Weird & Wacky Roadside Attractions

I am the type of person that loves to stop at weird roadside attractions.

Tallest spool of yarn, I would love to see it.  Smallest ladybug on record....why yes, we'll stop and see what that looks like.  Most of the time though, I control myself.  Joe and the kids do not always enjoy doing that kind of stuff.  But every once in a while, yep we stop at that kind of stuff.

Our recent trip included a few wacky attractions......

Big Walker Lookout

 The view from the top.

 We climbed that swaying tower and survived!

We had a picnic by the Ohio River.

Next we decided we needed to walk for about 20 minutes and use the bathrooms....so we visited Tamarack in West Virginia.  You can't drive through West Virginia without seeing signs for this place every few miles.  The signs kept my interest.  It's a very cool place.  Lots of art by local artisans.  You can even watch them make their creations.

We couldn't resist.  But we did read the plaque and the statue was dedicated to those who lost their lives while building the tunnels along the road.  So we talked about the dangers, and tried to think why the artist chose this pose.  We couldn't really answer that last one.

Raleigh, North Carolina is known as "the City of Oaks".  This large acorn displayed in Moore Square is dropped on New Years each year.

This sand castle also in Moore Square was still standing from the recent arts festival.  It was very neat to see and a great design.

We also stopped in Beckley, WV and visited/went into a Coal Mine....but that's for a post later in the week.

That was almost all of the weird and wacky for this trip, if you are looking for weird and wacky, watch the roadsigns.  If trying to plan ahead, visit Roadside America for the area you are visiting.  Another great way to find places is to google, "off the beaten path (and then add the area's name).

Watch for more of our wacky adventure from our minivan.....

Homeschooling Mothers Journal - Week 10

In my life this week......

I felt like I was always running.  It was constant.... I need to do this, I need to do that!  Did I get it all done....nope.  Can you tell some things....yep.  Do I have a million projects to go....yep.  

I messed up what week of school we are on....it was Week 10, not Week 11.

Joe and I finished our first week in our fitness challenge and I did well.  Lowered my metabolic age from 26 to 22.  Upped my muscle mass, water levels, and only lost 1/2 pound, because I upped my muscle mass.  I wasn't in it for the weight loss, but getting more tone in my abdominal and thigh area.  I did hurt myself running Thursday, so no running for at least a week.  So I started biking yesterday to make up for the lack of running and to keep my muscles from losing some of the momentum I have been gaining.

I took my first zumba class and I LOVE it.  Too bad I can't go this week, but prior commitments keep me from going.  Can't wait to go back though!!

Lydia and Caty had a ton of projects they entered in the county fair, so my last week has been alot of making sure they finished and delivering them.  And then we spent several hours watching judging for them.  I am so proud of their work!!!  Several ribbons for both of them!!

In our homeschool this week.....

The girls finished their work.  Joey almost finished all he was assigned.  I sort of failed in the Brayden department because I wasn't home on Friday and so he decided to not finish his work.  He started Time 4 Learning this week (watch for the upcoming review), and told he me liked it.  But he is also one that will not work independently on his work.  I have to stay on top of him.  I am proud of Joey though!!  He did great.

I have to say, one of my greatest finds has been All In One Homeschool (Easy Peasy).  It has made my planning super easy.  I have 3 kids using this program now.  It is working out very well for us!!  I highly recommend it.

In our kitchen.....

Lydia and I canned Strawberry Chia seed Jam.....oh man is it yummy!!!  Caty and I made several batches of gluten free/allergen friendly chocolate chip cookies.  I also tried making homemade coconut milk.  LOVE IT!!!  And none of the extra junk like you get in the canned.  I am enjoying it in my coffee even.  Lots of stir-fry and ground turkey...extra fresh spinach thrown in.  Lots of quinoa, since they told me my protein levels seems low.  We also got a water cooler from the local Culligan place because we finally have gotten the kids on board with drinking water!!  Yeah!!  The bottle water bill was killing me buying individual bottles and the recycle bin was loaded.  It is cheaper for me to have this than buying the individual bottles.

What I am reading.....

No fiction...that is for sure :(  But Lydia and I will be starting some classics together.  We are debating about Heidi or Anne of Green Gables.  Any opinions which to start first?

My kiddos favorite thing.....

The girls had fun getting ribbons at the fair.  Joey thought it was cool seeing his 4H projects on display.  And of course there is the fair food.  We are pretty strict about fair "fun".  We don't allow them to ride all the amusement rides or play the games constantly.  Those can quickly drain the budget.  We have been there 2 days already and no one has rode any amusement rides.  I will let them maybe tomorrow, not sure yet.  We also allow 1 fair "food" treat.  We try to encourage them to choose from local food stands so the money stays in our county.  Although...no elephant ears yet from any of them....so will have to break down today and let the kids give them some money.  But they are really enjoying seeing all the animals, and Lydia is trying to convince Joe that we need ducks and a rabbit.

Our week in Photos.....

 Our week started out with a Family Picnic with our 4H Club.  It was fun.  This is Lydia's 2nd year in Cloverbuds.  She has so much fun at the meetings.

We had typical schoolwork....Caty worked on coloring in the lines...lol.  We are learning our color songs right now.

She worked on shapes.

Here's Joey doing his Easy Peasy on my desk.  He was having a rough morning, so I let him hide in mine and Joe's office.

Brownie kept trying to catch Lydia's pen while we worked on her Reading Comprehension quiz.

Lydia made cupcakes for her Fair project.  My counters always look dirty...but I swear those are all clean dishes...lol.

Here's her finished product.  They didn't place, there was a lot of competition in this area!!

She did a version of Starry Night out of yarn and ribbon.

The middle picture is Lydia's stained glass marker drawing.

 Lydia's bead sun catcher.

 Her first place for Starry Night Painted with melted crayons.

Lydia with her Strawberry Chia seed Jam....1st place and Best of Show.

Caty's Suncatcher...4rd place.

Lydia's Cloverbud Club Project.

 Joey's First Aid project.

 The poster for his First Aid Project....He did it on choking.

Joey's Snack Attack poster project.

Third Place on her Animal Scrapbook page.

First Place on her Flower photograph (in the upper corner)

 Caty and her Honorable Mention for her Allergen friendly chocolate chip cookie (made with bananas and coconut flour)

 We finished the week off by having friends over and watching movies in our backyard.  We set up a little snack stand and served movie theater snacks.  It was fun!!!

Hope everyone had a great week!!!  Linking up with other Homeschool Families at So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler!

See everyone next week!!!

Final "official" week of Eating the Alphabet

Well we have ate all we could find locally at our stores, with the exception of parsnips....the ones at the store just looked and felt soft and icky.  So I opted away from them.  We also did not find any jicama and no jalapeno...not that she hasn't had them before.

Here's our finished food wall:

We finished the week by having ratatouille with polenta the other day.  It included zuchinni, eggplant, tomato, yellow peppers, and of course the corn in the polenta.  We had fresh papaya this week also.  I am making an effort to include some homemade breakfast items to have more control over the ingredients in the food we are eating.  I am trying to buy more fresh items and of course we are trying to eat fewer processed items.  I bought some great water bottles this week we are waiting on them to arrive.  They filter water as you drink it.  How cool.  I also am going to make an effort to pack more lunches and carry snacks in a bag for our "vanschooling" times.  We also are going to work harder at recycling items and using reusable containers and search out more environmental options.  I'll keep you updated on our journey.



This was a fun book and we are going to do this again over the summer when we can take the book to the Farmers Market and walk up and down the rows to pick out fresh items.  I think that will be a fun trip!!!

Do I really want to get up today?

There are morning people and there are night people.  I don't really know where I fit into that anymore.  When I was younger and single (I'm trying to make myself sound wise with those words:)...), I slept in until I had to leave for work and hopped in my truck headed down to my store and worked all day, sometimes all 13 hours.  Then I would head out with my friends, sometimes to a club or just hang out and watch movies.  I remember several times never going to sleep.  I wasn't a party child, but I definitely functioned better at night.  I still may have a little bit of that in me since I can sometimes stay up most of the night to complete tasks and then get up around 7 to start the next day. 

But now that we have 4 kids, we have unique challenges that face us each morning.  There's fighting and hair to brush.  Sometimes we start school and I realize I haven't even used the brush on my hair yet and I'm usually still in my PJs.  So once I get them going, I head to a quick 10 minute freshen up.  We have a very unique challenge with Joey.  His OCDs swing wide open in the morning and impulse control is non-existent.  We are working on basic self-help morning skills, like making an easy breakfast, getting dressed and hygiene.  But even that is hard for him to handle because his brain is like a bullet train without brakes.  So each day I cringe at the thought of getting up and experiencing those two hours of non-stop bouncing (and I mean bouncing), inability to control the volume in his voice, excessive laughing at absolutely nothing, and non-stop talking.  You can tell around 9:30 that the morning meds have kicked in.  But until then, it is a daily manic episode.  Somedays I can handle it better than others.  But wow somedays I feel like he does in a shopping mall, completely overwhelmed!

Right now Brayden is experiencing something he cannot control.  He is feeling like he is living in his video game.  He cannot seem to control the line between fantasy and real-life at times.  This is one of those mornings.  I keep going in and reminding him to lower his voice and the battle needs to stay at a lower level and in his room.  I'm sure his battle companions will have to visit us and eat lunch with us today.  That seems to be the direction we are pointing in right now.  Especially since he just yelled at his "battle partner" (who only he can see) that he cheated.

I dont' want to sound like I am complaining.  I love my children.  I wouldn't change our decision to homeschool and have them home with us.  But today is one of those reminders that we do not have a typical family.  I cannot wake up and walk out to a Leave It To Beaver kitchen or house.  Most days I walk out and feel like the Munsters exploded all over our house!  And that is our daily life.  At least this morning the breakfast situation was under control and no one tried to create anything....that's always extra messy.  And sometimes very scary looking. 

So in answer to my Post Title...No, I didn't want to get up today.  I was up until 3 am and woke up at 5 by Caty.  Then fell back asleep and woke up again by the phone at 7.  But a mom's job is 24-7...no breaks.  We'll play games later and I'll forget temporarily about all the battles this morning.

Everyone have a great Week.  I am listening to the Homeschool Conference this week.  SOOOO looking forward to this!

Monday Boxes

Well we haven't used our boxes in over a week.  We were on Winter break.  So after helping my hubby with some stuff he had to get done, and unpacking some more junk....I finally got our lesson plans updated for this week.  We had the usual stuff on the schedule like Lydia's Skating Lesson, the boys Agility therapy and their basketball practice.  The boys have their online LEGO club that's sponsored by Currclick.com.  They also have Science Jim class...which we are behind on.  Caty also has a double ear infection...and WOW is she grouchy.  

This will be a center for all of them today.

These are Lydia's workboxes.
We are continuing our study of Daniel.

 We are also continuing our Healthy Eating unit.

 Basic addition facts.

 Phonics

The K12 Language Arts unit is Millions of Cats.  Most of their stuff bores here, so then I have trouble keeping her attention.  So I have gone the way of Story Art on the books.  Helps keep her attention.  I also get responses to questions as she is doing her project!

She will be starting a mini-weather unit.

 This is just a workbook.  I am informally testing her problem solving and visual perception skills.  This workbook seems to be just right for checking some things out.  I will read the directions if needed for a couple pages each day this week.

 Fun poster to make from Nick Jr.  When we piece it together, there are animals that we will need to cut out (I will need to help a little) and then glue them down to make a Diego poster for her wall.  I have one for Caty to work on too.

Now what are the boys working on:

We will be continuing our delayed study of France. 

We will be talking about Force in Science Class.

We will continue our study of Daniel.

 Teaching Textbooks for Math--working on multiplication facts

 Spelling list.  We are going back to basics.  Brayden and Joey are both having trouble with spelling.  I am in the process of ordering All About Spelling for them.  They are not struggling with reading, just spelling words when they need to write them.

 This is in Brayden's boxes.  He loves Word Search puzzles.  Found this at Dollar Tree. 

 Free Reading.  I want to encourage Brayden into more chapter books.  He's resisting, so we are taking it easy.

 Also a Brayden box.  He loves Rush Hour Jr.

 Both boys are finishing their Compound words this week.

 They are both in the first book from Draw Write Now.  They are enjoying it.

 I found this maze book at schoolexpress.com.  I love that website.  I got the annual membership, and it has paid off.  These are great visual perception activities!!!

 Another visual perception.  This is in Joey's boxes.  It's a magnification game.

 Joey loves drawing.  So to encourage detail, I am including this tracing book for him to use

 Both boys are practicing math facts.  These are some clothespins multiplication cards.  Got these from another Yahoo group.

 Joey loves his Dude diary!!!

That's bascially our Monday.  I have to run and get our new plates since today is my birthday....BLAH!!!  Hate the BMV!

Here's a couple things that Caty will be able to do:

Bubbles and shape match:

Letter sounds

Animal match game I download from Homeschool share.

A great matching game from the Front 1.00/2.50 section at Target.

That's our Monday.  It'll be rough getting back into the swing of things, mainly because I am sooo tired.  I need a vacation from our vacation!!!!