A Discovery!

Last night, Tom came running in with a novelty pen that we had gotten at Yellowstone National Park a few years ago. It has a couple glass bulbs at the end filled with blue liquid. When you hold one bulb between you fingers the liquid boils up into the other bulb. Dan explained what was happening and how it worked to them when we bought it but they just looked at him dazed. Last night though, Tom came running in with it exclaiming with excitement that he figured it out. The glass bulbs are a vacuum and water boils at a super low temperature in a vacuum so all it takes in the heat from your fingers to make it boil. It's glass because it has to hold the pressure of the world out and plastic probably wouldn't be able to do that. He had always been irritated that it was glass and breakable. Now, where did he learn that?! Last week, I got an awesome book called "Physics for Entertainment". It's a book of short and entertaining stories explaining physics concepts. It isn't a book you would study, just an interesting book to have laying around to peruse when you have a few minutes to kill. I was doing that one afternoon and was laughing at one of the stories and told it to the boys. The information had been rolling around in their heads for days and when and example came up in real life, they put the story with the example and VIOLA! They had learned something.

Crazy isn't it?! See, this "unschooling" thing can be a lot harder than people think. We have a lot of learning to do so that reading, writing, and discussing is something that is natural in our home. They learn about the world around them because we are all actively in it on a twenty-four hour basis. We are reading, watching, experiencing all the time. And we actually talk to each other. I think that is the biggest key. So many families I see around town just aren't talking to their kids. When we are out, I actually take down notes of things to look up and understand more fully later in front of my kids. And now they are doing it too. I don't make them take notes. I model the behavior I think I want them emulate. We can't know the answers to everything, but we can attempt to get more information. So when we are out and about, the zoo, the museum, the grocery store, out to dinner with a tv on in the corner, if there is something we don't understand, we ask questions. And if the questions can't be answered, we make a note to look it up on the internet later or ask someone about it. An example, we were watching an old movie that took place on an aircraft carrier. In the background, there were people on the deck with different colored shirts. We were curious what that was all about. Uncle John was in the Navy, maybe he knows. The next time we see him, it's the first thing the boys ask about, which launches into an discussion about life on an aircraft carrier from someone who has been there. Pretty cool. Those stories were later translated and asked about of a retired Navy guy at the Air Museum in Palm Springs who was in World War II. They guy was impressed about how much they understood and the questions they had for him, especially since they stood there and talked for over an hour.

Anyway, had to write about the process around here. I know many of my family members are concerned about how we learn since we don't do school. Bottom line, it's simple but I lot harder to achieve than just reading through textbooks and filling in multiple choice tests.

Oh my goodness!

I love it when I'm reading about one thing and it applies to other things. Just now, I was reading "A Year Through the Torah" by John J. Parsons and I read this, "Most of us, I'm afraid, don't want to be free. It's so much easier for us to regard ourselves as pleasing to God on the basis of some litany of rules that we are following." Wow! Ain't that the truth?! Here, he's referring to the reason so many people throughout time have added "religion" to the scriptures and relied on following those man-made rules instead of their own hearts and faith in God. That's mind-blowing in and of itself, but I think that's the same reason people refuse freedom in the secular world as well. Think of homeschooling. Taking responsibility for your own children is a huge task with many life long consequences. I can't blame anyone but myself for how my children turn out. Oh, wait, I could blame them though. :)) Since they ultimately have the freedom to make their own choices, their lives are their own. They have no one to blame but themselves as well. Now, that's a hard pill to swallow. We have chosen freedom. We have chosen to live our lives by God's Will, not our own. I pray daily that the right information will cross my path, that God will provide for us throughout our lives in every way, and the things (or information) that we don't get are apparently not needed in God's eyes.

And this goes for government as well. The small government that people like me promote, is too small to take care of your every need. You must provide for yourself, which means that you may fail. There is no one but you to blame when things go wrong. It means that we, as a people, must educate ourselves about the world and our history. It means that we are responsible and it's a boat load of work and not always safe. Ahh...I'm having a hard time putting this into word coherently. Writing is not my strong point. But I've got the basic idea down "on paper" and I'll write more about it later. Back to the book, but first more coffee!

No Jury Duty!

I never get Jury Duty. :(  I get a letter every year. I call in the night before and they don't need me. Strange that I want to go and never get the chance. It happened again tonight.

No rain today. The black clouds with lighting come in and thunder by but go a couple miles north of us and we sit and swelter in the sun. My friends house hot a boatload of rain yesterday. She got hail and a rushing river for a road and she only lives 10 minutes north of us!

Speaking of that friend, Tom and Jake spent the night over there last night for their friends birthday party. It's the first time they've spent the night at someone elses house besides Grandma. Jake was excited to go but Tom was a bit nervous. I left him my cell phone though and told him to call if he wanted to come home but he didn't. When we picked them up this morning they were out on the quad and go-cart with their friend's Dad. They said they had the best breakfast feast ever and stayed up until 12:30AM! Both were happy they had stayed and want their friend to stay at their house for Tom's birthday.

Let's see...not much else. Oh! There was a big Tarantula on the window in the living room last night! Dan had the light on near a window and there were lots of bugs flying around. I think he was waiting for one to come closer. There was a small scorpion too. Ick! We stood there watching them for a long time to see if we could watch them eat something but I guess they didn't want to have an audience.

Last week the boys were debating whether or not they would continue with karate classes next month. Jake wants to. He likes the class even though it is hot in there. He wants to get yellow belt. Tom doesn't exactly like the class. He doesn't communicate well with the teacher and says that he just doesn't like people. This has come up before quite a few times. Tom doesn't like to do things in groups, large or small. Communicating with other kids can be hard for him and when adults don't take him seriously he get offended. It's hard to explain. He is one of those kids who is smart, knows it, and is eager to show others how smart he is. He comes off as a bit of an ass. He's young. Jake, on the other hand, tends to be low key around others. He's not a show off and listens more than he talks. He would rather be around much younger kids who idolize him. Tom would rather be around older kids. Anyway, the point is that we were talking about continuing the class and it's a "no brainer" for Jake. Tom has decided that putting up with people is just what he will have to do to get the prize (attaining yellow belt) he wants. It's fun talking about options with them and watching them grow and mature. If karate just wasn't their thing and they had no interest in moving up, they'd quit. It is hard to get up and go out every evening for class. It's hot and the lure of one more game or quad ride is pretty strong, but they make that decision for themselves. I think it's good for them to get the hour of exercise and put up with the learning speed of others for a bit every day, especially since they want to move up in rank. But I would like to save the cost of the class, too. So either way they choose is fine with me. I'm just proud that they get the chance to think these things through and make these simpler decisions in preparation for the bigger ones in the future.

The Great California Shake Out!

The big one is coming!! No really, it is! The boys and I went to the High Desert Nature Center today and listened to a woman from the San Bernardino Museum tell us about earthquakes, preparedness, and the Shake Out. She really loves geology! I wish the lecture were less about the Shake Out and more about earthquakes but she made it pretty exciting. There was a lot of stuff we already knew, but some things I hadn't thought about.

One of which is how a large earthquake could effect the whole coast. There was quite a bit of research put into what could realistically happen. These are just educated guesses as to what might have happened in the past and what could happen in the future. That's my only problem with these geologists. What they are pointing out and showing us is mostly just a guess and they present it as if what they see is like a recording of what actually happened. They are looking at clues from thousands of years ago and then telling the story as if there could be no mistake or misunderstanding. I just feel it cheapens the research and wish they would give several different scenarios that may have happened instead of just one history. But the geology is fascinating and her enthusiasm about the subject was infectious. The best was that it was a lecture for adults, not geared toward children, so she didn't dumb it down. The boys were very interested for the first 45 minutes but started to lose it toward the end. Tom had some questions about earthquakes at the end and it was fun to watch him asking.

The other thing that made me think was our emergency preparedness. We've been working on this and have basic supplies ready at home. We have the camper stocked, a "bug-out box" in the truck, and food, water, and medicine around the house. I think telling people that we have emergency supplies in case there is an earthquake would be a great way to get people thinking about preparing their own homes. People just don't think about that kind of thing and they should. There are threats other than earthquakes, but out here they are pretty likely and a larger one could stop our water supply or shut off our electricity for days. In the desert, that could be life threatening. We've done a lot of the little things. When a soda bottle or juice container is empty, I wash it out, fill it with water, and write a date on it. Every months I water the plants with the ones that are six months old and refill them. I also buy two or three more than I need when I'm at the grocery store of things that won't spoil, spam, soup, chili, pasta, etc. Just a little at a time and it doesn't cost much. Besides, it's stuff we use all the time so it doesn't just sit there and spoil. And I've got things like fire extinguishers, propane lamps, gas, etc. in the garage if we need them. All of this will make life easier for us all if something happens to knock out water, electricity, or transportation for awhile and it doesn't cost a lot or go to waste.

Here are some links to what we did today and how you can begin to be prepared at your house.
The Great Shake Out

The Survival Mom

Food Storage Made Easy

A Hot One

It was 108 degrees on my front porch this morning...in the shade. Yuck! I can't complain though. It's been a pretty nice summer so far. I guess we will have to put up with a little extreme heat. It figures though that the motor went out on the swamp cooler yesterday. Dan fixed it though and it's running fine now.

My happy thought for the day is that I love it when my boys drop what they are doing and come running when I ask for help with housework. They may not have a list of things to do every day or do anything on their own really, but if I ask for a hand they are always cheerful with the help they give. Gotta love 'em.

The boys went to the movies with Grandma Ann today to see the new Planet of the Apes. They said it was awesome, except for the previews. There was a preview for Paranormal 3. They said it was a preview that you have to close your eyes, plug your ears, and sing a happy song over. While they were gone, I played Crash on the Wii! I was sitting there zooming through levels and noticed a bunny hop by outside the window. When I looked to see where he was going I noticed three more under the bushes. We have the water run off from the swamp coolers down there and they were all laying around in the wet sand. I watched them stretch up high to get some green and pull it down. They scratched a bit in the sand to uncover the cool and then stretch out on their bellies. It was adorable!

I went out to water my garden today and found a dead snake there. He got in there somehow and I guess he couldn't get out and died of the heat during the day. Poor guy. He had a black head and a long pink tail. Just little. I guess I'll check the garden in the AM as well as the evening so it doesn't happen again. I hate it when animals die because of my garden. I don't mind the boys killing squirrels but a snake getting stuck bothers me. Even if he was so dumb he couldn't get out. Survival of the fittest, I guess.

Computer Time

Tom and Jake have been working on making movies with Xtra Normal all day. Jake made one that was a conversation between Lincoln and Washington. It is pretty darn funny.

idk just check it out
by: monkeyhead03

Tom's hasn't been published yet. He's still working on it.

Tom had Nikki make him a "Math Quiz" this morning and he spent a good amount of time solving the ten problems she gave him. I think he likes the challenge!

Ice Cream

We made ice cream today! Real kind! Dan got us an ice cream machine at "The Mart of Wal" because it was on clearance. $20! Sweet! So now our freezer is stocked up with the best ice cream ever.

We were reading a bit of a book called "Mathemeticians Are People, Too" today. We read about LeGrange, which led us to the metric system, which led us to dividing and mulitplying by 10's and 100's, which led us to fractions. The white board got a lot of use today. Did you know that a "meter" is one ten millionth of the length from the north pole to the equator? That's just nuts!

The boys are talking about not doing karate next month. They are just not big fans of the sport and don't feel that it is worth the money. Tom really wants to play football. Jake says he always gets hurt when he plays football so he doesn't like that idea.

Mad Libs still rocks, by the way. We've been doing Star Wars and Indy Jones ones for the past few days. Hilarious! And I have to keep going back to the instructions because I can't remember what an adverb is.

It wasn't my imagination!

Last night I thought I heard the bass of someone's party nearby. It reminded me of Anaheim and I thought we were done with that. Grr... I finally fell asleep but it took a long time. Then today, I'm folding laundry, and I hear it again. I turn the fan off to hear it better to find out what the noise is and it stops. It's the swamp cooler on the roof! I told Dan about it and he and the boys went up on the roof to check it out. Sure enough, the belt is loose and there is a nut missing. Ha! It wasn't my imagination or a wild party AND it's fixable! Yay!

The earth has tilted enough back towards winter that the sun does not blind me though the window in the evening. I love how much I notice the changing of the seasons here. I told Dan that I want one of those bad-ass weather stations for my birthday. You know, the one that has the wind speed, rain gauge, maybe even hooks up to the computer to keep track of things. It would be so cool!

Oh! They came in. The swamp cooler is fixed! Coolness...literally. :))

Giving up a Book

We started reading "The Green Hill of Nendrum" by J.S. Andrews a few weeks ago. The cover drew us in and the description seemed promising, but reading it out loud became tedious. We got about 40 pages into it and finally gave up. I'm not sure why we weren't liking it exactly. Maybe because we couldn't relate to the story of a sea-faring boy from Ireland. But we couldn't see slogging through a book that just wasn't catching us. We've moved on to "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NHIM". I love that movie!

The boys went out to Old Dale to shoot the new gun with Dan this morning, even in this heat. We watched "Apocolapse Now". Bad idea, now I'm bummered. And now they are taking turns riding the quad around the driveway. Too hot for me though!

I'm inside writing this and then I'm going back to my knitting. I bought all of the yarn in the color I needed from Wal-mart a couple weeks ago and started a project. I knew I would need more but it wasn't any special yarn, so I figured they would get more soon. It's been two weeks and the spot is still empty. I should have known. The store out here is notorious for empty shelves. Grr...

Yo Yo Tom

Here is an awesome video of Tom and his yo-yo tricks. Jake is in the foreground because Tom is pretending that I'm taking Jake's picture so that he doesn't feel watched. That is when he messes up...more. Too bad I don't have a head cam because before I got the camera Tom says, "I can do round the world with my eyes closed!" then throws the yo-yo out and around and into his head and fell dead. That would have been an America's Funniest Video winner for sure!

My Tetrahedron Kite

Like it?!

Got a New Book!

Or really, a few good books. Who can get just one?! They arrived in the mail yesterday. I ordered "Physics for Entertainment" by Yakov Perelman and I'm loving it. Lots of cool stuff explained in a fun way. Yesterday he explained why you can't just drop a brick from a plane with a note on it and have it land on your friends house. The boys quickly told me that's why they have these cool sights on bombers. And there was another one about jumping up and the earth rotating under you. It won't work that way! Something about you cannot change the laws of physics man! :)) The boys swear that the train does move under you and you land in another place because they've tried it but I say they didn't jump straight up but rather back or forward a little.

The other books were more "Fudge" books, the ones by Judy Blume. Tom and Jake love those and they didn't have two of them at the bookstore the last time we were there. It's funny to watch them read those and joke about them together. I remember them from when I was a kid.

Today I built a Tetrahedron kite. I showed the boys what I was doing. They were interested in the shapes but not so much with the tying and glueing. It was a bit time consuming and fine motor skilled for them. But they were interested in trying to fly it. It wouldn't go up though. Maybe some fine tuning by Dad and some stronger wind will get it going later. We shall see. I got the directions here - http://gw011.k12.sd.us/buildingkite.htm

Let's see, what else. Grocery store. Laundry. Cleaned the bathroom. What Dan likes to call my "regular chores". It makes me happy when the boys see laundry folded on my bed and they put it away.

It's hot. I'm tired of hot. Summer is boring. Can't wait for it to cool off and we can go out to park days again and enjoy people's company for a change!

Big Day!

It was huge! There are few instances when our family finds getting up at the crack of dawn a good idea, but this was one of them. The boys flew with the Young Eagles today! They were having an event today at Big Bear City Airport so we got there at 8:30AM to sign up. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for flying. We signed up and went outside to wait. There were lots of kids there already but we only had to wait an hour before they called the boys names. Dan and I were both a bit nervous as we watched them get into an airplane and taxi down the runway with Tom next to the pilot! They flew for about half an hour out over the desert and over the lake. They both got a chance to be co-pilot and loved every minute of it. They looked like they were going to explode coming up the ramp to get back to us. The pilot gave them both a picture and a certificate and a logbook so they can keep track of thier flight time. Tom said he didn't notice they were up in the air until he looked out and saw the building below! Jake loved flying and said it was pretty bumpy up there at times. They both can't wait to do it again. Maybe we will have a couple pilots in the family!



After the flight, Dan took us all out for burgers at "Get the Burger", our favorite place. The boys told us all about the flight, what they could see from up there and again how much they loved it. Tom wonders how the Young Eagles make money doing this, since it's free and run by volunteers. Jake doesn't care as long as he gets to try it again. He says it was one of the best days of his life.

We visited the Big Bear Historical Museum before we headed down the mountain since it was only 11AM. The place is only open on the weekends in the summer and we rarely come up on weekends. We loved it! And highly recommend anyone go. The people there are the nicest and they have lots of old west stuff to look at. The Blacksmith and the guy helping the kids pan for "gold" were the greatest. It's cheap and lots of fun.





Now the kids are all taking turns riding the quad around the neighborhood before it gets dark. I just heard a loud squealing with laughter and a lot of dirt flying so it looks like Dan is having a bit of fun showing off for them. All of them have been driving it around the driveway. Tom LOVES driving anything!

I'm sure all of us will sleep well tonight!

Good Morning

I got up at 6:30 today. Earlier this morning the power went out for a minute. That happens a lot. :(

There are a few high scattered clouds. I hope that isn't a sign that the humidity coming back. The quail are making a racket outside. The babies are out and about and it is so funny to watch them all run around looking for specks to eat. I haven't seen them at the chicken feed yet, but I did watch a very brave cottontail eat right alongside one of the chickens yesterday.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

This past week was my Dad's birthday and Big Bear City Airport just happened to be having their Air Fair this weekend, so we went together. It was a fun day. Getting the boys up early and out the door was a challenge as usual. It really isn't all their fault though. I'm not much of an early riser either and between me and them, well, let's just say it wasn't easy.

We had hoped to get there earlier so that we could see the parchuters, but we had a massacre last night in the chicken yard! That dumb dog of ours barks all night, keeping me up, and then during the morning, something got into the chicken yard and killed three of our reds. She didn't bark at all then. Dumb dog! So I found two dead chickens (without bites), one inside and one outside the fence. And one is missing. I'm not sure what happened, but there is a hole under the fence where the water is run, so we filled it up. Now we are down to six chickens.

When we arrived at the airport, the parachutes we coming down. Tom was disappointed but he soon forgot about it because there we lots of planes to see. He loves them. Then both went on a bounce house slide thing and we got some roasted almonds. It was a great morning. The Young Eagles people were super nice talking to the boys. They told us that they will be having an event at the airport next Saturday and they can get a ride in a small airplane. So we WILL be going back for that. There were Bi-Plane rides at the Fair for $99 but that is going to have to wait.

After we saw all the planes, we went over to Village Pizza for lunch. They have the best pizza! And then the boys took Grandpa on the toboggan slides nearby. They had a blast and it was fun hanging out with the family all day. We were exhausted when we got home. Too much sun and pizza, I guess!

Here are the photos!

Happy new "school" year!

Today is the first day of Liberty Academy's 2011/2012 school year! Our school has two students in attendance, both of which had perfect attendance last year AND completed all the requirements to pass on to the next grade. It's really a paperwork day for me. I've updated everything to this current "school year" and filed away last years attendance record and course of study. I love reading over it and realizing how much of the typical course of study we cover without even thinking about it.

It's a most wonderful day in the desert today. The humidity has gone away so the evening was cool and the sky is clear blue again. The swamp coolers will do wonders today! It may be too hot to work in the sun, but the shade is marvelous and coming indoors is a relief. I can't stand the humidity, can you tell?

I finished my Austrian Economics class this week. Yesterday was our last online discussion. That class was worth all the time I put into it. If we all had more education about economics, I can't imagine what our country would get done! I'm looking forward to the next class, but for now I went back to my Plutarch and I'm reading about Caesar right now. That guy was a amazing!