Shopping Day

We drove down to Redlands today to get the last few pieces of Jake's Cub Scout uniform that we couldn't find here in town. It's a nice shop! I'm going to make that a stop more often. We also went to Michael's because Jake made ornaments at his meeting last night and wants to make more for his friends and family. We picked up some beads and pipe cleaners. When we got home he immediately broke into it and made Nikki and Tom make a few ornaments. I got a bracelet!

We also stopped at the San Bernardino County Museum. We checked out the birds and eggs. Very cool. Jake found this huge egg from an extinct bird called the Elephant Bird. When we got home he looked for it online and found more information about it. It looks like an ostrich. Tom was fascinated with the exhibit about hydro-electric generators. I love watching them at places like this. They really show their true colors. Bit by bit we build up our knowledge base without worksheets and boring videos. It's amazing! We even got into scientific classification!

We made it a good day.

No really. I'm working on it. I got most of the chores I needed to done and even went for a walk with the boys. That's one they we really need to do more often. We don't get half as much exercise as we should. We saw a red tail hawk while we were out and it made several cool hawk screams for us. I tried to get a picture but couldn't. He was moving too fast. Maybe next time.

Jake had a few things to finish for Cub Scouts so we worked on those. He's adorable. He loves Cub Scouts and will do just about anything they ask him to. He wrote a thank you note to his uncle for serving in the Navy, an invitation for Dad to go the Christmas Party, a To-Do list, and a paragraph about his favorite thing in Cub Scouts so far. It was about the big Cub Mobile Race. He also drew a picture, learned about mixing colors, and then painted a flower for his Art Belt Loop. Tonight we are going to take a video of him helping me make dinner for his cooking belt loop. And there was no begging and pleading on my part. He did the begging of me to help him. :))

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Another wonderful family holiday has come and gone. It was a pretty nice one for us. Thanksgiving Day we spent at home. I made the traditional favorites while the family watched TV and played all day. We watched a bit of the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV. I used my Grandma's special dishes for our fancy dinner. Afterward I was beat. It was fun, though. Tom loves all traditions and was raving about all his favorite foods in one place. Jake said something was missing and got a little sad. I think he was upset a bit that we didn't have a bunch of family over. He gets that way sometimes, but if we had everyone over he would find something else to be sad about. He is pretty emotional about holidays or any event that he has been looking forward to. It never meets his expectations and he feels let down no matter what happens.

Friday we laid around doing nothing. I knitted a lot and relaxed, cleaned up the kitchen.

Saturday we went to my Dad and Step-Mom's for the big Turkey Taco Feast! The kids were pleasantly surprised by the bounce house in the front yard when we got there. The funny part was that they were telling Grandma Ann that Grandpa Bob always has a surprise for them even if it was a little one. They were yelling "See! See!" as we pulled up. The day was spent playing games, eating, and talking with the family. They liked having time to spend with one of their littlest cousins.

Sunday we finished all the cleaning up, well most of it, and dragged all the Christmas boxes from the storage shed up to our porch. Jake was in charge of this. He was adamant about getting it all out. Luckily he only wanted to pour through the boxes and get his favorite Christmas decorations out. He decorated his computer desk! I was going to hang the outside lights but it was so stinkin' cold and the wind was blowing so hard!

Dan and Jake tore apart the front bathroom shower. They are going to put a new surround in so that we can have two working showers. Yay! Jake is a great helper. He loves to make people happy. And he is intuitive about what needs to be done and how he can help without being in the way. It's pretty darn adorable watching him work on things with Dad. :)

Out of the Comfort Zone

That was me today! I did it though. I talked to someone last week about interviewing them for our statewide groups newsletter. Today I called her and went over there to talk. Yay for me! There is a homeschooling family in town that runs a traveling go-cart track. We've seen them here before and we saw that they were back last week. It was great talking with them and learning about their family. Now if I can only write an article about it to do the family justice. Luckily I think Nikki will help me.

From Go-Carts

Today was a very productive day. I had other things I needed to do that usually make me uncomfortable. I made a reservation for a group tour at the windmills in Palm Springs. That should be a fun trip. It is a little expensive, but it looks fascinating.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Especially the traditional turkey tacos at my Dad and Step-Mom's!

Star Gazing

Tom had set up the telescope in the front of the house earlier this evening and I promised I would help him get it aligned after dinner. But we forgot until almost 9PM. I'm glad he made me go out anyway!

We couldn't get the computerized thing to work but we did get it pointed at a couple stars and the moon. I'm not impressed by the stars through the telescope. They are much better as constellations to me. But the moon was amazing. You can see so many details. We were noticing that one side is a lot smoother than the other.

While we were getting it set up, Jake was playing with the flashlight and suddenly he whispers "OWL!" He said he noticed that there was a strange silhouette on top of a joshua tree and he pointed his flashlight at it and there he was. He was only about 20 feet away from us, watching. When we tried to get closer he flew over us to another tree. It was so quiet! Then he flew away to better hunting grounds. I guess we were scaring all the rodents back in their holes with all our noise. Later we heard an owl hooting far off.

So it was a pretty nice time after all. I'm going to try to wake up early and see if there are any meteors. The Leonids are supposed to show themselves after 4am.

Very Busy Day

Yesterday was busy and today I'm getting a good start so far. I made a list of things I want to get done every day and once a week.

I do feel like I'm running around in circles a lot though.

Such Harshness

I was reading an article this morning about a couple kids that were selling baked goods at their local park. A town councilman called the police because they didn't have a permit. The police came and told them to shut the cart down. They were in violation of city laws. I can understand that. No need to freak out at the councilman or the police. These weren't little kids, selling their wares for a quarter, they were 13 years old. To me, part of being an entrepreneur is researching the laws pertaining to the business you would like to open and their parents should have helped them with that.

What I'm really upset about is the comments on the article. Don't people realize that there are other people at the other end of those keyboards? The comments were so rude to each other. It was as if they wanted those people killed or something. When I read an article and the comments, I'm looking for what is going on in the world, how people are thinking and what they are thinking about. I'm trying to have a bit of understanding for the world. And if I comment I'm trying to make people see my point of view and hope that they will understand how another side of the issue may feel.

Those comments have stuck with me for over an hour even after going and reading something more positive. I can't imagine how the posters of those comments feel. Yuck!