Celebrating Fall in Granny's Garden:

What: Fall in Granny's Garden
Where: The grounds of Loveland Elementary School
When: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 9:30 AM to Noon
Who: Homeschooler ages 5-10
Cost: $5 per child. Program limited to 28 children. There will be a facilitator/student ratio of 1 to 7, along with a teen helper for each group.
RSVP: Laura

Enjoy learning hands on about what happens in the garden during the fall. Activities may include harvesting (potatoes and whatever else may be available), cooking (perhaps roasted potatoes & bruschetta - depending on what is available), planting (spring bulbs or garlic), a craft (most likely flower presses ) and perhaps a walk on the nature trail. Other activities may be added if time permits.

Because school is in session, the program will all take place in the gardens on the hill in back of the elementary school. There is plenty of parking. There are two learning centers in this area.

Rain will cancel.

Parents will be on site but involved in a separate activity at Granny's office. Younger siblings can play in the yard at Granny's office. Light refreshements will be served to the parents. This is not a drop off program, you must stay on site or arrange for another parent that is attending the program to supervise your children.

Home to meet his brother.....

My uncle died October 9th, less than 10 months after my father....here is his obituary.....last names edited out....

H. George William "Bill", loving husband of Judy , beloved father of Deborah (Norbert) K, Bill (Kellie) H, Pam (Robert) H, Kevin H, Kathy H and Teresa (Timothy) D, devoted grandfather of 16 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, dear brother of Terrence H and the late Dave H. Bill, a resident of Withamsville, died October 9, 2007. Age 69. Visitation Sunday, October 14, 4-7 PM at E.C. Nurre Funeral Home, St. Rt. 125, Amelia. Mass of Christian Burial on Monday at 9:30 AM at St. Rose Church, 2501 Eastern Ave. Interment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Cincinnati East, 7691 Five Mile Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45230.

The next phase of babyhood:

Luke, 5 1/2 months old, is moving all over the place....not really a crawl using his arms and legs but more an army crawl where he uses his arms more and kind of wiggles the lower half of his body...but he can get ANYWHERE he wants doing it.....all the way across the living room.....into the hallway.....under his jumparoo.....next to the cabinet the tv sits on.....guess it is time to babyproof the place! I have to be grateful that his pincher grasp isn't too developed yet, or he would probably have gotten a bead or a penny into his mouth. The kids aren't too great at keeping tiny pieces off the floor. We are definitely going to have to be more vigilant!

Here we go again.....

My mom called yesterday to tell me that they transfered my uncle (my dad's oldest brother) to hospice. I don't know if I ever mentioned it here, but they diagnosed him with cancer back in April. A different kind of cancer than dad had, but apparently just as invasive. None of the treatments they tried worked. I told mom when she called yesterday that I would go with her to visit him, knowing she would have a hard time going on her own, since he is in the same hospice that dad died in.

She took off work early today, picked me up around 1 PM and we went to see him. It was rough to walk back in the building, rougher to see him dying (far too many memories of dad) and even rougher to deal with mom afterwards. I think I have cried more today than I did even right after dad died, most of my crying after he died was out of frustration, dealing with my mother. It has been a very rough day.

I would say that my uncle's time could be measured in days, not weeks. I have watched one too many people die....Jay's aunt died when I was pregnant with Brett, Jay and I were in the room as she took her last breath...Jay's dad, his mom, my dad....I have come to know the look and the sound of death...

My uncle is a wonderful man...great father, wonderful husband, loving grandfather. Not only was he my father's big brother, he was his friend.

I could go on here to ponder the reason why God has chosen to take both my father and his big brother home well before we were ready to let them go but he leaves their piece of shit brother living and breathing on earth. I know life isn't fair, but right now it seems almost cruel.

Photo Slideshow from Egg Drop

What: Egg Drop
When: Wed. October 3rd at 10:30
Where: Gower Park in Sharonville (100990 Thornview Drive across the street from the Sharonville Community Center& Library)
Who: Homeschoolers/Unschoolers of all ages invited
Cost: Free but we are asking that each family bring at least one item to share with the group off the suggested materials list.

Our kids thought it would be great to do an Egg Drop so we’re inviting other families to join in on the fun and learning! We plan to meet at the shelter by the parking lot (You can park across the street at the library and Rec. center lot but Gower does have a small parking lot located by the tennis courts and that’s where we’ll be).Once we have our eggs safely inside their containers we’ll walk across the street to a high wall by the library and drop them from a certain height onto a target. If your egg is still intact, you can drop your container onto the target from higher up on the wall and see if it survives. Because we must leave the area where we’re dropping the eggs the way we found it, we’re asking that each family participate in clean up and that we use materials that won’t make a BIG mess if our containers do break open (See Materials NOT to bring for Egg Drop below). We also plan to picnic and play. Gower’s amenities include: Playground: (swings, slides, age appropriate play features, sandbox), Patio with Open-Air Picnic Tables, Creek, Perimeter Walking Trail, 2 Picnic Shelters, Lovitt Building, 3 Tennis Courts, 1 Lighted "Class A" Ball field, 1 "Class D" Ball field

Eggs, scissors and bubble wrap will be provided.
Please bring at least 1 item off the suggested materials list to share with the group in addition to whatever else you bring for your own family.

Suggested materials:
Tape
Tongue depressors
Shoe box
Empty soup can
Chopsticks
Popsicle sticks
Straws
Plastic bags
Yarn
Rubber band
Cotton balls
Pipe cleaners
Fabric
Coffee filters
String
paper
Toilet paper

Materials NOT to bring for Egg Drop: glass, liquids, food of any kind (peanut butter, jell-o, fruit, etc), powdered soap, flammable substances, anything that will splatter!

A few interesting egg drop web sites.
Very cool Egg drop based on designs by Leonardo da Vinci - http://www.niemworks.com/else/eggdrop.html
This web site has pictures of different designs people have made -http://www.mse.arizona.edu/faculty/birnie/EngrsWk/EggDrop.htm
Egg drop contest site - http://web.njit.edu/~leejw/kmso/2004eggdrop/

What a fun time. The kids, 15 in all, had a great time designing their containers to drop. Two kids brought their containers already made, but everyone else designed theirs once they got there. We ended up with 14 containers (one family opted to make a single container rather than 2) and of those 7 eggs survived the drop and 7 eggs perished! We were all surprised that it fell into a perfect 50/50 ratio! We did conclude that most surviving eggs had some kind of balloon or parachute attached to them to help slow the fall ever so slightly! I do suspect that a few of the boys, particularly ones who belonged to me, designed their containers for maximum BREAKAGE! Emily, Will and Sophia all had eggs that survived. Grant, Cade and Jacob were quite proud of their scrambled eggs!

Cade and the mystery rash

On Wednesday Cade had a few odd looking spots on his leg, I didn't think much of it, but by Thursday night it looked worse and by Friday it was causing me major concern. It was only on ONE leg, but was spreading both up and down the leg. It wasn't poison ivy or chicken pox (at least by my thinking) so we made our SECOND trip to the pediatrician's office in less than a week to get it check out.

Well the rash completely stumped the staff and we were told to put steriod cream on it and to give him benadryl, the rash is clearing up. So we have no idea what it is or what caused it, but apparently it isn't contagious, thank you Lord!

So in less than a week, two of my children break my "we haven't been to the pediatrician except with a newborn" streak that had been going since well before Sophia was born! Maybe 6 years?????

Pioneer Village Tour

I have set up the following fieldtrip for any homeschoolers that would like to attend. Our family has participated in this program for the last 5 years (it used to take place at Caesar Creek) and the interpreters LOVE homeschoolers, a few of them are homeschoolers themselves. Please join us! Pack a lunch and dress for the weather! The program is very hands on and extremely informative.

When: Monday Oct 1 9:30 AM to 2 PM ARRIVE PROMPTLY!!!!
Where: Quaker Knoll Campground, 675 Sprague Road, Wilmington, Ohio 45177
Cost: $5 per student, preschoolers and parents free BRING EXACT CHANGE!!! Pay the day of event! Cash only!
RSVP: Laura Riesenberg that they can be properly staffed to handle our group
Other info: bring a picnic lunch, dress for the weather

Every culture in the world requires that young people learn their own history. History provides answers for the future by examining the problems of the past. Inessence, it is the study of the problems of human life.Our challenge is to get our youth interested in historyat all. When competing with electronic games andtelevision, stories of the past can seem dry, at best.For several years Frontier Resources has offered a schoolprogram designed to capture the interest of the studentof Ohio history. The program makes maximum use ofHands-On and interactive learning. We have designed our‘School Days’ to interest students in early Ohio history toreinforce your classroom efforts.

Frontier Resources is an organization that designs and presents programs to students all over the country. Our specialtyis “hands-on history”. Our programs are designed togive your students a taste of the activities, both work andplay, of children of early Ohio. These include, but are notlimited to:

• OXEN- An explanation of the importance of oxen toearly America and how children were involved withthem is followed by an opportunity for students to trytheir hand at driving oxen.
• SPINNING- An introduction to the problem of clothsupply for the Ohio frontier family involves a chancefor students to try to make a piece of yarn.
• CHILDREN’S WORK- A view of the importance ofchildren on the frontier while they work to shape agrindstone.
• ONE ROOM SCHOOL- An introduction to early nineteenthcentury learning.
• TOWN MEETING- Students experience frontierdemocracy by taking part in a town meeting and wrestlingwith a vital issue of the day.
• CHILDREN’S GAMES- A look at entertainment onthe frontier while students try an outdoor game of the1800s.
• INDENTURED SERVITUDE- Forty percent of thepopulation of Colonial America arrived under termsof indenture. This station examines the lives of the children who found themselves so situated.

The program takes about 4 hours, running from 9:30 a.m.until 2:00 P.M. Cost is $5.00 per student, there is no cost forteachers and chaperones.

Here is a link to a blog about the village: http://frontierresources.blogspot.com/

Best to mapquest this address from your location:Quaker Knoll Campground is located at 675 Sprague Road,Wilmington, Ohio 45177, a lovely site on the north end ofCowen Lake State Park.

Here are the directions I followed (follow at your own risk!):Take OH-28 (Milford Exit off I-275)towards BLANCHESTERto LEFT onto OH-133 (according to mapquest this isabout 16 or so miles). Go a little over 3 miles and staySTRAIGHT to go onto OH-730. Go a little over 6 miles and turn RIGHT onto SPRAGUE RD. Quaker Knoll is aways down on the left hand side.

By far one of our favorite fieldtrips each year, we were not disappointed! Gary Barker, one of the main organizers, greeted us, his head now bald, but looking as great as ever. We found out that the schoolteacher wouldn't be there (he tends to really SCARE the kids) because his wife had sinus cancer (?) so that was our big disappointment of the day, since he is such an authentic re-enactor! As always, we were flooded with new information (the program is never the same two years in a row) and the kids absorbed it like the little sponges they are.

Will and Sophia seemed more interested in the playground and playing in the rainpuddles (yes, it rained on us at one point!) but the other kids really enjoyed the entire day!

Pioneer Village Slideshow

Dance Team Picnic or
Those Unsocialize Homeschoolers...NOT!

For the past few years our dance studio has had a competition family team picnic in the fall to kick of the new competition year. It is fairly well attended and we always have a good time. I won't bore you with the details about the food and the chitchat, just wanted to share an observation with everyone.....

After everyone ate, most of the older team members departed (after all it was a SATURDAY night, prime party and date night!) so it was mainly the 13 and under crowd remaining. The entire group that remained seemed to gather in the field and the more I observed, the more I noticed that is was EMILY and GRANT organizing the ENTIRE group, probably 20 kids not counting their siblings, in playing assorted field games that they LOVED to play. I commented to one of the teachers at the studio, a former homeschoolers, asking her if it reminder her of anything...she laughed, knowing it looked similiar to many a homeschool gathering, where the kids just organize themselves and play a game, including everyone from toddler to teen. It was odd for me to see Emily, my quiet child, as the one organizing the entire group, I am so used to seeing her follower her older brother's and sister's led. Grant stood as her biggest cheerleader, rallying the boys to join in the games. Can I say that I glowed with pride?

We ended up staying much longer than I intended. As each game ended, a new game began and the laughter from the group was intoxicating! They played for over an hour, no one cried, no one quit, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves! As I called my crew over to leave (I needed to be home by 7:30 PM) one of the dads commented "well, if Emily is leaving, everyone is going to want to leave".

I love the life I have chosen to live with my children, but it certainly is nice to see others realize what great kids they are! I wish I had thought to take pictures of the field games, certainly a sweet end of summer memory!

Barn Tour of Rose Arena: Home of Cincinnati Mounted Police
Friday, Sept. 28th, 9:30 AM
Wooster Road, near the intersection with Beechmont
Cost: Free
Organized by Julieanne

This was a wonderful tour and chocked full of information about the LARGEST members of the Cincinnati Police Force!

Also from Julieanne: To those who are signed up for the tour of Rose Arena, the barn of the Cincinnati Mounted Police... we're planning on doing a picnic/ play at the Lunken Playfield afterwards. It's $1 per child, adults are free. It's also completely enclosed by a fence, there's ample shade trees, and close by bathrooms and parking. There is a walking/ bike trail, golf, and other things at this facility, but I'm not sure as to hours or prices for those.

The kids really seemed to enjoy the playground, although Grant and Jacob couldn't seem to get along, a small fenced in area and a tennis ball obviously weren't a good combination for the two of them. Despite my efforts to get them to go and play in the large open field across from the playground, they insisted on staying put! The playground is GREAT for the 8 and under set, but not really set up well for kids that need space to just RUN!

Greenacres September program: Pond Study
Thursday, Sept. 27
12:00 PM
Organized by Sally

Concept: The pond is composed of different habitats each of which is home to variety of inhabitants with adaptations for life in a watery environment.

We will:
Use dip nets to scoop organisms out of the Delaware Pond for observation in the viewers

The plankton tow will be used at Shawnee Pond to catch small pond inhabitants to examine under a microscope

The rains left the trails too wet and treacherous to hike, so we drove up to the pond. Despite the rains, we had a wonderful time and it was probably one of the coolest pond programs we have done. The only diappointing thing was not being able to actually get into the pond. The viewers and microscopes were absolutely awesome, it was so cool to see everything close up, especially those critters like the plankton that you can't see with the naked eye!

4-H Volunteer Project: Grace Place

Our family recently learned about a wonderful home called Grace Place that offers a temporary residence (up to one year) without cost to women - with or without children - who are in transition from homelessness. Right now they are hosting a family that includes a mother, her son and her newborn daughter as well as a refugee family of 9 from Burundi. One of there biggest needs right now is for fall and winter clothes for the kids in the home. Below is a list of the sizes they are looking for, items can be new or gently used. Anything the families at Grace Place can not use will be passed on to the 5 other Burundi refugee families in our area (information about why these refugees are in our area is at the bottom of this announcement).

Here is the list and information that Joyce sent me:
14 YEAR OLD BOY wear size 16 bottoms and 16/18 tops

13 YEAR OLD GIRL wears women's small top. She has a small waist but a curvacious rear. Size 14 fit in the length, but the waist is big and the hips tight. We ended up with a size 7 jr but they are a bit big in the waist but the hips fit and we needed to shorten them.

11 YEAR OLD GIRL weats size 12 girls top and bottoms

9 YEAR OLD BOY wears size 8 boys top and bottoms

5 YEAR OLD BOY wears 4 bottoms and tops

3 YEAR OLD BOY wears size 3 bottoms and tops/can also wear some 4 toddlers

2 YEAR OLD BOY (in November) wears 2 toddler

NEWBORN GIRL (born in July) will need 3-6 and 6-9 month winter clothes

They also need clothes for the adults in the refugee family. Mom wears a size 10. Dad is small. His slacks are 31 w x 29 l.

They have enough clothes for now, but will need some long sleeve shirts and heavier long pants when the cool weather comes. Since they are from Equatorial Africa, they think 70 degrees is COLD! Sweaters will be appreciated too. At some point we will need thermal underwear for them, winter coats, gloves, hats and boots.

A little background on the family of 9: They are one of five families who have come from Burundi in the past two months. They all have kids of assorted ages and sizes. What our family doesn't need we will pass along to the others.

The reason there are so many families at this time is that the U.N. ruled it would be unsafe for them to go back to Burundi from the refugee camps they were in, so they asked many countries to take thousands of them. The US was one of the countries that responded to their need. One of the difficulties of this nationality is that their language is only spoken in their small country and most of them do not speak any other language. There are only a coupld of interpreters in Cincinnati. The dad of our family does speak French and a little English, he is rapidly learning more. The kids start school at an English as a second language school in Cincinnati this week, so hopefully they will learn quickly, but I am sure they will experience a lot of frustration without dad to help them understand us Americans.

Other items the home is in need of: pillows, simple green cleaning concentrate, mops, brooms, sponges, dust pans, 10 lb packages of baking soda, body lotion (urgently needed), disposable diapers (size1 and size 4), toothbrushes and toothpaste, bars of soap and feminine hygiene products.

Deanne, Sarah, Chris and my gang headed over to Grace Place to volunteer. The older three (Brett, Hannah and Sarah) went with Joyce to go and disassemble shelves that had been donated to the home while the rest of us stayed at the house and cleaned windows, sorted clothes and raked leaves. Joyve was gone with the older teens MUCH LONGER than we thought she would be, but despite that, all of mine want to go back and volunteer again.

The mom with the teen and infant daughter have been able to get their own apartment, and the home has taken in two new guests, a brother and sister also from Burundi.

When Joyce was gone, we realized that none of the teens had their cellphones with them and that we didn't know (1) where they had gone or (2) what kind of car Joyce was driving! When we couldn't reach Joyce on her cellphone, I think both Deanne and I were a bit paniced, wondering just how we could explain to anyone that our teens had left with someone we really didn't know! Of course it all turned out fine, we were able to reach Joyce on her phone about 15 minutes later and we found out when she would be back with the teens!

We were fortunate enough to meet the entire family from Burundi, the children are beautiful and seemed very happy. It was adorable to watch the little ones (ages almost 2 and 4) interact with the kids.

LUNCH & LEARN CiCi's Pizza FIELD TRIP
When: Monday, September 24, 2007 10 AM
Where: 7645 Voice of America Center Dr. West Chester, OH 45069
Who: ALL HOMESCHOOLERS (toddlers to teen and everyone in between) Limited to 15 students.
Costs: $2.00 per child
Organizer: Laura Riesenberg

A hands-on workshop at CiCi's designed by teachers to help kids develop basic math skills. Students use pizza ingredients and other related items to solve problems, and in the process make and enjoy their very own pizza!

This was possibly the best restaurant tour we have ever been on. At the beginning of the tour they gave each person (parents included) a soft drink with unlimited refills. The managers were great and highly informative, answering any and all questions that were posed to them. After touring the greeting area, kitchen and storage areas, each child made their own pizza...and not some dinky little personal pizza, but a FULL SIZE pizza! They put the pizzas in the oven and cooked them for 4 minutes and 45 seconds (can you believe they can cook a pizza that fast?) and then everyone sat down to eat them. The pizzas were absolutely delicious! This fieldtrip was certainly worth every cent it costs! The boys kept asking if we could go back for another tour! I guess I will have to take them back for the lunch buffet some afternoon!

Most interesting fact of the day, the most expensive ingredient in a pizza is the cheese. The restaurant goes through over 1000 lb of cheese a week at a cost of $2.50 a pound! Each pizza gets 3 oz of cheese put on it. That comes out to roughly 5333 pizzas a week!

Click to play Make your own Smilebox

Here are some pictures from Irons' Fruit Farm......did I mention it was 90 degrees? Makes it hard to get into the fall spirit!

The ped was wonderful, it was our first time meeting him....he said:

1) he either has asthma
2) is experiencing asthma triggered by a upper respritory virus
3) has pnuemonia that we caught early

When we got to the doctor's office his pulse/ox level was 90....not too hot, so they were pretty worried....it was 95 when we left the office and his breathing wasn't as labored....

So, they gave him a breathing treatment in the office (he didn't charge us for it! how nice was that! I just had to pay for the office visit) and sent me home with 3 prescriptions... 1 for right now (inhaler with spacer) that he needs to use 4x a day for 5 days, another for a steroid that I can fill if I don't feel the inhaler is controlling the wheezing and then one for an antibiotic in case he still isn't feeling better on Tuesday.....he did it all to save me a trip to the ER or back to the office and the extra $$ that would cost, wasn't that sweet?

Will started acting better within 10 minutes of the breathing treatment! He is almost acting normal right now....hopefully we will get through this and the asthma is virus related and not an everyday thing we have to deal with. Emily had pretty severe asthma when she was a toddler/early elementary school age. As she got older she has outgrown most of it, but it was pretty hellish during her bad periods. Hopefully Will isn't heading down that path.

The receptionist at the office was funny. She saw that Will had put two barbie stickers on his shirt out of the sticker basket, so she said "oh, you don't have to have those, we have boy stickers" and he looked at her and said "I LOVE barbie"....I looked at her and smiled and said "He does love barbie. And dance and tumbling. He even have TAP SHOES in the bag he is carrying." I am sure she noted on his chart "gender indenty issues"....ROFL!

Will is sick!

Will has had a cough all week, I figured at first it must just be fall allergies, but yesterday a mom on the fieldtrip told me there was a respiratory virus going around and then a mom at the dance studio said her kid had pneumonia ...he didn't sleep well last night and this morning he woke up and his breathing is really labored and he said his head hurts....so we are heading to the pediatrician's office for a 9:40 appointment. His color is really good (or I would be heading to the ER) but as usually my kids can only get sick/hurt themselves/break something/need stitches when the peds office isn't open (they opened at 8:30 on Sat) or urgent care is closed (they open at noon). I tend to worry a lot when Will has any breathing issues, as he was a preemie and on CPAP after he was born (he almost needed to be ventilated) because his lungs were in such bad shape. We have been up since 7:30 AM, and of course he is finally back asleep....now I get to wake him up and put him in the tub!

Apple Farm Tour
Irons Fruit Farm 1640 Stubbs Mill Road, Lebanon, Ohio 45036
Friday Sept. 21 at 10:00am
Homeschoolers of all ages
Cost: $4.00 a person including adults (please try to bring correct change for your family)

The walking tour lasts about 1 hour and includes information on growing apples & their uses. Attendees are guided through the process of how apples are picked, washed, sorted by size and placed into our large cold storage room. Then we walk then through the apple bagging room where apples are hand sorted and selected for quality control to be sold in our store. After the tour concludes, there is apple cider and an apple cider donut for all. Finish up your day with a visit to our friendly farm animals.
For directions and more information about Irons visit their web site http://www.ironsfruitfarm.com or call 513.932.2853.

Directions
From Cincinnati-East (I-71)
Take I-71 North, past Paramount's Kings Island to exit #32.
This exit is State Route 123, turn left towards Lebanon.
Follow St. Rt. 123 for 2.5-3.0 miles until you reach Stubbs Mill Road on your left (Bob Evans restaurant is on the corner).
Take Stubbs Mill Road about 1.5 miles and we are on the left.

This was probably the worst fruit farm tour we have ever been on, but the kids still enjoyed themselves and the small farm store had a wonderful variety of jams, jelly and butters. The woman that led the tour didn't seem to understand children very well, she would tell them they couldn't talk and that they had to be quiet, but then she would get mad that they didn't answer her enthusiastically enough in unison! The orchards were very sad, the trees certainly suffered from the odd weather we have had this year. The fruit cooler was horribly moldy and she kept insisting that it was at 34 degrees even though none of us were cold at all and asked Grant to go and read the thermometer...he said it was at 60 degrees and she says "your wrong", well, the adults all go and look at the thermometer and it is 60 degrees FAHRENHEIT, so I made a point to tell Grant that he was right and that it just proves that adults don't know everything, she couldn't tell the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature readings! Then when we were in the apple bagging room someone asked her what she thought about something and she said "I don't think about that. The owner here says if you have time to think you aren't working hard enough"....what a bunch of BULLSHIT.....I made sure to mention to the kids later in the van that what she said was ridiculous, that THINKING is what is important, not being some drone worker who never questions anything.

The farm animals looked so sad, I know the weather was unusually hot today for September (over 90 degrees) but they just didn't look happy!

The kids were really disappointed that the farm didn't have apple cider for us to drink (they gave us store bought apple juice instead) and that all the apples for sale in the shop were from other farms. I know the spring freeze really hurt the crops at the local farms, but how hard is it to go and get cider from the store to give to the kids? The donuts ROCKED, but the only other things that made the tour bearable was being in the presence of homeschooling friends and some wonderful old trees out front that the kids could climb in! Next year we will head back out to A&M Farms..it is a lot longer drive, but it is worth it!

Pictures to be posted soon!

Going for the THREE-PEAT!

Emily, my 13 year old, auditioned for the Cincinnati Ballet's Nutcracker on Sunday and found out this afternoon that she has been cast as a soldier with trumpet....she gets so excited each year about it, this being her third year....the opportunity to dance with a professional ballet company, if only for a maximum of 15 shows and only for about 6 ir 8 minutes on stage, but it is such a big deal to her.....she is really excited, floating on cloud nine right now and ever so eager to rejoin her "nutcracker" friends (many of the same kids return year after year) for another great season.

Now I get to put on my taxi mom hat and drive her into the city (Cincinnati) for rehearsals and shows...we live about 30 minutes out of town and the ballet is in one of the absolute worse area of Cincinnat (the blocks adjacent to it are really rough, a few years ago I made a wrong turn and ended up finding a "box city" inhabited by the homeless just about a block from the building).....from the direction I come from, there is only one road to the ballet ....Liberty.....and it seems that anytime there is a shooting in town that it is on Liberty and some cross street.....fortunately a police officer is on duty at all times at the ballet and will walk you to the car, but it sucks that there is nothing closeby to do when she is down there (the museum center is about 5 minutes away but isn't open in the evening). Last year after a rehearsal we were leaving and there was a robbery or some other crime at the gas station on Liberty, honestly there were at least 20 police cruisers with cops with their guns drawn and we are sitting right there in the middle of it all...talk about SCARY!

But Em is THRILLED and I will now begin my yearly quest to find a nutcracker that resembles her....this year it will be one with a trumpet....last year was a sword and the year before a rifle! Most likely this will be her last year, as the performers can't be over 5'5" tall or they won't fit in the costumes...she made it this year by only 0.5"!

Park Program: Creek Study
Monday, September 17, 2007 10: 30 AM to 11:30 AMS
haron Woods, Sharonville MEET AT SHARON CENTER
Organizer: Laura Riesenberg
Who: ALL ages
Cost: Free program

Come dressed to get in the creek (watershoes or boots work well, NO OPEN TOED SHOES!!). The naturalists from the Hamilton County park district will lead the program. The creek itself is not accessible to strollers, so it is recommended that infants be in a sling or backpack. Plan to bring a change of clothes if your children are like mine and will end up sitting in the water. If the weather is nice, we will picnic following the program.

They just recently put new playground equipment in at Sharon Woods in the upper play area, we may end up picnicing and playing there after the hike, it should make for great play fun, especially if the weather cools a bit! Covered shelter with picnic tables. Restrooms with flush toilets and running water!

We had a great turnout for our first park program of the year. We had a new naturalist, Sophia, and she did a really good job of engaging the kids. We started the program with a brief introduction done in the class and then headed into the creek. The water was low because of the dry summer, but the kids found plenty of critters in the creek. The weather was a bit cool, but it didn't keep the kids out the water, especially not Will, who got in almost to his waist! A lot of the information that she presented were things we already knew, but the kids were still eager to get in the creek and turn over rocks and explore. Jacob found a huge snake skin (probably from a black rat snake).

After the program we had lunch and the kids played on the playground. The yellowjackets were HORRIBLE but it was nice to get to talk with other homeschooling moms and dads. We have lots of programs coming up in the next few weeks, we love being out and taking advantage of the beautiful weather!