Sea World!

Yes, we went to Sea World again! I can't believe it. We haven't been in over 5 years and then we go twice in a month. My Grandma had tickets and wanted to meet us there for the day. She used to take me there when I was little and it was fun to do it again.

Here they are being silly with their Great-Grandma! It was her birthday and they did their best to show her a good time, including taking her on Journey to Atlantis for a good soaking wet roller coaster ride!

This was my favorite part. Sea World has a place where you can feed the sea lions little fishes (4 for $5 Ahhh!). But it was SO worth it. This one kept standing there with is face right next to the boys with his mouth open as if to say "Throw those fishes right here kid!".

Children's Museum of La Habra

This place is great! The temporary exhibit is a theater. They have a small stage set up. Backstage is a costume and makeup room, a scene shop, prop shop, ticket booth. Out in the house there is a sound booth with working buttons and a light booth with working switches for the stage lights. We spent a good hour in here!

The picture above makes me proud! While their friends were off getting their costumes on, here come my boys. This was completely not prompted. I was sitting in the audience and they went straight for the scene shop stuff. For those that don't know me, that is what I did in high school and college. Theater was my pre-mom career.

This is one of their permanent exhibits. There a whole bunch of real animals there that they are perfectly welcome to touch. This lion was a favorite!

LA Maritime Museum

I'd have to say this was $6 and gas well spent! It is a very small museum. There were lots of model ships, few "artifacts", but the kids liked it. They spent about an hour inside. Most impressive to them was this gun off a battleship that you could really sit on and turn around to aim at things.

 Right next door is an Acapulco's restaurant not to mention Ports of Call. If I had more money today I would have spent more time in San Pedro.

More about "A Thomas Jefferson Education"

So part of learning from the classics is to write about it and discuss. I can't really discuss right now because I'm still searching for a "mentor" myself, but I can write about what I am learning.
 

The part that struck me most today was this, "The stories we associate ourselves with, whether they be the Bible or Moby Dick, become powerful in our lives and when the time comes to make tough decisions we fall back on them in order to decide."

This made so much sense to me. Learning from the classics seemed so vague to me before this. I mean, what can you learn and apply to your life from a fictional novel? Are we only to read non-fiction and essays? But with this I have learned that when we read and discuss what we have read, write about it, and re-read it, we take into ourselves what has happened to people in the books we have read and use their decisions to help us make our decsions. It makes so much sense to me now.

Also, even if I don't like a book (or my sons don't like a book) discussing why I didn't like it and how I might make things different is part of education itself.

Whew, just writing that little bit was mentally exhausting! I really need to have more practice. I really wish there was a way for me to learn to write better. I need to research that out.

I'm Reading Another Book

This is one that I have been planning on reading since last years California Homeschool Network Expo! "A Thomas Jefferson Education for the Twenty-First Century" by Oliver Van DeMille

I heard him speak last year and loved his lecture so much. I bought the CD version of his book and I'm thinking I should have just bought the book. It is hard to listen and take notes for me. I'm constantly rewinding! But I got through the first of four CD's this afternoon.

Here is my favorite quote so far. What we have in the US is "widespread specialization complemented by arrogance, pride, and general ignorance. This is the legacy of Germany in the 1930's, a highly trained but under educated people easily swayed by Hitler."

The piece of information that I feel that will help me with educating myself and my children? "Structure time to study not learning." An example, set aside an hour each day to study math in general, not what math will be learned and mastered in that hour. There is no time table for learning. We all do not have to have learned how to add by the time we are 5 years and 6 months old. But we should be studying math at least 15 minutes a day by that age and more as we get older and our minds can concentrate for longer periods of time.

Knott's Berry Farm!

Our cousins are here from Arizona! Of course, where do we take them? Knott's Berry Farm! For those that may know me that may come as a shock. I'm a big Disneyland fan and living so close, we have passes. Besides Dan and I both worked there. It is where we met! But we also worked at Knott's way back. But that isn't why we went. The kids love the roller coasters and the cousins are older like our big sis, so we went.

 

I braved it. Five kids, by myself, and it was 100 degrees today! Typical! But we had a blast. Tom and Jake are too little for just about everything, so they were pretty mad. They took it well though. They went on the train, the log ride, the stage coach, and the dragon swing. I finally got to ride the silver bullet. Loved it!

These kids were awesome! It was so fun to drag them around to all my favorite rides and they were so nice about it. The park was not busy at all and when it did start to pick up (crowds and heat) we came home. They were so nice about it that Uncle Kirk took them back for another round after dinner. My two littlest stayed home though. Honestly, they understood that there was really nothing else for them to ride. They don't know about Camp Snoopy. I'll save that for another time!

Uncle Ken & Aunt Julie

Uncle Ken and Aunt Julie arrived on Sunday for a week long visit from Belleville, Illinois! The kids are all so excited. The boys have never met them in person, but they hear lots about them and their cousin Natalie has come to stay with us in summers passed.

 
They all broke out the guitars on Sunday night for a small concert. Ken plays the Mandolin and Dad plays the guitar. Nikki has been taking self lessons and Tom and Jake play their pretend guitars. Jake got a Ukelele for his birthday last March and he loves to play with it. They sit there and play along with their Dad and Uncle.

 

Jake looks like he is sleeping, but really he is giving a serious solo concert for us. He doesn't play the guitar really but strums that broken electric guitar like he really knows what he is doing. He sang several songs for us including the theme from Star Wars, "In Heaven there is no beer", and the deer camp song, and ending with the National Anthem.

On Monday, Grandpa Larry and Grandma Rita came for a visit as well. That's Dad's Dad and Step-Mom.

Uncle Ken helped Dan out by fixing his Mom's toilet. He is a plumber and Ann loved to get him to help while he is out here. Tom stuck to him like glue and made sure he learned everything he could about plumbing during the project. It is really funny watching Tom right now. He is fascinated by just about everything his uncle does or says and is really soaking it all in. Ken is so patient with him too. Tom has found another hero!