Snow Daze

Wednesday - drive to post office to mail mom her computer cable that she left at her CA house. Sent express mail. Could have ordered on online for same price. Pine Canyon was snowy/icy back and forth. My windshield wiper blade falls off! I stop several times to try to fix it. Blade is fine, cheap plastic thingy that attaches it is broken. Drive with squeaky empty blade arm scratching the window. Stop again, wrap paper towel around end of arm. No more nails-on-blackboard sound. Continue home.

New rocky rivers trying to cross our roads near home. I called work to say I wouldn't be in due to road conditions. They had 15 people call in sick. Dave later said the 5 was not completely closed and that I could probably get to work. Dave installs new windshield wiper blade. I head out, get on the 5 no problem. They are escorting over the grapevine. I make it to work. Had a 2-hour class after work..

The drive home after class on Thursday morning:
Got on the fwy. Saw sign that said Prepare To Stop. Oh. Wait. That means... Can I get off the freeway before the Prepare To Stop happens? Nope. Missed that last exit. Wait on I-5 in the rain. Moving 2 miles per hour. Takes 2 hours to go the last 2 miles where the CHP is having everyone exit the fwy. I hadn't slept in the last 30 hours.

Finally, off the freeway in Castaic. I make a pit stop at a Starbucks. Eat food. Call Grandma, Dave, friends. Head home via Lake Hughes Rd. Rainy, but not so bad. Snow at the top in Lake Hughes. Head home through snowy Pine Canyon. More snow there than day before. Icy in places. Stopped and had to go around a big rig (what was he doing on this road? Ah, avoiding the 5!) putting chains on his tires. Further on, another small car had slid off the shoulder. Stopped at a nice flat spot, got boots on and offered to help push car back on road. Another vehicle happens by, a pick-up truck. Guy in truck had rope. He and the stranded guy know each other. I went on my way. Slowly. Thinking there is not snow at my house.

Home Sweet Home! There is snow! Saw big tree branch that fell off at the rental house. Looks like it didn't land on anything vital. Dave has some chainsaw work this weekend.

Inside warm house. Call to postpone Build-a-Bear Birthday party. Sleep.

Life is Good 2009

We're gearing up for the GoodVibrations Unschooling Conference coming up this week! I remembered I hadn't done anything with the few Life is Good pictures I took in May. I was inspired by Mandy's slide show. I followed the link from hers and had a blast creating my first slide show!

Unplanned Vacation

On January 20th of this year, Dave became unemployed. Today, April 27th, Dave has started work at a new job. While we will be happy to have the full-time income again, the change is bittersweet. I'll miss him. While he was unemployed, I continued at my part-time job 2 days a week. That was mostly enough to keep our heads above water and I could pick up extra shifts here and there when needed. Losing a job is scary. If it had taken longer for Dave to find another job, I may have found myself working a lot more. We are thankful things worked out the way they did. It was a happy time here.

Dave worked on several projects around here that we already had most of the supplies for. He hauled large rocks from our field over to the side of the house. He used them to build stone steps at the side of our front porch and a rock border around the front and side gardens. They look beautiful! He poured a new concrete floor for the girls' playhouse in a new location, moved and rebuilt the playhouse. Our vegetable garden is all tilled and partially planted. The tractor project got some attention.

AND!

He spent lots of time with the girls. We spent so much time together as a family. I have SO enjoyed this time! It was so wonderful to see Dave's relationship with our daughters grow.

It was a glimpse of what our lives could be like without a "typical" work schedule. It is an inspiration to think about how we could have a vacation like this again, without defaulting on loans and without waiting for official retirement age - whatever that is.

-Jenny

How to make a candy roll-up (October 2008)

While camping at Carpinteria in October, Melissa
demonstrated how to make a candy roll-up.
A California Roll, candy style.

First the ingredients:
sour rainbow strip candy and gum tape.

Then lay them together,
and roll 'em up!

Viola!

Almost a White Christmas

Not quite. We had our snowstorm that dumped about a foot of snow in our neighborhood the week before Christmas. We had a blast playing in it. We were glad we didn't have to be anywhere else.

Most all of it melted by Christmas Day.

We're swingin'

Saturday, we picked up our new swing set. Well actually, it's about 15 years old, but it's new to us! We are so excited! We have my brother and his family to thank for this donation. He and his father-in-law built the swing set when my niece was 2 years old. It's made out of 10.5 foot steel pipes and built so strong that an adult can swing on it. They even made a glider for it. Dave and my brother spent 3 hours taking it apart on Saturday. They were able to fit it INSIDE the minivan for the hour-and-a-half drive home. Dave spent most all of Father's Day putting it together. He still has the glider to finish. What a DAD! It needs a new coat of paint, and the glider seats need re-upholstering. But otherwise it was operational today. The girls had a blast swinging together this afternoon. Linda was swinging herself on her without someone pushing her for the first time today. Yay!!

LIFE is Good 2008

We just returned home from Vancouver, Washington, where we experienced LIFE is Good for the second time. It was a wonderful and exhausting experience! We connected with friends from last year, and made new friends. Linda and Melissa played with their new friends every waking moment they could. Karen hung out with old and new friends, hosted a funshop, sold her hand-painted wooden spinning tops, swam in the pool. We saw the amazing Amy Steinberg in concert. Enjoyed the opening band, The Vibrations. Very cool.

Still decompressing, processing, reliving moments from an amazing weekend.
It's a Wide Sky Life!

-Jenny

Theater - A Cat in the House

October 15 Karen auditioned for a Missoula Children's Theater production of Cinderella.

She was cast as Cleo the Cat and really enjoyed the part. This was her fourth Missoula play and her first where she had a solo part instead of being one of a group. They come to town twice a year and Karen auditions every time.

Missoula Children's Theater is an international touring children's theater. The tour team of two directors arrives in town with set, props, costumes, make-up. Local kids, ages 5-17, audition on a Monday and perform on Friday and Saturday of the same week. It's amazing what comes together in that short time!

It's Harvest Time!

I love Fall Colors!

Camping at the Beach in October!

October 8-12
The girls and I went camping at Carpinteria State Beach with CHN (California Homeschool Network). I did not bring my camera on this trip, so I've relied on my friends for photos. Here's a great slideshow of the trip. We had a wonderful time. Some of the activities included: exploring the tide pools, salt marsh field trip, mini geological dig, weaving, knitting, crocheting, playing in the sand and waves, a talent show, campfire fun, yoga on the beach (yay!) & connecting with friends old and new.

My friend, Karin, got this great shot of Linda with her seaweed "fishing pole."

Backpacking

Labor Day weekend, Karen & Dave backpacked at Click’s Creek in the Golden Trout Wilderness.

About a week after they got back Dave hurt his knee while he and Karen were on a walk in preparation for another backpacking trip they planned to do mid-September. He ended up with arthroscopic knee surgery to repair torn meniscus. He's on the mend and already talking about planning trips for next year! We want to take the whole family on a backpacking trip in the coming year.

A Beautiful Gift

Yesterday, as we were leaving our homeschool Park Day, Karen says from the back of the car, "How about if I make dinner while you and Dad relax together and Linda and Melissa watch a movie?"

Really? OK!

When we pulled into our driveway, Dave was just coming out of the house. He had also just gotten home and was getting ready to go for a walk. Karen got her sisters set up with a movie, got out the walkie-talkies, turned them on, handed me one, and sent us out the door. So, Dave and I headed out for a walk TOGETHER! Just the two of us!

When we returned from our walk, Andrea Bocelli was playing on the cd player, and the table was set with a fresh green tablecloth. Karen was whipping up some buttery scrambled eggs, and had some fried eggs already on a serving plate. We got out of her way - it's easy to want to offer "helpful" advice and she was doing just fine on her own. After cooking the eggs, she set about making blueberry muffins from the recipe in her American Girl Samantha cookbook. A few minutes later, she called us all to dinner and we enjoyed delicious eggs, yummy blueberry muffins and romantic music. It was a wonderful peaceful evening.

It was such a joy to receive this special gift from our lovely daughter, given straight from her heart.

Thank you, Karen!!

Learning to Read

I had been wondering how reading happens. It is difficult to "see" how someone learns to read, to really see the process that is going on inside. A while back I decided to ask Karen how she thought she learned to read. Here is how the conversation went.

I (Mom) ask Karen, “How did you learn how to read?”

Karen: “I don’t know.”

Mom: “Can you remember when you couldn’t read, and then you could? Remember when you used to read the BOB books?”

Karen: “Zoophonics helped”

We talked a little about my memory of when Karen read her first Bob book by herself. She doesn’t seem to remember it, but I told her how excited she was bouncing on the bed “I can read!”

Mom: “But then you stopped reading for me. Remember when we used to take turns reading? I read some of the page, you read some of the page?”

Karen: “Oh yeah, the easy reader chapter books. I like books with bigger words. I like you to read Nancy Drew to me because of words like Pierrot.” [Nancy Drew and friends find a life-size Pierrot puppet in The Clue of the Dancing Puppet…]

Mom: “So how do you think you learned to read after we stopped doing Bob books and you stopped reading out loud to me?” (Karen was never fond of the take-turns-reading-aloud thing.)

Karen “I taught myself. It’s like the world is full of words and there are words all around me all day and every day. And the words are like… cookies and I slowly eat them up day by day.”
***

Happy Mother's Day!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Outdoor fireplace!

A few weekends ago, Dave moved a wood-burning stove/fireplace into the garden. It looks like a funnel turned upside down, with a curved opening for adding firewood. I picture it having been in someone's cabin in the '70s. Dave's parents found it at a yard sale (I think) some years ago and passed it along to us. Yesterday, we enjoyed a fire out there for the first time. I was able to sit outside with my knitting warm by the fire. We brought snacks, blankets, and had a great time.
-JC

Poetry

"It is a beautiful quiet morning

i make believe you sing to me love
inside I laugh and cry for you are
my mother"

Karen posted this on the fridge last July using magnetic poetry tiles. She then wrote the words down on two notecards - one for me, as you see here, and one for Dave with "mother" changed to "father" at the end.
-JC

Corn Husk Dolls

Karen got up early one morning last week so she could get started making corn husk dolls. The day before, she shucked six ears of corn and laid the husks out in the sun to dry. The instructions we printed out from the internet said to dry them in the sun for one to three days. The evening before, while Karen was at choir practice, Linda and I went to Wal-Mart. (We were after a black headband that is to be part of Karen’s choir uniform). On the way to the check-stand I spotted a package of corn husks and picked them up. Karen was very happy not to have to wait for her husks to dry. These store-bought tamale husks are also bigger. Karen studied the photo illustrated instructions here for a more detailed step-by-step description of the process. I think they turned out great! She had already drawn faces on them when we read the story of the corn husk doll. The story explains why corn husk dolls are made without faces. So she made one more that does not have a face. Later Karen tried to wash the faces off the others. The ink did not wash off, so she decided that those dolls are Sister Corn before she loses her face. So we have lots of "before" Sister Corn dolls and one "after". See the cute red-head faceless doll on the far right?

Karen Says:

I just joined the Antelope Valley Children’s Choir. I am very excited! And I can’t wait to go to rehearsals on Mondays. This week is a special week of my first rehearsal, which is on Tuesday. I’m going to get a t-shirt and a folder with my music in it. I love our teacher, Ms. Schuette. I’m looking forward to lots of rehearsals with her. I’ll keep you posted.

First Post!

Welcome to our blog. I'm hoping to keep family and friends informed of our family's activities and homeschooling journey.

P.S. This is my third try at setting this up. Hope it works!