breakfast on a plate

We went to church retreat this past weekend.  Everyone had a wonderful time.  Karl had a skit during the annual hootenany where he strung a rope on the camp's shovel, hooked it up to an amp and a pickup, and played a song.  It was called Rockin' the Shovel.  It was really cool, and if we can get a copy of the video, maybe we'll post it here.  After the hootenany, we discovered that Elise is a dancing fool.  No video of that, but you'll have to trust my word that she was having a really good time.  (She even got me to dance a little bit--totally unprecedented.)  Albin liked playing capture the flag, foosball, and Magic with friends.  I learned how to sew origami bags.  A lovely, relaxing time was had by all!

Now it's time to think about the next thing, which is the trip Elise and I are taking to Texas on Thursday.  I got a good bottle of drugs from the pharmacist to help with motion sickness.  Let's hope that's not a problem this time!  We're only going to be away for a few days, so we're (trying to) pack light and just get ourselves organized.

We haven't had the camera out lately, so no new pictures to show you.  I brought it along downtown today with the best of intentions, but didn't take any there, either.  So all I have to show you is this:

Aren't thrifted plates great?

All quiet on the home front

We've not been doing much of note around here, thus no posting lately.  We are watching the Olympics, reading, chatting with friends, getting ready for the annual church retreat, etc.  You know, just living.  Two things I could mention is that Albin is doing some new and innovative things with his computer programming homework.  He wants to add easter eggs (which he learned it from spending so much time on Homestarrunner.com!).  Elise is planning to do a fundraiser this spring called Garden Games for Haiti.  Her goal is to raise $1000 to send to the What If? Foundation in Haiti.  That's about it for now, so back to living...

unschooling conference

John Taylor Gatto was in town this weekend for HOME's unschooling coference.  Karl went to his public lecture on Friday night, and I attended the conference all day yesterday.  The theme of the coference was 'Playing In The Circle of Life.'  Mr. Gatto was a wonderfully engaging and interesting speaker, and you can safely call me a Gaatto Groupie now.  Listening to what he had to say really hardens my resolve that not much good comes out of institutional schooling (you do know that he is a New York State Teacher of the Year, don't you?).  But read his books if you want to know more about that...

I also went to a talk by Alison Mckee titled 'What's Play Got To Do Wtih It?'  Her children are grown unschoolers, and she described how unstructured free play led them to their current places in life.  I'm going to be conservative and say that barring illness and accident, my children can expect to live to 80+ years old.  If they played and explored on their own until 20, they still have half of their life for meaningful work, and 1/4 to "retire" (but if they like their work/play, they'd hopefully do it until they die).  Why waste this opportunity to grow and learn, which is a smaller part of their life as a whole, with standardized tests, memorization, obediance and peer group pressure?   Play is the thing, people--we should all be so lucky!

While we were at the waterpark this past week, I was scheming for more travel, and asked Karl what he liked to do on vacation.  "What's vacation?" he asked.  I said it was the free time for days in a row when he didn't have to go to the office or do his regular work at his company (he often works at home).  He said, "I'd probably program."  For anyone who doesn't know Karl, this is what he does for a living.  He found his play and made it his work.  This is my goal for the kids' education.

Roller Skate Exravaganza

First of all, after all my hoopla of what a great party this was going to be, I have to tell you that I forgot the camera (even after getting the memory card out of the laptop and putting extra batteries in my pocket).  Someone said she'd email me pictures, but in the meantime, you'll just have to imagine it.

About one hundred kids were there, so there were people on skates from toddlers to grandmas.  Lots of them dressed up to show their Valentine spirit.  Elise didn't win the costume contest, but she thought that the boy who did win really put a lot of effort into it.  The decorated boxes to put Valentine's in were all very creative.  Someone even made a Lego elevator that would drop the card into the proper slot, with a little turning.  There was lots of food (yummy brownies!), good music, games on skates...I think she will want to go again next year.

It was held in the town of Edgerton, about 40 minutes SE of our house.  Our route took us right past our favorite little village of Cooksville.  We love the Cooksville General Store!  It's been operating since 1849.  It's really small, really old, and really cute, and we usually buy root beer, and maybe an ornament or old cookie tin if they happen to have something else good.  It's a great little place--just our style.

so much fun, all in one day

First, I have to mention that the hotel upgraded us to a very nice suite.  That was a lovely surprise.  We had two bedrooms and a living room with a fireplace.  Aaaaah, fireplace!  The waterpark was not very crowded, and the kids could go on any ride they wanted at anytime, with no wait (except for the Flowrider, but that was only a few minutes, usually).  Remind me to never go in the summer or on holiday weekends : )!  The hotel also gave us 4 free ferris wheel tickets, and free bowling and shoe rentals.  So here's a quick synopsis of what we did:

-5 hours in the the waterpark
-game room time (Karl rocks at Dance Dance Revolution.  Elise has a hard time with it, but seems to like it.  I haven't tried it yet, and Albin doesn't want to.)
-Go Karts
-Ropes course
-bowling
-ferris wheel ride
-cookie decorating

Now we are all tired, sore and happy, and looking forward to a roller skating Valentine party tomorrow.

some games

storm or no storm (as long as I don't have to drive)

We've made reservations to take the kids to a waterpark today.  It hasn't snowed in weeks, but we're getting a 'wee bit' today.  That's okay, because Karl can drive in anything, and we will be snug and warm up there once we arrive...and the kids will be wet and very happy. 

Elise has been really taken with Netflix lately and is watching all sorts of things.  Her current favorite movie genre is animals, so she's been watching Benji, Call of the Wild, Bolt, Shiloh, etc. Any good suggestions of other movie titles she might like?  (I just got my dvd copy of something Jen highly recommends (The Real Dirt on Farmer John), so I plan to watch that when we get back.) 

valentines, check!

 

Almost 130 valentines, made!  Whew.  The big homeschool party is this Thursday, and we're out of town Tuesday night and Wednesday, so there's a big push to finish most of them this weekend.  There are still a few to decorate (all those hearts you see will have faces drawn on them), and she has to sign most of them, but I think it's going to be okay.  We have a few saved out to send to family, but there are over one hundred kids going to the party, so we wanted to be sure we had enough. 

Karl fixed my sewing machine yesterday--he is just an absolute genius!  My parents had it tuned up (along with Grandma's treadle), so the tension and everything was finally working.  When I used it recently, it sewed briefly, then had trouble getting power to the motor.  I was sewing two simple bags, and by the end of the second bag, I was hand turning it the whole time.  Karl took apart the motor (a few pieces fell out into his hand), but he got it all back together and it's working great.  Yay!  Elise is as impressed as I am.  Karl says he was able to do it because he paid attention in physics class (electromagnetic theory).

So now I can sew these

into a picnic blanket--a project I have been scheming about for a long time.  It's from Amanda Soule's book Handmade Home.  I've had my eye on sheets at thrift stores for months, but was unwilling to pay $5 each.  Elise and I found these for $2 apiece at Goodwill.  (Maybe next summer I'll look at garage sales for others--they will probably be even more reasonable.)  Now I just need the proper blanket for a backing, and I'll be all set...

Elise and Karl are going to the symphony this afternoon, with other Suzuki students.  If there isn't time to come home for me and Albin between the concert and church, we may have to stay home and watch the superbowl....or spin/sew/play Runescape and pretend to watch the superbowl.

finally, some pictures!

Well, if I had time to mess around more, I'd try to figure out how to write the caption under each picture, but I have two minutes and it isn't self-explanatory : ).  Al is sniffing our new big fleece, it must smell like sheep!  We give it a lick with the hand carders to loosen up those locks, and make it easier for the drum carder to straighten out the fibers.  You can see a completed bat next to the carder.  There's the weird moccasin for Elise, and a picture of her downtown, after we saw the UW band at the Overture.  Somehow we got put in third row seats--wow!  Loud, but good.  Okay, that must be two minutes, time to turn into a pumpkin...

I didn't realize how long it had been since I updated our family doings.  I meant to do so a day or two ago, but we were having network problems, it was late, I was tired, yada yada yada.  I have a few pictures, but now I'm on ye old desktop, so think I'll wait until a lappy is free, since it is so much faster to load.

Elise and I have been working on carding our fleece from Jodi for Karl's sweater.  We've come up with a real system, so it is going pretty well.  Check in later for pictures of our process!

I have been scheming about travel to get Elise to a beach, specifically a tide pool.  This afternoon, we got an offer to visit a friend housesitting near a beach in southern Florida next week.  I agonized the rest of the day, spending lots of time on Orbitz, Amtrak and Google Maps, and in the end, I turned it down.  I hope the Universe doesn't kick me in the butt for saying no to an offer that was almost exactly what we wanted, but the logistics of planning it so close to our set Texas trip made my head spin.  So now I'm feeling a bit down about it all, but I think it was the right decision.  Sigh...

I made a prototype moccasin yesterday, and thought that particular pattern was a dud.  I found what looks to a good one a message board called Paleo Planet, and will give it a try when Karl prints out the directions for me.  (We don't have a printer, and it is sometimes painful to do it at the library.  Don't make me talk about it.)

Karl is working hard on finishing his "little" work project.  I don't think he stayed up all night even once this time, but today was the first day in weeks that he slept in til seven and didn't work before leaving for the office.  He also told me today that he has finally been assigned a new customer. 

Okay, that's about it for now.  I'll try to get pictures posted soon, and cheer myself up with looking for more coastal house rentals.