Friday Phone Dump 9-28-12

~erica

Friday was my little brother's 40th birthday. We're so old...

School started Tuesday. I go Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. By Friday night was I too exhausted to do anything fun with the kids (we had planned on going to the college to see Madagascar 3) so I told them they could eat all the junkfood in the house and watch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

 

I finished the first of my Zora socks last Sunday night. As of this morning the second one is on my needles but it'll be slow going, I can tell. Time is at a premium right now.

 

I didn't like the texture of the Maple Granola from the bulk bins at Winco. So I got marshmallows and chocolate chips and made it into granola bars. Chocolate and maple are really good together! Next time I'll try a cup of peanut butter in the melted marshmallows.

 

These are only half my books for this quarter. Used books at the bookstore beat the prices on Amazon and worth driving to Olympia an extra day to get them (good thing cause they ran out of the Spanish textbooks and half our class had to get copies from other students to do their homework this weekend). There are 7 different sessions over the 3 days- lecture, seminar, language study, and film. Lecture and language study are completely in Spanish! We have seminar twice a week and each one is over a DIFFERENT book- we are reading 2 books a week!

 

 

That purple folder at the bottom of the pile is excerpts from El Libro de buen amor  that I have to read for this week. There were about 7 cartoon drawings with nude figures. I knew the 4 teen-age boys would have gone ballistic if they had seen them; so I finally covered them with duct tape- it does fix everything! They were totally gratuitous naked pictures, obviously they were not in the original medieval poem, the style reminds me of the 70s Good News Bible (is that blasphemous?)

 

5-A-Side soccer on Saturday. I was a bad mom and forgot my real camera. I took a few pictures with my phone. Her team is waiting for the next match by playing all of them against the ref. Wednesday night she jammed her finger stopping a goal at practice, Thursday night we were getting it checked out, Saturday she goalied with it buddy taped. I still have the x-ray order if its not feeling better tomorrow (she needed ibuprofen this morning). Our pediatrician didn't tell her to not play or to be careful, just said it probably wasn't broken, buddy tape it for comfort, and go get the x-ray if it didn't get better or got reinjured. She's a mom of 3 now grown athletes...

 

Jonah's math program came with in a box of cornstarch peanuts. Tovah spent last night making jewelry and crowns. Totally worth the $7 shipping for the book.

Friday Phone Pictures

~erica

This has been a busy week- I started indoctrination orientation at Evergreen with 2 very long days and 2 half days. I was glad to get to Friday when I had nothing but family and fun stuff.

Sunday- Jonah's 13th birthday, he played Minecraft all day | Do you recognize any of these socks? Please claim them, they have spent the summer at my house after your boy left them... | "Please hang me on the wall instead of leaving me languishing behind the door in the office since Spring Break"

Tuesday- Convocation speaker, Carlotta Walls LaNier. She was one of the Little Rock Nine in 1957 who went to Central High. Her book is good and she was a good speaker (but the Drug & Alcohol speakers were better) | Wednesday- this girl has no fear, she jumps on the ball as its being dribbled down to the goal | Thursday- Jonah's football game. He's #8 on the sideline (last week he played a minute and was SOOOO excited). They lost by 3 pts. this week because they had a TD taken away for excessive excitement or something like that- BOO!

Friday- I got up and went running. The first time since July. I made it home and needed chocolate milk before I could get up the stairs | Mini Cheer Night at the football game. | Rush (in the gray hat) playing the bass drum at the football game- We won!

Ryan didn't work until late last night so he got to go to the game with us and he got to see Tovah cheer, he missed last year. He leaned over at one point, when she was down on the track doing jumping-jacks with the cheerleaders after a TD and said, "you know cheer costs more than any other sport." Um, yeah, but she'll be the only one at home by then and I should be done with my Masters...

2012 Summer Bucket List

~erica

Maybe if I post this at the beginning of the summer next year I'll be better about getting it all done, or not...

The stars are post-it notes so they can be moved down as they are completed

• Pedicure
• Skate Park
• Tie-Dye -this project is sitting on my desk, I'm hoping to do it Saturday
• 5K
• Disney StoryBook
• 2011 & 2012 Albums
• Catch up Baby Books
• Paint our bedroom- to be fair this can't be done until we change out windows and then finish the siding on the outside of the house as we are changing window sizes and the wall will need to be fixed
• Merit Badges a few got done but not as many as I would have liked
• Bowling
• Bible in 90 Days
• Drive In Movie
• Eagle Project
• Sonic Happy Hour Forest Grove, Or and Post Falls, ID
• OMSI
• Seaside
• Spruce Goose
• Disney pictures on the wall
• One Man Band
• Movie in the yard with friends
• Birthday socks for Grandma
• Summer Reading Program
• Magic Quest at Great Wolf Lodge

On the High Adventure I had Sonic Happy Hour 3 times- it made me very happy!

A lot of things that didn't get done were my projects. Maybe next year I'll keep them separate from the summer fun stuff. Now we need to make our Winter Bucket List....

Bible in 87 Days!

~erica

One of my personal goals this summer was to again read the Bible straight through. I started June 16 and finished September 10- 87 days later. Ryan was a little concerned that I started as we left on vacation but I wanted to be done before I started back to school. Let me tell you, it was easier to keep on track on the go than it was on the days we were home. I loaded the Bible on my phone using my Kindle app- I found it last year as a free book, its English Standard Version. I always had it in my pocket- we had a few minutes waiting for something I could read, I could read in the car, I could read in line, any few quiet minutes I could read a few verses. I didn't need to be online to read since it was a Kindle book. At home it was harder to get to- I found myself going to do it "later."

I got really bogged down by the poetry- Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, I think the despair behind the writing was more apparent, because I had just read the history, the feelings and the circumstances really stood out to me. Job also was really hard to read- he lost all his children and that really hit me this reading, I've found myself bargaining with God "You've got two, leave the rest with me." and He really wants me to trust Him with all of them. Nathan is preparing to return to the sandbox this winter in a much more dangerous job description in a more volatile area than the last time.

On a less heavy note- I enjoyed reading the Old Testament history in the ESV but in the New Testament some wordings struck me as cumbersome or just wrong. I don't have specific examples but several times I was unsettled by how the passages were interpreted. I'll be looking for another version to load onto my phone...

 

Now I am ready to tackle my program at Evergreen and the 250-300 pages per week of reading that is required. In the past 4 weeks I've already read the first 3 required books, I've finished 2 this week since I finished reading the Bible. Today is the first day of 4 days of mandatory orientation...

4 Teenage Boys!

~erica

I was thinking about how I never thought this day would come,"Just wait until they are all teenagers." Tomorrow these 4 will all be teenagers!

Playing at the Pacific Science Center- 2000

Those 4 little boys in the bright orange shirts who are dressed alike are now 13, 14, 16, and 17!

A friend stopped by this morning with her 5 who are 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 and I had to remind her that it won't last forever, "one day they'll all be teenagers..."

Friday Phone Pictures

~erica

It seems so simple, but can I be consistent? I want to try and download my phone pictures, whether or not I used them on Instagram, each Friday. This way I can have at least some record of our school year.

Monday- I saw the Google Street View car as we left the orthodontist- Arin only has a couple more months in braces | I finished reading the Bible in 87 days! | I finished my Crazy Rib gloves

 

I am nuts!  I bought a crossword puzzle book, in Spanish... | Tovah's first soccer game in Mossyrock (it was really cold and I wished I had brought my new gloves) | Tuesday- had my first orientation day at Evergreen, then a PTO meeting, afterwards I was ready for mindless so I brought home Box Tops and cut and taped and counted for 3 hours while I watched TV.

 

Wednesday- the sun turned red and then disappeared behind all the smoke that is coming from the fires in eastern Washington | Thursday- I'm reading The Ornament of the World for my first day of classes, I decided I needed a timeline to keep it all straight | Finished Ornament and started The Song of the Cid and needed a brain break so I started a new pair of socks.

Tentative School Plan 2012-13

~erica

I can't believe school starts in a week. All of Rush and Tovah's supplies are purchased and packed into new bags. They each have 2 new pairs of jeans to get started until I can take time to inventory what they actually need. Rush has new shoes and Tovah's complaining about her toes being squished in the perfectly good shoes I bought at the beginning of summer. We've already gotten through the first week of sports practices including a Cross-Country retreat for Arin with the high school team. Rush got his driver's license. Rush's Eagle Project should be done tonight. Whew! It's been a busy week...

Now I need to figure out the boys' homeschool plan for the year. They will not be using the public-school-at-home program this year so we'll have to pay for a private school to carry Arin and Isaac's transcripts since they are both high schoolers. That also changes the curriculum we might end up using.

Arin- 10th grade
World Geography- Passport Club at the Christian School, notebooking
US Government- Citzenship in the Community, Nation, and World Merit Badges; also a trip to NYC
and Washington DC over spring break
Literature
Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
Geology
3 sports- Cross Country, Wrestling, Track

Isaac- 9th grade
World Geography- Passport Club at the Christian School, notebooking
Compostion
Teaching Textbooks Algebra
Biology
Health
Chess Club- club meetings, merit badge, and compete at 3 or more tournaments

Jonah- 7th grade
???  I guess he'll continue with Math-U-See, Pathways readers, and doing whatever science or history the other boys are doing. He's playing football this fall and would also like to go back to Chess Club

I'm going to look at what Kahn Academy offers for math and literature courses. The kids like video based learning and since we now have the bandwidth we might as well use the online offerings.

Knitting Catch-Up



~erica



I realized its been a year since I did a knitting update. Last year I got a lot of yarn for my birthday and its partly knit up but I added some projects to the queue...

The big project for the year was the Seasons Shawl (Spring). I finished it in February in time to give it to a friend for her birthday- I decided I am just not a shawl person; no matter how lacy and pretty, it still makes me feel like a babushka. My friend, she's a shawl person and always cold so it worked out well. I am now knitting myself a long, lacy scarf with the leftovers plus an extra skein of the main rose pink color. Hopefully it'll make me feel cheery in the cold, gray winter.

I blocked it on the bed in the trailer and then took it outside for pictures.

Just looking at the colors makes me happy.

I finished the opossum socks. MaryLinda brought the 2 skeins back from New Zealand 2 years ago. It took me a long time to find a pattern that showcased both colors. This spiral heel is the start of the socks and caused a lot of cursing and throwing of yarn and knitting needles. I finally found extra yarn and larger needles and watched the youtube video over and over again until I got it. The second heel wasn't quite the ordeal of the first but still made me anxious. The yarn seems to want to felt but they are so warm and soft. I wish I had made them a little taller but I didn't want to run out of yarn.

The pattern is Double Heelix from Knitty Spring/ Summer 2011

After much reading online I decided to dye my wool with Wilton food dye in the crockpot rather than using Kool Aid. Kool Aid dyeing is pretty limited to reds and oranges, there are a lot more color choices with food dye and it seemed less work. Then I decided I wanted stripes... Our school and little league teams are all blue & gold.

 

This made me happy. I managed to twist it like a real yarn dyer.

 

 

Ready to knit

 

This is the yarn knit up in my first Crazy Ribs fingerless glove I only have one knit because it goes halfway down my forearm and I wasn't sure I wanted such long gloves. Now I either need to make the decision to keep it that long and knit the other one or frog it and start over. Its a silk merino blend and very soft and warm. They'll get lots of use for football, soccer, and baseball practices and games

 

This is some alpaca/ wool blend that I picked up at the knit shop in Lakewood. The colors are just right for my mom and I figured I had plenty of time to knit her a pair of Dragonfly Socks for her August birthday (I bought the yarn back in January, just before I finished the shawl).

 

I started these on the plane down to Disneyland and had to start 3 times because they just weren't playing nice. 10 days later I had about 2" knit. The first sock (knit on size US 1.5 needles) turned out too big so I knit the second sock on smaller needles (US 1) then frogged the first sock as I knit the third sock. I did work on them at Family Camp and managed to get one sock completed as we watched the Olympics. The second sock went more quickly but it was too hot to work on while we were in Idaho and Montana (and when you haven't showered and its 100-degrees you don't want any wool touching you anywhere). On my mom's birthday I had the cuff done of the second sock- that day I turned the heel and I finished them the day after her birthday. The lace pattern was easy to memorize and the repeats went quickly. I added an Eye of Partridge heel as the pattern was plain.  

 

Not pictured: I knit about a dozen mini socks for Christmas gifts and then knit a pair to give as a baby gift. I used up a lot of my leftover sock yarn and they were very cute with some chocolate and a candy cane in them. They have a provisional heel that was easy to add, you knit half a row in waste yarn, then in the main yarn, after you have finished the toe you go back and pick up the stitches on either side of the waste yarn and knit the heel. Each mini sock took me about 2 hours and I was slightly obsessed with making them

 

Still to come: I need to knit my second fingerless glove and finish my scarf, hopefully before school starts for me on September 25. Then I still have 2 skeins of sock yarn to knit for myself to replace a couple of pairs that are wearing out. I'd like to knit some fingerless gloves for a friend for Christmas and a pair of socks for another friend's birthday next August. We'll see how much I can get done with my school schedule- I got an email from the instructor and I can expect to have to read 250-300 pages a week... the first 2 books came from Amazon today and I'd like to be done with both before school starts (the first one is assigned to be done by the first day).

What!?!?! How Can Summer Be Almost Over?

~erica

All our travels and adventures are done and sports start on Monday. I can't believe summer is almost over but I kept telling people that our summer wouldn't really be until we could be home for 3 weeks and not preparing for the next thing (Disneyland, Family Camp, High Adventure...) The kids all start school after Labor Day, including the 3 homeschoolers, but I don't go back until the end of September so I still have a few weeks to get a project or two done, or not. I need to upload pictures to the blog and to get printed. If I am really ambitious I want to make a StoryBook of our California trip.

Some randomness at the end of summer:

• It's hot here! We don't function in the heat the rest of the country considers normal- at 85 degrees we start getting heat advisories and warnings. It's supposed to reach 100 today but tomorrow will only be in the 80s. All we can do is lay in front of the fan or try and figure out where to go swimming.
• Ryan finished his preceptor hours and went back to nights last night! He's going to be working a funky schedule until January but then his "regular" schedule will include a Friday night off and 5 days off in a row each pay period (2 weeks)
• Rush got his Eagle Project approved and signed today so we can start the work. He's fencing the backyard of the parsonage at the Adna Church before the new pastor's family arrives. He's only got 10 days to complete the project but its too hot to start today, maybe tomorrow...
• I can't wait for cooler weather, my hip is killing me and I need to wear my Dr. Martens but they look funny with shorts or capris. In the hot weather I live in Old Navy flip flops which are cool and easy to kick off and actually quite comfortable but my hip does not like them. One of these days I'm going to get some Dr. Marten sandals
• I got a Samsung Galaxy IIS smart phone for graduation/ before our trip to California. I mostly use it to read my Bible and to Instagram. It is nice being able to Google search anywhere at anytime- for example on I-90 in the middle of Eastern Washington to settle an argument of who sang that song. Jonah had to show me how to answer it, it really is smarter-than-me.
• I'm 70% of the way through the Bible in 90 Days. I started June 15 and kept current throughout our adventures. Actually its hardest to remember to read on the days we are at home. I've got the Bible on my new smarter-than-me phone and I can read in line, in the car, any time I'm waiting, etc. Today I started Daniel and after all the Books of Poetry and Prophecy I'm glad to be back in some narrative. Psalms and Proverbs are really hard to read straight through. But by the time I've read my Bible I don't have time for other reading or knitting (well, its hard to knit when its hot and sticky and even a bit of wool string across my hand is more wool than I want to be wearing)
• I finished a pair of socks for my mom, the day after her birthday but definitely before she needed them so by my reckoning they were about 2 months early
• I'm still on Week 1 of Couch to 5K. I found an app for my phone that times the running/ walking and that helps but I just haven't had time to be out of the house. I haven't given up, I'm still officially (at least in my mind) doing it and it does feel good each time I get out and run.
• I have lost my water bottle and its killing me. I almost ordered this Contigo bottle off of Amazon this morning but I really like the one I lost and I'm not ready to concede defeat and replace a free water bottle. Tovah has one but I can't find hers either. I was really good all winter and carried it to school every day and drank water instead of an extra cup of coffee or a soda- I've found I have a lot fewer sinus headaches and my skin is less prone to break-outs if I am good about drinking my water

My missing water bottle, it has comfortable dents in it, a straw so I don't wear my water, and it was free (in exchange for 5 empty plastic bottles). It was last seen at Scouts 2 nights before we left for High Adventure.

We're off!

~erica

Summer's here and we're off to California in an hour and 20 minutes! Our itinerary includes 3 days at Disney (Cars Land opened Friday), Dana Point Harbor, San Juan Capistrano Mission, 2 days at LegoLand, the San Diego Zoo, La Jolla, In 'N Out, El Pollo Loco, Farrell's, Shakey's Pizza, Chick-Fil-A, Del Taco, Johnny Rockets, and time with friends and family.

I finished my AA yesterday so I'm off to Evergreen in September as a Junior (more on that later). I didn't walk but there is one picture of me in a cap & gown...

I'm saving this for Isaac's wedding slide show. I was trying to get a picture of my friend and I with my new camera phone and noticed him in the background "ruining" it. (Don't tell him but I think its better this way, we were laughing too hard to get all serious about smiling)

Seventy-six Trombones minus a few...

~erica

Yesterday I sat down to do my homework and heard drums. We live in a noisy house so there is always noise from somewhere- TV, computer, XBOX, boys, etc but this was real drums and then other instruments. It dawned on me that it wasn't raining and it was 6th period at the high school so it was time for band and they must be outside practicing (it did take me a few seconds to work this all out). I grabbed my camera and Arin and we took off- he got the camera out and ready while I drove the 500' to the main road of town. We were just in time to catch the band marching down the street.

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade

With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.

They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuo-Sos,

the cream of ev'ry famous band.

Read more: MUSIC MAN - SEVENTY-SIX TROMBONES LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/seventysix-trombones-lyrics-music-man.html#ixzz1tqQZq421
Copied from MetroLyrics.com

I'm pretty impressed with Mr. Brumbaugh- he's marching backwards while playing the sax!

I started thinking about how this is one of the reasons we have chosen to live in a tiny town- I never would have had the chance to be "paparazzi" along the band's route. Even as former/ current homeschoolers I know half the kids (that's Rush up there with the cymbals and silly glasses), 2 of the boys are my former Cub Scouts, a couple more were Cub Scouts ahead or behind Rush, others are generational Adna so my brother or I went to school with their parents or aunts or uncles.

At the school road one of the seniors ran out and took over the directing. Arin and I had circled around to get back in front of them so I could get them marching down the road at the head of the parade (all the parents coming to pick up their kids after school).

They are preparing to go to Oregon tomorrow to march in a parade on Saturday. We had reservations to go to the beach with them for about 3 weeks until I got Jonah's tournament schedule and I knew we couldn't be gone this weekend (plus Ryan isn't on his new schedule at work).

The Rock is back to blue after spending a week painted orange by a rival school.

DeGoede's 2012

~erica

Yesterday we made our annual trip to DeGoede's in Mossyrock to see the Tulips. Between baseball, rain, and everything else going on its been hard to find time, our church had Community Serve so we had an early service and then we had to be back mid-afternoon to start dinner. The kids weren't too happy to have to go, in some ways outings were easier when I could just pick them up and strap them in their carseats and the promise of a treat made them compliant. Now they want treats like "can we go to lunch at Spiffy's in Morton and get burgers as big as our heads?" Umm, no....

Last year we took Grandma Hendrickson so she could see the tulips for a last time. My mom, grandma, and great-aunt also went with us.

The Troll at the end of the bridge... "Mom, this is my happy face!"

Arin's Senior pictures will be fun, he likes to dress up and pose for the camera.

The gift shop/ nursery was closed since it was Sunday so we couldn't buy any tulips to bring home, however Jonah has a game in Glenoma Tuesday night so we can stop on our way out and buy some. Then just he and I will eat at Spiffy's on the way home after the game.

Snow of Epic Proportions

~erica

The snow started on Saturday, just in time for Tovah's birthday. It mostly melted on Sunday so we were able to have 5 giggly girls over for her birthday party (cupcakes, cocoa, nail polish, and the new Judy Moody movie- it was a very successful birthday party). Monday we woke up to more snow but it was a day off of school so it seemed like a waste.

Tovah and Grandma built a little snowman in the backyard. This is the "normal" amount of snow we get, on the years that we even get any snow. On Tuesday they cancelled all the schools in the county for a day of rain, but I still had to go to school. The college cancelled all evening classes and classes for Wednesday at about 1 p.m. The news and weather channel started talking about a snowstorm of epic proportions, the State Meteorologist said that this would be a "once in a lifetime" event. We'll see...

At 5:45 my cell phone alarm went off. I got up to go to the bathroom and looked out the window and came back to bed and told Ryan that there wouldn't be any school today- the tops of the cars were covered in white. He took this picture out our bedroom window. At 6 we got the automated call from the school that school was cancelled so we turned off the news and went back to sleep. At 7 Rush got up and showered and then looked out the window. He checked the website and saw there wasn't school today so he went back to bed. I got up at 7:40 to send him back to bed and make sure he didn't get Tovah up.

At 8:30 everyone was up and they sent Jonah (the shortest of all the kids) out to knock the snow off the dish so the TV wouldn't be messed up (priorities). I stepped off the back step and the snow went up over the top of my rain boots. It was up over Jonah's knees.

Arin had to go out to rescue Jonah when he fell into the snow. The snow fall totals in the areas around us are 12-19", I'm not sure how much we got, but that's the birdbath back there that looks like a frosted cake on a stand... I guess we really did get an epic snowfall. It's supposed to taper off this morning and then turn to rain but they expect the rain to freeze on the top of the snow so I don't know how fast the snow will go away. No school today for any of us (except Ryan, his is online), no rehearsal or practice, no church. Tomorrow, who knows? And there may be another weather system coming through on Saturday with more snow. Whether or not the kids are out of school we have our non-refundable or changeable airline tickets to Disneyland for June 16!

Snow! It's made with love- just ask the kids....

~erica

I've pondered all week on what to post for Made With Love. I figured I'd skip this week since I haven't taken any photos this week and I've been too busy with school to be creative and the one great meal I made, I didn't have a chance to photograph.

Then the snow arrived, right in time for Tovah's birthday! Snow is actually pretty rare in SW Washington and its forecast a lot more often than it actually shows up. Flurries with sun breaks teased us all afternoon and I just wanted it to hold off long enough for us to get home from shopping and birthday lunch. By the time we got home it had pretty much stopped and I figured it was a bust but at 5:30, when Ryan headed out for work, it really started in earnest.

This is how the backyard looked when we went downstairs at 9:30 to have cake and ice cream. The dead Christmas tree I threw out the backdoor last week looks great. The best birthday ending ever!





I'm linked up with project 52 photo challenge at my3boybarians.com Next week's theme is "I Dreamed a Dream."

Goals

~erica



Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1

 I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions but I do try and set out some goals for each new year. When I was good about homeschool planning, I would work over the summer to set physical and spiritual goals for each child that we would work on that year. I'm not sure my personal goals can be divided that way- they have components of both.

• Read through Proverbs each month
• Read Psalms twice during the year (1 Psalm a day, except for Psalm 119 I'll give myself a day for each letter)
• Listen to Chuck Missler's commentaries on Acts and possibly Hebrews (on my MP3 player)
• Read Crazy Love
• Read Families Where Grace is in Place
• Upload and Print pictures each month
• Get pictures up on the walls
• Do Couch to 5K  I'll start by walking 3+ times each week, 2 of them will be the nights when Tovah is at Winter Academy Soccer (I will walk the track under the lights)
• Be more consistent with menu planning and dinner prep

This post is linked to the project 52 photo challenge at my3boybarians.com