Halloween!

I finally cleaned out all my Halloween decoration boxes from storage! I had so many because our front porch in Anaheim was perfect for a huge fall display that I put up at the beginning of October and left until the end of November. It was gorgeous. On Halloween, I'd change it over to spooky for Trick-or-Treaters and then back again the morning after. It was fun.

But now I don't have Trick-or-Treaters or a big front porch, so there is nothing to really decorate up. I did make this small display though! The raven on top used to sit on my chandelier in the livingroom year around at our old house. Now he sits there, guarding my front door. His name is Nevermore.

So the boxes and cleaned out and the stuff I'm not using anymore is off to the thrift store. And the boxes are packed away in the greenhouse (turned storage room). I do have my fall display still out and there is only box for that!

Our Halloween tradition since we moved out to the desert is to make a costume the day before and then go to Great-Grandpa Ray's on Halloween Day.

We headed out early, since we had a couple stops to make on the way. Chili thinks that she is going too! We took her camping with us, now she jumps in the truck if we start loading things.

We stopped at Dowling's Orchard in Beaumont to get some pumpkins for carving. This is also tradition. They only have about fifteen big pumpkins left and I'm always disappointed that they don't discount them on Halloween day. Two awesome things happened while were there though. There was a cyclist there that was biking across California and asked us to take a picture of him at the pumpkin patch. AND we sat and watched what we thought were two hang gliders twirling above us, but turns out they were huge white and gray birds! We couldn't figure out what they were, but they were hanging on thermals for the longest time and never flapped, so we thought they were hang gliders. Then the flapped their wings and took off. Crazy.

Next stop was Barnes & Noble. It's on the way and I needed two books for my book club. Tom and Jake are always up for B&N. Jake was looking for a specific Beatles album he doesn't have yet, but they didn't have it. He was on his way out and found a book called "Splinter Cell". It's based on Tom Clancy characters from a video game. Doubt that it is really written for ten year olds, but he has been sucked in and loves it. He says he likes it because it has a lot more details and descriptions of scenes than books for younger audiences.

When we got to Grandpa's house he was decorating for the evening's festivities. We brought him the big Jack-o-lantern balloon that we used to have in our yard. I think it actually belongs to my Mom. It fit perfect! We got to carving pumpkins and had our usual fun with that.

Grandpa got the seeds all out so he could bake them up. I love pumpkin seeds!


 Jake was having a hard time getting the top off his. It was really thick! But he did the entire thing all by himself. Even most of the guts.

Tom with his creation!

Jake with his pumpkin man!

After carving, we cleaned up and got some sandwiches from Subway and had a big dinner. Then the waiting for nightfall began....

Tom giving Mickey a lobotomy.

Jake getting sucked into his new book.

All costumed up and ready!

The sun finally went down and the children descended on the neighborhood! Tom and Jake did half a block on their own (without parental supervision!) and came back. Grandpa and I sat on the porch handing out candy. There weren't as many this year. Last year, we ran out of candy by 8pm and we had a lot of candy. This year I took some home with us. I did go around the block with the boys. As usual, Jake was done in about four houses and Tom wanted to go on forever. Not because he wanted more candy, but because he didn't want the fun to end. We negotiated a few more houses and agreed on hitting the road by 8pm.

We cleaned up, said our good-byes, and hit the road. On the way back to the freeway, we checked out a "Haunted Yard" up the street. It was packed up there, so we didn't stop. Leaving much after 8pm would get us home pretty late and I need to be awake enough to drive. There were tons of people up there though and lots of great costumes.

Dad was still up at 10pm when we got home and the boys related all the highlights. We all went to bed happy. I love spending Halloween with my Grandpa. It gives us plenty of time to catch up and he is the center of this holiday for the boys. They love it too.

I can't help it...here are a couple pictures of the boys from years past.

2003

2004

2006

2005

Another trip to Old Dale...a long one.

We left on Monday after Dad got off work and come home Friday morning. Dan had to work during the day, but we got up early and took some drives with the bug and did some skeet shooting. While Dan worked, the boys and I took some hikes, read books, and played games. 

One morning we went for a drive and then walked around. Dan and Tom were looking for gold but Jake and I got weary and went for a walk with Chili. Check out this weird strip of different rock.

The weather was perfect. I love the desert in the fall. It's cold at night and warm during the day. If you stand in the sun it gets hot but you step into the shade and you need a sweater.

We took a walk up to our "Monument" and checked it out. No one has been there, but that isn't surprising. It's been way to hot out there for the last few months. We are going to register it as a "geocache" so more people find it. We found eight geocaches while we were out there. There are about 40 to find. 

This was a geocache we found only a few hundred feet from our camp!

This pumpkin was convicted of crimes against the pumpkin patch so he was scheduled for execution. That shotgun does some serious damage! Dad took a video.

 This is the second geocache we found. It was called "Escaped Altoids". There was a severed hand with handcuffs on it nearby. Hilarious!

Time to play some Monopoly! This travel game has come in handy in the camper. We have plenty of time to play, but not quite the attention span.

Check out this ant hill! Harvester ants are very busy stock piling seeds right now. It's so cool. In the spring, they are digging out their holes. The piles around the hole are sand and pebbles. But in the fall they are harvesting. Some ants are bringing in the seeds and others bring them down into their holes. It's pretty stinkin' cool. And the big black beetles seem to like these piles as well.

Tom and Jake playing "King of the Hill". Tom's king. Jake is bowing down to his greatness. And Chili doesn't really know what the heck they are doing on this hill, but she can see a rabbit and needs to chase it.


Another sweet geocache called "Blood Sucker". There was a vampire mask in it.





I took this picture because Tom was telling me about the bullet casings he found and the gun they came from. His look was so typical Tom, that I HAD to take a picture of it.

On another hike into the claims. I love these walls along the washes. I want to dig around and find fossils. They look like tiny cliff dwellings. Jake is trying to put his jacket into his backpack.

Jake and I took a long walk up out of the wash and up a couple hills. We found lots of great rocks and took note of some other places to hike next time.

Tom panning for gold in the wash. Dan and Tom worked at that for a couple hours. Jake found a bullet with the metal detector.

Jake caught a grasshopper! These things are everywhere this time of year. They completely blend into the ground and when they fly are bright yellow and black.

Who's this handsome guy? He's using that rock as a slide. And I'm thinking, now I'm going to have to buy another pair of jeans for him. 

And Mom's dead. Chili is going to stand guard. Actually, I'm sunning myself like a lizard.

Another geocache called "Widow". That white spot is a bleached out stuffed spider hung in the creosote bush along with the cache bottle. It was just a tiny one with only a log book but fun to find.

We found this piece of metal sticking out of the ground beside the road. It's big and goes far back off the road. Weird. We have no idea what it could be.

Dan drove us out to the Virginia Dale mine and we went geocache hunting from there and walked back. Total was about three miles. Chili was along with us the whole time. She's a great hiking dog. She stays just ahead of us and can drink water right from the water backpack. Tom just leans over and sprays water and she laps it out of the air. She was pretty tired when we got back. She isn't used to all this exercise!

And then the week was over. We were running low on water and the boys had baseball practice on Friday, so we headed home in the morning before Dan started work. It was a great week. Dan said he'd rather go on the weekend so he could play more, but it was fun to be out there anyway. 

Pumpkin Patch Tour

So typical of me. I'm late in posting and not a single picture of a pumpkin on our pumpkin patch tour! But we did go on a pumpkin patch tour the week before last with some other homeschoolers from our area. It was really fun. I only wish we didn't have to rush off for baseball practice. 

When we arrived there were lots of younglings there filing out with with the handlers...I mean teachers, sorry. They were adorable all dressed in the same t-shirt with their name badges hanging off them, an adult leading, and adult in the middle, and an adult at the end of the row keeping the stragglers from falling behind. Here's a picture of our class. I didn't get a picture of the rest of our crew. I was severely lacking in photography sense that day!

There was a tractor ride around the corn field and pumpkin patch and they told us all about the farm and what they do there. It was all stuff the boys had heard before but we had fun. Our guide tried to educate our younglings about growing pumpkins, but most of our had done that themselves. They were pretty fascinated by all the different kinds of pumpkins these guys had on their farm. And the cross pollinated ones that were freaky looking!

Then we got to pet the goats (there were babies!) and see some other animals. I tried to get the boys to chant "bah ram ewe" with me but they refused...whatever. There were emus and Jake asked our guide if they were "emo emus". I we found out they make a noise and now I have added emu to my repertoire of animal and bird sounds, much to my sons' dismay.

When our guide asked the kids what kind of wild animals they might find around the corn field and pumpkin patch, Jake shouted out "monkeys". She said no, she didn't think so and moved on. But then later we found out that they have an organ grinder with a monkey there on the weekends, so we think she lied. :))

This guy was one of my favorites. He just stood up there hollering at everyone the whole time we were there. He's an angry old goat!

Children of the Corn!

At the end of the tour, we got to pick out a small sugar pumpkin to take home and then we went to the corn maze. This was where it would have been nice not to have to rush off. We didn't get to complete it because it  would have taken us hours. It was fun though and I'm totally going again next year. We got some lunch and some big pumpkins. Tom got a gourd to make into a drinking thing. And we headed home for baseball practice.

Teaching Cursive

I found this on my bedroom door this morning.

It may not be exciting to anyone else, but it has a story behind it that I have to share. 

Tom does not like to write. He was a kid who did not color in coloring books. Never held a pencil or crayon for anything but a little scribbling and then walked away. When we experimented with Kindergarten at a local charter, he cried and screamed that if they wanted the page in color they should have printed it that way. It was one of those pages that you add the numbers to know what color each piece should be. When presented with birthday cards to sign, he only put a T because writing three letters in a row was exhausting and you know there is only one person in this family with a name that starts with T.

What to do? My Mother-in-Law was an elementary school teacher when my husband was growing up. She has beautiful handwriting. My husband does not. It's pretty bad. And so is my Step-daughter's. She finished her career in public school. Both were cajoled and held captive to practice printing and then cursive until it looked right and it finally did, but when the pressure stopped, they stopped writing and it returned to the scrawl they both use now. 

So we decided to experiment with Tom and not make him write anything. That doesn't mean he didn't write stories. He used to dictate stories I would write out for him, until he learned to type. He's written stories, book, game, and purchase reviews, and a journal. All of them were written on the computer and printed out.

Last spring something changed. He was 11 and half and taking a weekend blacksmith class. He had to sign in on a sheet of paper with the adults taking the class. It looked pretty bad. That week he came in and asked me how he would learn to write in cursive. I looked up some pages you can print on the Internet and told him that cursive was one of those things that if you just take a couple minutes a day to practice, it starts to come naturally. He put these pages in his Latin notebook and added it to his daily study time. Yes, he has chosen to study Latin and has been progressing through the lessons every day for months now. He started with tracing and copying letters and then his name, address, and other things like "My brother is a nerd." Then he had a place mat with the cursive letters that he could look at if he couldn't remember the shape. 

Here we are, about six months later and he writes notes. He writes all his Latin pages in cursive. It takes him longer but it's getting faster every day. I could have been fighting him all this time to practice and learn to write with pen and paper, but what good would it have done? I needed to trust that he would learn something when he was good and ready and if he needed the skill. He found a need for it, found a way to learn it, and went ahead. 

What's my point? Kids do this for just about any subject. What about science, fractions, sentence structure?! When they need it, they will learn it. When my son decides he wants to be a pilot and finds that he is not ready to take the classes required to get there, he will look it up, learn the skills, prepare for the next step, and move on, just like other adults do.

There is nothing that if you don't learn now, you can't learn later, except maybe self-respect and confidence. I feel like we gave him those things by not forcing him to learn something he found no need for yet. We respected his perceptions and let him go with that. We did not ridicule him for not having the skill and so when he found the need to know, he was comfortable coming to us for help learning it. 

Trust the kids!

Baseball, Respect, and Life Lessons

Well, it finally came to a head tonight. Tom and this coach are not getting along. The problem is that this guy is the type that expects children to be obedient and a "do as I say, not as I do" person. That's my opinion of course. I'm not a fan of the guy. He pouts and stomps when the kids don't make the plays he wants and then expects them to not act like that. At the beginning of the season he told me that he would be at practice early and the boys were welcome to come early for extra help. We did, consistently, for several weeks and all they did is warm up longer. The boys on the team are rude and crude, worse than us and that's pretty hard to believe. They make really disgusting comments and suggestions and even my boys were embarrassed. It's that bad. This coach has all the players in the same positions for every game and Tom and Jake rotate at right field. This is supposed to be a learning season and no real scores or standings are being kept, so you'd think it would be different, less importance put on winning. Can you tell I'm disgusted?

So what happened tonight? The coach came to me at the beginning and told me that Tom argues with him about everything. I know my son. That is true, but he isn't arguing, he's asking why and how. He needs to know the reason behind things or he is not happy. I asked him what specifically and maybe I could help. He said he was arguing about being in the visitors dugout when they were the home team. Somehow I doubt that was really the problem. I've heard him tell Tom he doesn't like kids who ask questions. I've seen him get irritated and angry when Tom asked why the outfield should shift left for left hitters. I'm sitting there watching all the practices and the games. So I told him I'd talk to him about it but that Tom is going to keep asking him why, it's not disrespectful, it's interest.

The practice went on. As they were coming in I watched one boy repeatedly bat at Tom with his glove. He's wasn't being funny. He knew he was bothering Tom. Tom asked him to quit several times. He just kept doing it. When they got to the dug out another boy (the coaches son) and this boy through their gloves at him. Tom yelled and pushed the boy away from him. That's when the coach started yelling at Tom to quit. Tom was cornered in the dug out when this man came charging up. Tom walked away from him and got his bat. This guy continued to yell that he was "tired of Tom's mouth" and Tom continued to pack his gear and told him he didn't really care. That was the wrong thing to say. That's when I walked up and called the coach to talk to him.

I told him what had been happening and he assured me that it didn't matter, Tom should show some respect. The problem is Tom isn't going to do that. There is nothing to respect and I agree. We stood and talked a long time. I wasn't mad, I was just trying to explain what is going on. He has 12 boys out there and I understand he can't see everything that is going on all the time. These boys all know each other and are acting like an animal pack instead of young men and there is no one there to help them. There is no one there making sure that people are respecting each other. The coaches demand respect and don't deserve it. I don't  like their behavior at all. If I were on that team, I'd just leave.

Ahh! I can't even write it all out right. Tom wants to stay on the team. He says he will tell the coach that he is sorry he was disrespectful in the dugout, but he felt attacked and he didn't think the coach had all the facts. He just charged in attacking instead of finding out what happened. Tom also says he will continue to be himself and he will be kind and respectful, but he will not "put up with" being treated that way. I don't think you can make someone respect you. I say forget it. I don't know what to do. I'm proud that he wants to keep trying but I don't want to watch him fight through all this. 

Hiking Season is Back!

It was 80 degrees today! And the evenings are so cool. I need a blanket on me in the morning! So my thoughts turn to wandering the desert again. Last spring, the boys and I had Dad drop us off way back in the hills by our camping spot and we walked back to camp through all the washes and hills. It was great, but I thought it would be more fun if we could read topographic maps like in "Our Side of the Mountain". So today we went over to Joshua Tree National Park and got a few maps and a book about reading them. Then we went up to Keys View because it was so clear and that is the one quadrangle map they had. 

Here's Palm Springs from Keys' View! Gorgeous, isn't it? You can see the Salton Sea in the east, all the way to the Morongo Casino in the west. And the fault lines and hills. And San Jacinto. Very cool.

So we messed around up there awhile and looked at our map. We were trying to find a way down into Palm Springs from the spot. It would be quite a walk!

Then we went to Cap Rock and climbed around a bit. Really, the boys did. I walked around it and then sat in the shade with my map and new book. They were out there for about an hour. Tom brought a whistle along just in case there was an accident. He's had to leave his brother stranded before to come and get me and it wasn't fun. So this time he could just blow his whistle and I would find them. 

They were gone so long that I went to look for them and couldn't find them. When I walked, I swore I could hear them in the rocks, but then when I stopped I couldn't hear them. I would wait, hear them talking or rustling around and call them, but then it would stop again. Funny game. Not so much. But I wasn't worried. We were all alone out there and I've been all over those rocks. There are big open spots inside, like caves. It was just too irresistible not to try and hide there.

After a bit they came out. Tom said I didn't find them, he "revealed himself". "You can't find what isn't revealed." The Beatles again. So we headed home for lunch with a plan to learn more about the maps and to come back for some longer hikes when it cools off more. 80 is still hot when there is not shade to hide in. 

This is a rock I found on my walk. I think it looks like a giant sperm whale coming out of the rocks!

Happy Birthday to Tom!

Here he is being awesome, studying Latin on a Sunday! I can't get over the fact that he is twelve. TWELVE! He says next year he will be man...in most ancient cultures. He is pretty manly...most of the time. I'm not quite ready for him to grow up yet though. 

We've had two festivities so far. The day before his birthday, we had a whole bunch of our local homeschool friends over for pizza and ice cream. That was a blast. The boys love to have people over, so the more parties the better and this one was much needed for myself as well. A house full of people running around having a good time is pretty much the best day ever for me.

Grandma and Grandpa had a surprise for him on his birthday but it involved getting up early and being in Big Bear by 9:30. Usually that is rough for us, but this was for a good cause and I did not get a single complaint. I packed a breakfast for them both since they won't eat right when the get up and we had an hour and a half drive ahead of us. Here's what we did...

          ZIP-LINE!!

  

Not sure how they are going to ever top this! They've been begging me to do that for years and now they can't wait to go again. They're saving up for another go, but they'll have to find another adult to go with them because it's not going to be me. I prefer the ground!





My Step-Mom and I spent the morning shopping, eating, and talking while they played and then we met up for pizza at the Village. Then we came home and had corned beef and potatoes for dinner, per Tom's request. The boys loves salty stuff. We had a big pan of brownies for dessert, too! Pretty much the best day ever.

One more party for us though. Next Saturday, my brother and I are combining two of his boys' birthday parties with Tom's. Should be fun and I can't wait!