, I decided that even though it would make a lot of extra work for me, I really needed to preserve Emma's self esteem by complying with her wishes.  Consequently, I have left Mason out of most of our kindergarten course work.  He often listens in when I am working with Emma though.  In fact, tonight he brought me Emma's phonics book and opened it to the little phonics stories I have Emma read me each day.  "Mom, I want to read to you," he said.  Then he proceeded to read me several of her stories.  I was somewhat floored.  Nick overheard and grabbed the video camera.  Mason read a few more lines on camera and then in pure exultation paused and gave me a super high five.  He was so pleased with himself!  I was pretty pleased too.  After all of the reading struggles Spencer and Emma have had, it will be wonderful to have another child who simply teaches themselves how to read!  Just another way Maddi and Mase are so much alike.  Way to go little man!

Matthew and Lydia

Well, he finally did it!  Matt Price, one of my dearest high school friends, finally found the love of his life and tied the knot.  The big event took place last week in Las Vegas, Nevada.  It was the first time I have ever been to the Las Vegas Temple,

and even though Las Vegas ranks pretty low on my list of favorite places, (rock bottom!)  my parents and I were super excited to be able to be there to support him.  Since he is the only member in his family, there were only a handful of people from his side in the temple.  Consequently, it was a pretty emotional time when the sealing was over and we were able to congratulate them inside the Lord's holy house.  We couldn't have been happier for him!

Then we got the chance to go out and visit with his family about the temple while the bride and groom prepared to make their big entrance as husband and wife.  We had a very positive conversation with his parents and siblings, and we were thrilled when the temple president sent for his parents and took them inside the temple to thank them for their support on this special day.  I know it was hard for him and his family, but after having introduced him to the church over thirteen years ago, we were so proud of his decision to take his love to the temple.  He has shown incredible strengthen and courage over the years and when he and Lydia emerged from the temple, the light of eternity shone in their eyes!

The lovely couple

From left to right--Kaleb, James, Phillip, Margo, David, and Preston

Lydia's family

Matt's family

All of us at the reception



Long time buddies

Me and the boys

Housing Progress 6: Custom Windows and Front Porch

Germs, Microbes, Viruses and Bacteria

Well, it feels a little funny to be doing it, but here I am posting school posts on our family blog, just as I said I would.   It will make our blogging life much easier, but it feels a little strange nonetheless.  Still, here I go....

 

 It's been simply ages since I have made a school post.  This has been true for a number of reasons.  First off, it's been a while since we have had a history field trip, which trips usually comprise half of all our home school posts.  We have still been studying history--spending a lot of time on the constitutional convention, memorizing the preamble, learning about the branches of government, and now beginning a chronological study of the United States Presidents and their many accomplishments, but it just hasn't lent itself to many pictures or posts. 

 

 Second, we basically took a year off of studying new science topics last year, which make up the other half of all of our posts.  Madison was at school for the first half of the year, so her science classes were there.  And Spencer, well, when we got the chance to do science, I decided it was a good time to review some of the things that he had learned during Madison's kindergarten year when he participated in all of her science classes, but was still technically pre-k.  These review topics included: national parks, geothermal features, the composition of the earth, volcanoes, and a more in depth look at meteorology and the weather. 

 

Our RV trip came at the conclusion of our national parks and geology review, and then we finished up our meteorology and weather unit just as Madison was pulling out of public school.  Since it was all review topics, I didn't feel like it was necessary to re-post about them.  Looking back; however, I kind of wish that I had, or at least made mention of them when we did things like visiting Mt. St. Helen's and the other National Parks or hearing Elder Eyering's Christmas address and deciding to learn all about barometers and how to predict the weather using our own barometer just as he did.  I can't help but want every little detail to go down on record so I don't forget all the cool things that we do.  Honestly though, with Madison suddenly back at home, life got a little crazy.  Too crazy to have time to write school posts.  So crazy, in fact, that I decided to do something I had only dreamed of doing in the past.  Something that seemed like an excellent idea to me, but didn't materialize quite the way I had envisioned. 

 

 That something was turning the rest of the years Science classes over to Nick.  He had done an excellent job helping with our month long body unit, and the topics that we still needed to cover to get through the elementary school requirements all seemed to be good topics for him to teach--basic chemistry, basic physics, magnets, electrical circuits, simple machines.  I thought it would be fun for him to get more involved with the kids' learning too, and to be honest, I needed to off-load something off of my plate in an attempt to hang onto my sanity.  He agreed to my proposition, and was even quite excited to begin with; however, studying for oral boards soon drown out his enthusiasm.  When they were over, house plans and meetings with our contractor seemed to take up every free moment, and before we knew it, the school year was coming to a close and none of the topics he was supposed to teach had been covered.  I was pretty upset with him, but there was nothing to do but try again next year.  That, or as Nick suggested, just send the kids back to school.  Since that option didn't pan out, Nick recommitted himself to the task, and with my help, finally got his science classes up and going.

 

His first science class of the year was one we have been meaning to do ever since we bought our microscope several years ago: Germs.  We bought petri dishes and made homemade auger.  Then the kids swabbed all sorts of surfaces and we set them to growing.  Then Nick taught them all about different viruses and bacteria and the kids were actually able to identify all of the things they grew and diagram them in their new science journals. 

 

We closed out the unit by talking about how to kill germs and prevent illness, etc.  Needless to say, after studying all of their petri dishes, there has been a definite increase in hand washing at our house!

 

And I just have to say I am truly impressed by what the kids have been able to learn and remember.  I have to confess that there were a few times I wanted to reign Nick's lessons in and help him get more age-level appropriate.  To my surprise; however, the kids rose to the challenge.  Perhaps if we don't let on that words such as staphylococcus and diplobacillus aren't in the usual elementary schooler's' vocabulary, then they won't ever know how ridiculous it sounds when they make statements to each other using them.  Oh the joys of home schooling.  And what on earth are we going to teach them in middle school!