Happy Birthday, Mxyl! Part 1

We have a teenager!

In what we hope will be a tradition, we used the milestone to take a special parent and child trip.

Mxyl picked... Pittsburgh!

Why Pittsburgh? It has the second largest robot museum in the world (the biggest is in Japan, a bit over budget)!

It was very cool!








He got picked to demonstrate stuff.

Plus he got to jump on a giant trampoline! That's a safety harness that he's strapped into.









Did I mention it was cool?
And that was just day one!

Sarcastic Fringeheads

We are doing an ocean themed mini unit right now. Pictures and details later, but for now, enjoy this:

Annual Post Mortem

I actually haven't done much with US History besides collect great books from the library. The fact is, my brain stuck in relax mode. I think I kinda maxed out last year with too many evening commitments.

Everything was good and important: teaching CCD, Dominicans, DJM, another DJM group, Scouts/Girls' Nights, and working every co-op Wednesday. The thing is, I'm an introvert and it was all energy being expended. Add to that some family health crises and I overloaded the system a bit. As in, gee, we have TWO free evenings this month, isn't that great?

I did some great stuff with the kids last year, but I didn't have the energy and creativity I wanted to have. And I had very little social life!

We also went more places and did more stuff than we ever have (field trips and stuff) and I think that was great. There have been a lot of years where I wasn't able to do that because of pregnancy or tiny ones, so I think it was the right year for that.

Still...

I've cut back a bit: cut out teaching CCD, cut back on co-op (only 20 weeks this year), cut back on DJM, cut back on teaching Dominican Novitiate, and my term as moderator of my Dominican chapter ends this year. And no one in my entire family will have any health crises. (Hope that works!) And I'm going to vegetate this summer and not feel guilty.

So far this summer, we haven't done too much relaxing. The first two weeks were the obligatory doctor and dentist appointments plus the camping extravaganza and the retreat and house guest.

I noticed that when that was over, I did not spring into action and clean the back basement. Or teach the kids Spanish. Or whip myself into shape with a fabulous exercise routine. In fact, I wasn't really in the mood to do anything I had planned to get done this summer.

I took it to prayer and felt God was telling me to rest and recover. It was like He took me back through the year. I suddenly remembered that last Fall, I thought my Dad wouldn't be here for Christmas. I saw all the meetings and teachings and all the great stuff that came out of that. I saw all the medical stuff with my kids, and all the trips we took and things we did. All the birthdays and anniversaries. All the swim lessons (we got a membership to an indoor pool and did 3 sets of swim lessons back to back September through March) and the oldest three finally swimming independently.

You know, it's a lot. It's enough. I think the back basement will still be there in September when I am ready for action again.

This summer I'm going to focus on resting in the Lord and enjoying my family.

Note to Self

Next time you redesign the blog, do it without the 3 and 5 year olds.

Zoom's Got Talent

We ended up doing one of our rare fast food meals this week. We splurged on Wendy's (I actually think their bacon and Blue cheese burger tastes like food). The kid's meals came with toys based on America's Got Talent, not something I would usually be a big fan of. The cool thing was, they were giving the kids props and suggesting they put on their own talent show!

Well, the Zoomlians need very little encouragement...

Marty the Moustache Man wowed the crowd with his saxazoo !



Glasses Gal kept us in stitches with her jokes!









Ms. Amazo performed daring feats of skill and strength!

And everyone appeared from the Magic Box!

Camping, Round 2

I knew beyond any shadow of doubt what the girls' reaction was going to be when I told them that Daddy and both of the older boys were going camping for the weekend, so I decided to head it off with the announcement that I would be taking the girls camping when the boys got home.

There were only four small problems with this strategy.
1. I've never been camping and I'm a bit hazy on the details.
2. We were incredibly busy that week.
3. The campground was infested with Lyme disease bearing ticks (as in, we knew two people who had gotten Lyme here).
4. It was 98 degrees.

The solution to #1 was to be my usual foolhardy and overconfident self (how hard could it be?).
The solution to #2 was to set up the tent in the afternoon, come back home to do Grammy's birthday party and then return to camp in the evening.
The solution to #3 was to spray our clothes and tent with permethrin and apply DEET at high concentration over the rest of us. We also hiked along the paved roads instead of the woods. We also prayed! We got this strategy here. It worked! Even though we saw three ticks while setting up the tent, we didn't get any on us!
As to #4, we got hot and sweaty, but it cooled off some overnight.

We actually had a very nice time. Keeping it to one overnight was key (unless I can learn to build a better fire). But we hiked, talked, played games, sang, cooked, roasted marshmallows and ate S'Mores. I think that was the extent of our "Things to Do While Camping" checklist, so we were all quite satisfied.

Camping, Round 1

Round 1 was the Boy Scout Camp and Fish and Hike and Do Cool Stuff Extravaganza. This was Zorg and the Emperor's first time doing the scout camping thing. I should be clear that this was all over one weekend, the actual week long camp will be in August!

I should also point out that I didn't go, so my commentary is second hand (or perhaps third rate!).

They camped out by the fish ponds and boated and fished.
Despite their best efforts, no one fell in!

They then cleaned, cooked and ate their catch.

















They also did quite a bit of fun hiking - scrambling over rocks and stuff. They found this interesting plant. We looked it up and discovered that it is Indian Pipe (AKA Corpse Plant!). This is amazing (Biology Geek Alert)! It has no clorophyll! It's a parasite on a particular fungus and tree symbiote!


They also found this recently used turtle nest. Those white scraps near the hole are the egg shells. It's a bit weird to call them shells when they are more leathery, but there you are.


They also made a side trip to an Amish farm. The Amish boy in the picture was raising an abandoned fawn and let Mxyl and Zorg pet it. How fun is that?

What About the Little Guys?

Oob has been pretending to be a puppy. He's been doing lots of fetching and licking people. And he loves being read to! If only we could convince him not to bring us library books in his mouth.

Choclo is reading more and more. He has done the Leap Frog videos (to me the easiest way to teach toddlers their letters and sounds). He is still watching Between the Lions and Electric Company and getting a lot out of them.

He has been reading Bob Books for a while (and will be for another year, I suppose). We love them because they are such nice graduated chunks. The whole "I read the whole book!"idea is a very powerful motivator.

Choclo (and Oob) are also very into Starfall. We always end up with both kids on my lap for this. I really can not believe that this is a free website! It's a top notch phonics program with a highly motivating mix of games and stories. We are currently doing lesson 6 in "Learn to Read." Great stuff!

Choclo has also just got into Puzzle Buzz. Wow! Most definitely not free, but it's exactly at his challenge level and he loves it. Great mix of stuff and he is always so excited that he did it.

Flight Wrap Up

This little mini unit was a ton of fun and a good reminder to me that it isn't very much work to make one.

Klenda built a rubber band-propeller driven plane and Mxyl built a "rip cord" helicopter. Both actually flew!

Leena and Zorg built air pressure rockets and had a great time racing them with different payloads.

All four of these were from very nice kits that Mumpy had bought for them over a year ago. I tend to get cool stuff and then stash it away until I hit the right combination of ages and topics.

We never got to the Aviation Museum (Mxyl hurt his knee the morning we were to have gone), but Air and Space was fantastic!

We got there at 10, before things got crowded. Even the little guys were fascinated by all the hands on exhibits.

Choclo and Oob loved the plane best of all. You could see the ailerons and elevators move as they steered.

Here is Leena doing the Bernoulli experiment.


Klenda got to help with a paper airplane experiment.

Then everyone got to do the paper airplane contest!




An amazing time was had by all!

Young Frankenstein

In other news, Klenda called me up to her room to show me what she had done. "Look," she announced, "Leena wanted another sister, so I made her this." Very impressive in a kind of creepy way!

The kids then spent an afternoon making similar artificial children and babies all around the house (only one of which looked like I had been hanged in effigy).

Yes, the kids are campaigning for more Zoomliams - twin girls if I can at all manage it. And, no, this is not any sort of pregnancy announcement!