Field Day
Come join us for a great day of fun with fellow homeschoolers! Themore the merrier!
When: Friday, May 29, 2009 10:30 AM - 2 PM
Where: Miami Riverview Park Loveland, OH
RSVP: Laura
What to bring: Lunch, water bottles (can be refilled in restroom) and sunscreen, a bag of NON-CHOCOLATE and NUT FREE candy to be used for prizes at the end of the event, a stopwatch (if you happen to have one!). There are no vending machines in the park and fast food is a couple of miles away so be sure to pack something for your family to eat.
Join us for a day of fun and games! Participants will be divided onto teams and compete in fun events like relay races and twisted t-ball.Please wear gym shoes as some games may involve running or jumping.Open to ALL ages! We created this day to replicate the field day my children enjoyed so much when they attended school (it was the ONLY thing they missed about being in school!)
ALL ages are invited, but some may be too young for some of the games.Any children that are too young to participate can take advantage of the wonderful playground and HUGE sandbox. Plenty of shaded areas to keep out of the sun. CLEAN restrooms with running water. We have the shelter reserved just for our group! We are guaranteed the use of the shelter and the picnic tables!
Directions: Take I-275 to exit #52 (Loveland/Indian Hill) and turn LEFT at the bottom of the exit ramp. Follow to the first road on the right (Hopewell) and turn RIGHT onto HOPEWELL. Follow about .3 mile to Branch Hill-Loveland Rd (you should see a small brown sign on the right hand side of the road pointing to the park) and turn LEFT onto BRANCH HILL-LOVELAND RD. Follow about 1.5 miles to the park entrance on your RIGHT. MIAMI RIVERVIEW PARK. We will meet near the playground,most likely in the large shelter behind the playground.
We had a GREAT turnout! The weather was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! Around 70 children attend this event. We started out by dividing the kids onto 3 different teams, Hannah, Emily and Chris were each in charge of a team. Hannah's team was the Blue Dolphins, Chris's team was the Ninjas and Emily's team was the Exterminators! We started the day with 4 events: skateboard race(where the kids sit on the skateboard and do a relay race), dizzy t-ball, soccer goal kick and tire roll. After each team completed each of those activities we had lunch. After lunch we did 3 more activities where the kids competed head to head: sack races, shoe relay (where everyone takes off their shoes, puts them in a pile,races to pick their shoes up and put them back on) and a tunnel relay (where they had to go under the legs of everyone from front to back and when the first person gets back to the front the race is over). We ended the event with a water balloon toss to help cool everyone off!
Next year we hope to make the event even BIGGER and BETTER by adding an OBSTACLE COURSE as part of the event. This is going to take some planning and forethought (not necessarily my strong point!) but I think we can pull it off! We already have a couple of families willing to work on pulling it together!
Thanks to everyone who helped my pull of this very special day for the kids!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Canoeing on the Little Miami!
What: Canoeing on the Little Miami River
When: Wednesday, May 27th 9 AM SHARP
Departing from: Morgan's Canoe (near Ft. Ancient)
5701 State Route 350 Oregonia, Ohio 45054
Cost: $5 per person
Who: Homeschoolers ages 8 and up (with adult), children over the age of 13 may attend without a parent as long as the parent signs a waiver of liability. Trip is limited to 30 participants.
RSVP: Laura
My brother has aided me in setting up the following event thanks to the help of one of his friends, Bill Cacciolfi. We will get 3 hours of canoeing led by a world class canoe/kayak instructor and real safari guide. Also included is a hike where the kids can collect fossils and such around the Ft. Ancient area. It includes all the canoes and the bus ride back to the starting point.Please pack a lunch. All the lunch supplies will be packed in dry bags. We will eat lunch during a break in the trip on a sandbar. Sunscreen strongly recommended. Swimtrunks for boys and swimsuits forgirls (with shorts worn over them) and t-shirts are encouraged for all participants. It’s suggested to put anything that can’t get wet in a water proof container or leave it in the car (remember that things that go overboard may sink!). Also, they recommend old gymshoes, water shoes or heavy duty sandals that strap to your feet (no flip flops because they tend to get lost if you tip over),cheap sunglasses, and if you are an adult you might want a cushion to sit on!
Directions from Cincinnati: Fort Ancient Canoe Livery is on the Little Miami River, approximately 10 minutes north of Kings Island. Take I-71 to Exit 32, (Rt. 123 Morrow Exit). Go south on Rt. 123 approximately 1 block to Rt. 350 (Interstate Mart). Turn left on Rt. 350 approximately 2 miles to the river. Do not go to Morrow.
I just talked to Bill (our guide) and he wants us at Morgan's at 9 AM so that we can get in the river sooner, as he needs to be done by 1 PM. He also said that the place we will end has basketball, volleyball, etc and we are welcome to play, swim in the river, etc when he is finished with us. He said it would be nice if we could patronize the business there (they sell snack, icecream, pop...around $2-$2.50) since they are providing our transportation back to Morgan's after the canoe trip and that would usually add another $10 PER CANOE. He said to plan to going if it is just sprinkling, but check for updates from me if we get heavy rains/rising river.
What an AMAZING day! The weather was absolutely perfect and our guide Bill was AWESOME! He is the kind of guy I would love to just spend time hanging around with, he embraces the belief of following your passions and has used his passions to build a career for himself that he LOVES! He even raises animals for Jack Hanna! How cool is that?
Jacob and I survived being in a canoe together, despite me being directionally challenged and absolutely LOUSY at steering! I don't know how many times we made the canoe turn in circles, but I can pretty much bet Jacob knows the exact number! We only hit bottom once, where he had to get out and DRAG the canoe to get us floating again! Poor William was stuck in the middle of our canoe and every so often would look petrified, probably because he know I had no idea what I was doing!
The kids had a blast. We stopped after about an hour and played and explored. There was a cool tree for jumping from and a rope swing (which we had trouble getting to!). Then we canoed another hour to the campgrounds where we got to eat lunch and the kids got to play volleyball, basketball and swim more in the river!
Unfortunately, all the pictures are on a cheapy throw away camera, no way was I taking my digital onto the river with me! When I get them developed, I will share them if they are worth sharing!
Can't wait to do it again! Maybe in the fall?
What: Canoeing on the Little Miami River
When: Wednesday, May 27th 9 AM SHARP
Departing from: Morgan's Canoe (near Ft. Ancient)
5701 State Route 350 Oregonia, Ohio 45054
Cost: $5 per person
Who: Homeschoolers ages 8 and up (with adult), children over the age of 13 may attend without a parent as long as the parent signs a waiver of liability. Trip is limited to 30 participants.
RSVP: Laura
My brother has aided me in setting up the following event thanks to the help of one of his friends, Bill Cacciolfi. We will get 3 hours of canoeing led by a world class canoe/kayak instructor and real safari guide. Also included is a hike where the kids can collect fossils and such around the Ft. Ancient area. It includes all the canoes and the bus ride back to the starting point.Please pack a lunch. All the lunch supplies will be packed in dry bags. We will eat lunch during a break in the trip on a sandbar. Sunscreen strongly recommended. Swimtrunks for boys and swimsuits forgirls (with shorts worn over them) and t-shirts are encouraged for all participants. It’s suggested to put anything that can’t get wet in a water proof container or leave it in the car (remember that things that go overboard may sink!). Also, they recommend old gymshoes, water shoes or heavy duty sandals that strap to your feet (no flip flops because they tend to get lost if you tip over),cheap sunglasses, and if you are an adult you might want a cushion to sit on!
Directions from Cincinnati: Fort Ancient Canoe Livery is on the Little Miami River, approximately 10 minutes north of Kings Island. Take I-71 to Exit 32, (Rt. 123 Morrow Exit). Go south on Rt. 123 approximately 1 block to Rt. 350 (Interstate Mart). Turn left on Rt. 350 approximately 2 miles to the river. Do not go to Morrow.
I just talked to Bill (our guide) and he wants us at Morgan's at 9 AM so that we can get in the river sooner, as he needs to be done by 1 PM. He also said that the place we will end has basketball, volleyball, etc and we are welcome to play, swim in the river, etc when he is finished with us. He said it would be nice if we could patronize the business there (they sell snack, icecream, pop...around $2-$2.50) since they are providing our transportation back to Morgan's after the canoe trip and that would usually add another $10 PER CANOE. He said to plan to going if it is just sprinkling, but check for updates from me if we get heavy rains/rising river.
What an AMAZING day! The weather was absolutely perfect and our guide Bill was AWESOME! He is the kind of guy I would love to just spend time hanging around with, he embraces the belief of following your passions and has used his passions to build a career for himself that he LOVES! He even raises animals for Jack Hanna! How cool is that?
Jacob and I survived being in a canoe together, despite me being directionally challenged and absolutely LOUSY at steering! I don't know how many times we made the canoe turn in circles, but I can pretty much bet Jacob knows the exact number! We only hit bottom once, where he had to get out and DRAG the canoe to get us floating again! Poor William was stuck in the middle of our canoe and every so often would look petrified, probably because he know I had no idea what I was doing!
The kids had a blast. We stopped after about an hour and played and explored. There was a cool tree for jumping from and a rope swing (which we had trouble getting to!). Then we canoed another hour to the campgrounds where we got to eat lunch and the kids got to play volleyball, basketball and swim more in the river!
Unfortunately, all the pictures are on a cheapy throw away camera, no way was I taking my digital onto the river with me! When I get them developed, I will share them if they are worth sharing!
Can't wait to do it again! Maybe in the fall?
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Cade hits a HOMERUN!!!!
During his game at WT today, CADE HIT A HOMERUN! We aren't taking a bunch of errors and he somehow made it around the bases homerun, but an HONEST TO GOODNESS, OVER THE OUTFIELDER'S HEAD HOMERUN! He was so proud! Unfortunately no one was on base, but a HOMERUN is a HOMERUN! The roar from the crowd was deafening!
Of course I didn't get a picture of the hit, luckily I had just gotten to the game after running a few errands and was standing directly behind the backstop when he knocked the ball out of there!
The Five Love Languages
We have been talking a lot in our family recently about The Five Languages of Love by author Gary Chapman. His book was orginally written to denote the love languages in a marriage, but I think (and my teens agree) that it is really about all relationship. According to Chapman, the 5 languages of Love are:
Words of Affirmation: Mark Twain once said “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Verbal appreciation speaks powerfully to persons whose primary Love Language is “Words of Affirmation.” Simple statements, such as, “You look great in that suit,” or “You must be the best baker in the world! I love your oatmeal cookies,” are sometimes all a person needs to hear to feel loved.
Aside from verbal compliments, another way to communicate through “Words of Affirmation” is to offer encouragement. Here are some examples: reinforcing a difficult decision; calling attention to progress made on a current project; acknowledging a person’s unique perspective on an important topic. If a loved one listens for “Words of Affirmation,” offering encouragement will help him or her to overcome insecurities and develop greater confidence.
Quality Time: Quality time is more than mere proximity. It’s about focusing all your energy on your mate. A husband watching sports while talking to his wife is NOT quality time. Unless all of your attention is focused on your mate, even an intimate dinner for two can come and go without a minute of quality time being shared.
Quality conversation is very important in a healthy relationship. It involves sharing experiences, thoughts, feelings and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context. A good mate will not only listen, but offer advice and respond to assure their mate they are truly listening. Many mates don’t expect you to solve their problems. They need a sympathetic listener.
An important aspect of quality conversation is self-revelation. In order for you to communicate with your mate, you must also be in tune with your inner emotions. It is only when you understand your emotions and inner feelings will you then be able to share quality conversation, and quality time with your mate.
Quality activities are a very important part of quality time. Many mates feel most loved when they spend physical time together, doing activities that they love to do. Spending time together will bring a couple closer, and, in the years to come, will fill up a memory bank that you can reminisce about in the future.Whether it’s sitting on the couch and having a brief conversation or playing together in a tennis league, quality time is a love language that is shared by many. Setting aside focused time with your mate will ensure a happy marriage.
Receiving Gifts: Some mates respond well to visual symbols of love. If you speak this love language, you are more likely to treasure any gift as an expression of love and devotion. People who speak this love language often feel that a lack of gifts represents a lack of love from their mate. Luckily, this love language is one of the easiest to learn.
If you want to become an effective gift giver, many mates will have to learn to change their attitude about money. If you are naturally a spender, you will have no trouble buying gifts for your mate. However, a person who is used to investing and saving their money may have a tough time adjusting to the concept of spending money as an expression of love. These people must understand that you are investing the money not in gifts, but in deepening your relationship with your mate.
The gift of self is an important symbol of love. Sometimes all your mate desires is for someone to be there for them, going through the same trials and experiencing the same things. Your body can become a very powerful physical symbol of love.
These gifts need not to come every day, or even every week. They don’t even need to cost a lot of money. Free, frequent, expensive, or rare, if your mate relates to the language of receiving gifts, any visible sign of your love will leave them feeling happy and secure in your relationship.
Acts of Service: Sometimes simple chores around the house can be an undeniable expression of love. Even simple things like laundry and taking out the trash require some form of planning, time, effort, and energy. Just as Jesus demonstrated when he washed the feet of his disciples, doing humble chores can be a very powerful expression of love and devotion to your mate.
Very often, both pairs in a couple will speak to the Acts of Service Language. However, it is very important to understand what acts of service your mate most appreciates. Even though couples are helping each other around the house, couples will still fight because the are unknowingly communicating with each other in two different dialects. For example, a wife may spend her day washing the cars and walking the dog, but if her husband feels that laundry and dishes are a superior necessity, he may feel unloved, despite the fact that his wife did many other chores throughout the day. It is important to learn your mate’s dialect and work hard to understand what acts of service will show your love.
It is important to do these acts of service out of love and not obligation. A mate who does chores and helps out around the house out of guilt or fear will inevitably not be speaking a language of love, but a language of resentment. It’s important to perform these acts out of the kindness of your heart.
Demonstrating the acts of service can mean stepping out of the stereotypes. Acts of service require both mates to humble themselves into doing some chores and services that aren’t usually expected from their gender. However, these little sacrifices will mean the world to your mate, and will ensure a happy relationship.
Physical Touch: Many mates feel the most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. For a mate who speaks this love language loudly, physical touch can make or break the relationship.
Sexual intercourse makes many mates feel secure and loved in a marriage. However, it is only one dialect of physical touch. Many parts of the body are extremely sensitive to stimulation. It is important to discover how your partner not only physically responds but also psychologically responds to these touches.
It is important to learn how your mate speaks the physical touch language. Some touches are irritating and uncomfortable for your mate. Take the time to learn the touches your mate likes. They can be big acts, such as back massages or lovemaking, or little acts such as touches on the cheek or a hand on the shoulder. It’s important to learn how your mate responds to touch. That is how you will make the most of this love language.
All marriages will experience crisis. In these cases, physical touch is very important. In a crisis situation, a hug can communicate an immense amount of love for that person. A person whose primary love language is physical touch would much rather have you hold them and be silent than offer any advice.
It is important to remember that this love language is different for everyone. What type of touch makes you feel secure is not necessarily what will make your partner happy. It is important to learn each other’s dialects. That way you can make the most of your hugging, kissing, and other physical contacts.
So what's your love language? How does it affect your relationships with those around you? Has your love language changed over time? Does it very by relationship? I know mine does!
I used to tell people, only half-joking, that my mother is the kind of grandma that prefers to show that she loves her grandkids by buying things for them. I didn't realize until I read about the languages of love, that "gifts" is truly her love language. It never made sense to me that she would get so upset if we didn't "get" her something to mark a holiday, birthday or anniversary. Since "gifts" aren't my love language, I didn't understand why she needed them. Realizing that it is the ONLY one of the love languages she speaks, it now makes so much more sense to me!
So what is my love language? In my relationship with my spouse it is physical touch, funny though because over all, I am not a touchy-feely kinda gal. It bugs me when someone I don't know (or even someone I do know) tries to hug me, I prefer not to shake hands with people and I definitely need my SPACE when I sit down (I don't like being crammed into a booth or not having an empty seat by me in a theater) but in my relationship with my husband it is the number one way he can show me he loves me, I guess lucky for me, physical touch is his love language as well! In my relationships with my kids, it is quality time- quality converstation- quality activities, or at least that is how I see me expressing my love to them!
We have been talking a lot in our family recently about The Five Languages of Love by author Gary Chapman. His book was orginally written to denote the love languages in a marriage, but I think (and my teens agree) that it is really about all relationship. According to Chapman, the 5 languages of Love are:
Words of Affirmation: Mark Twain once said “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Verbal appreciation speaks powerfully to persons whose primary Love Language is “Words of Affirmation.” Simple statements, such as, “You look great in that suit,” or “You must be the best baker in the world! I love your oatmeal cookies,” are sometimes all a person needs to hear to feel loved.
Aside from verbal compliments, another way to communicate through “Words of Affirmation” is to offer encouragement. Here are some examples: reinforcing a difficult decision; calling attention to progress made on a current project; acknowledging a person’s unique perspective on an important topic. If a loved one listens for “Words of Affirmation,” offering encouragement will help him or her to overcome insecurities and develop greater confidence.
Quality Time: Quality time is more than mere proximity. It’s about focusing all your energy on your mate. A husband watching sports while talking to his wife is NOT quality time. Unless all of your attention is focused on your mate, even an intimate dinner for two can come and go without a minute of quality time being shared.
Quality conversation is very important in a healthy relationship. It involves sharing experiences, thoughts, feelings and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context. A good mate will not only listen, but offer advice and respond to assure their mate they are truly listening. Many mates don’t expect you to solve their problems. They need a sympathetic listener.
An important aspect of quality conversation is self-revelation. In order for you to communicate with your mate, you must also be in tune with your inner emotions. It is only when you understand your emotions and inner feelings will you then be able to share quality conversation, and quality time with your mate.
Quality activities are a very important part of quality time. Many mates feel most loved when they spend physical time together, doing activities that they love to do. Spending time together will bring a couple closer, and, in the years to come, will fill up a memory bank that you can reminisce about in the future.Whether it’s sitting on the couch and having a brief conversation or playing together in a tennis league, quality time is a love language that is shared by many. Setting aside focused time with your mate will ensure a happy marriage.
Receiving Gifts: Some mates respond well to visual symbols of love. If you speak this love language, you are more likely to treasure any gift as an expression of love and devotion. People who speak this love language often feel that a lack of gifts represents a lack of love from their mate. Luckily, this love language is one of the easiest to learn.
If you want to become an effective gift giver, many mates will have to learn to change their attitude about money. If you are naturally a spender, you will have no trouble buying gifts for your mate. However, a person who is used to investing and saving their money may have a tough time adjusting to the concept of spending money as an expression of love. These people must understand that you are investing the money not in gifts, but in deepening your relationship with your mate.
The gift of self is an important symbol of love. Sometimes all your mate desires is for someone to be there for them, going through the same trials and experiencing the same things. Your body can become a very powerful physical symbol of love.
These gifts need not to come every day, or even every week. They don’t even need to cost a lot of money. Free, frequent, expensive, or rare, if your mate relates to the language of receiving gifts, any visible sign of your love will leave them feeling happy and secure in your relationship.
Acts of Service: Sometimes simple chores around the house can be an undeniable expression of love. Even simple things like laundry and taking out the trash require some form of planning, time, effort, and energy. Just as Jesus demonstrated when he washed the feet of his disciples, doing humble chores can be a very powerful expression of love and devotion to your mate.
Very often, both pairs in a couple will speak to the Acts of Service Language. However, it is very important to understand what acts of service your mate most appreciates. Even though couples are helping each other around the house, couples will still fight because the are unknowingly communicating with each other in two different dialects. For example, a wife may spend her day washing the cars and walking the dog, but if her husband feels that laundry and dishes are a superior necessity, he may feel unloved, despite the fact that his wife did many other chores throughout the day. It is important to learn your mate’s dialect and work hard to understand what acts of service will show your love.
It is important to do these acts of service out of love and not obligation. A mate who does chores and helps out around the house out of guilt or fear will inevitably not be speaking a language of love, but a language of resentment. It’s important to perform these acts out of the kindness of your heart.
Demonstrating the acts of service can mean stepping out of the stereotypes. Acts of service require both mates to humble themselves into doing some chores and services that aren’t usually expected from their gender. However, these little sacrifices will mean the world to your mate, and will ensure a happy relationship.
Physical Touch: Many mates feel the most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. For a mate who speaks this love language loudly, physical touch can make or break the relationship.
Sexual intercourse makes many mates feel secure and loved in a marriage. However, it is only one dialect of physical touch. Many parts of the body are extremely sensitive to stimulation. It is important to discover how your partner not only physically responds but also psychologically responds to these touches.
It is important to learn how your mate speaks the physical touch language. Some touches are irritating and uncomfortable for your mate. Take the time to learn the touches your mate likes. They can be big acts, such as back massages or lovemaking, or little acts such as touches on the cheek or a hand on the shoulder. It’s important to learn how your mate responds to touch. That is how you will make the most of this love language.
All marriages will experience crisis. In these cases, physical touch is very important. In a crisis situation, a hug can communicate an immense amount of love for that person. A person whose primary love language is physical touch would much rather have you hold them and be silent than offer any advice.
It is important to remember that this love language is different for everyone. What type of touch makes you feel secure is not necessarily what will make your partner happy. It is important to learn each other’s dialects. That way you can make the most of your hugging, kissing, and other physical contacts.
So what's your love language? How does it affect your relationships with those around you? Has your love language changed over time? Does it very by relationship? I know mine does!
I used to tell people, only half-joking, that my mother is the kind of grandma that prefers to show that she loves her grandkids by buying things for them. I didn't realize until I read about the languages of love, that "gifts" is truly her love language. It never made sense to me that she would get so upset if we didn't "get" her something to mark a holiday, birthday or anniversary. Since "gifts" aren't my love language, I didn't understand why she needed them. Realizing that it is the ONLY one of the love languages she speaks, it now makes so much more sense to me!
So what is my love language? In my relationship with my spouse it is physical touch, funny though because over all, I am not a touchy-feely kinda gal. It bugs me when someone I don't know (or even someone I do know) tries to hug me, I prefer not to shake hands with people and I definitely need my SPACE when I sit down (I don't like being crammed into a booth or not having an empty seat by me in a theater) but in my relationship with my husband it is the number one way he can show me he loves me, I guess lucky for me, physical touch is his love language as well! In my relationships with my kids, it is quality time- quality converstation- quality activities, or at least that is how I see me expressing my love to them!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
First Baby Shower!How exciting! Hannah hosted a baby shower for Sarah today! I can't believe how generous all the guests were and how many people who couldn't attend but sent gifts anyway! It warmed my heart to see the outpouring of love for my grandbaby! We had over 25 adults at the shower and a handful of children. The cake was super cute and we played a few fun games. The adults played the standard "remember the baby items on the tray" as well as the diaper game (where you melt candybars into disposable diapers and then everyone has to guess what the candybar is, the game is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!) and a baby gift bingo (where guest cross off prizes on a bingo card as the mama-to-be opens her gifts, hoping to be the first to get a bingo). The little ones made necklaces out of beads and then played pin the baby in the belly! Sarah's aunt Denise is hosting another shower for her, for her mom's side of the family, in just a few weeks! I can't believe we are in the homestretch already!
Sarah looks GORGEOUS today (not that she isn't beautiful everyday!) and just GLOWED!
Friday, May 15, 2009
What: Metamora Canal & Grist Mill Tour
When: Friday, May 15th, 2009
Where: Metamora, Indiana
Time: 11:30 AM
Who: Homeschoolers of all ages
Cost: $2.00 a person
This is the plan: Meet at the Mill for a tour at 11:30 AM then go do the Canal Boat ride at 1 PM. They have several picnic tables around the town and a park with a covered shelter and play area if your family would like to get there early and eat lunch.
Here’s the website: http://www.metamoraindiana.com/index.htm
Link to town map (PDF): http://www.metamoraindiana.com/images/MetamoraMap.pdf
Metamora is Indiana's treasured 1838 canal town. Nestled in southeastern Indiana's beautiful countryside, Metamora is steeped in history and famous for its preservation of Indiana's oldest and still operating water-powered grist mill. Visitors can step back in time while taking a leisurely 25-minute cruise on the Ben Franklin III. Along the route they pass the Duck Creek Aqueduct, a covered bridge that carries the canal 16 feet over Duck Creek. It is believed to be the only structure of its kind in the nation. The Ben Franklin III, launched in 1989, was designed and constructed in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Designed as a freighter, the vessel is 75 feet long and has a beam (width) of 12 feet. Constructed of wood and fiberglass, it holds approximately 75 passengers and crew.
Directions: From Cincinnati:
Take I-74 West towards Indianapolis to Exit 169 Brookville/West Harrison (First exit in Indiana). Turn left on US 52. Travel Approx 14 miles. Go though the town of Brookville (Main Street) and veer left (west) to proceed on US 52. Travel approx 9 more miles.
What a great day! The weather looked a little iffy as we approached the town, but it turned out to be just perfect. We arrived early, ate lunch and then toured the grist mill, it was really cool to see how the mill the corn, using only the power from the water to run the machinery. After the grist mill, we had time to walk around the town before our canal boat tour. I didn't do much walking, Luke found some rocks and a puddle and was so happy just tossing the rocks in the water. We often don't have time to savor the little pleasures in life and I figured rather than drag him from shop to shop, watching him play was a better choice. The canal boat tour was really interesting and was something I had never experienced before. It was quite enjoyable, but I doubt that I would have enjoyed it had I had to do it for a living.... 16 to 24 hours to go the 52 miles between Metamora and Cincinnati, I get restless with the 1 hr 15 min drive. I don't know if I would like the town on a busy weekend, but it was a pleasant visit on a spring afternoon.
When: Friday, May 15th, 2009
Where: Metamora, Indiana
Time: 11:30 AM
Who: Homeschoolers of all ages
Cost: $2.00 a person
This is the plan: Meet at the Mill for a tour at 11:30 AM then go do the Canal Boat ride at 1 PM. They have several picnic tables around the town and a park with a covered shelter and play area if your family would like to get there early and eat lunch.
Here’s the website: http://www.metamoraindiana.com/index.htm
Link to town map (PDF): http://www.metamoraindiana.com/images/MetamoraMap.pdf
Metamora is Indiana's treasured 1838 canal town. Nestled in southeastern Indiana's beautiful countryside, Metamora is steeped in history and famous for its preservation of Indiana's oldest and still operating water-powered grist mill. Visitors can step back in time while taking a leisurely 25-minute cruise on the Ben Franklin III. Along the route they pass the Duck Creek Aqueduct, a covered bridge that carries the canal 16 feet over Duck Creek. It is believed to be the only structure of its kind in the nation. The Ben Franklin III, launched in 1989, was designed and constructed in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Designed as a freighter, the vessel is 75 feet long and has a beam (width) of 12 feet. Constructed of wood and fiberglass, it holds approximately 75 passengers and crew.
Directions: From Cincinnati:
Take I-74 West towards Indianapolis to Exit 169 Brookville/West Harrison (First exit in Indiana). Turn left on US 52. Travel Approx 14 miles. Go though the town of Brookville (Main Street) and veer left (west) to proceed on US 52. Travel approx 9 more miles.
What a great day! The weather looked a little iffy as we approached the town, but it turned out to be just perfect. We arrived early, ate lunch and then toured the grist mill, it was really cool to see how the mill the corn, using only the power from the water to run the machinery. After the grist mill, we had time to walk around the town before our canal boat tour. I didn't do much walking, Luke found some rocks and a puddle and was so happy just tossing the rocks in the water. We often don't have time to savor the little pleasures in life and I figured rather than drag him from shop to shop, watching him play was a better choice. The canal boat tour was really interesting and was something I had never experienced before. It was quite enjoyable, but I doubt that I would have enjoyed it had I had to do it for a living.... 16 to 24 hours to go the 52 miles between Metamora and Cincinnati, I get restless with the 1 hr 15 min drive. I don't know if I would like the town on a busy weekend, but it was a pleasant visit on a spring afternoon.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
You almost have to wonder, if Stanford University had known what he would say that day, would they have still invited him to give the speech? Did anyone sitting there take his words to heart, or have they placed their pursuit of the almighty dollar ahead of their passions? Sometimes when someone realized that we homeschool, one of the first questions they ask is "why?", most of the time I don't really think it is a question, more a statement (as in why would anyone do that), but when asked, I almost always respond with the same answer, "I want to give my kids the chance to be passionate about something and the opportunity to pursue that passion." Can I only hope that there passions one day might afford them the wealth that Jobs has found? Of course I can! We can all dream! But regardless of whether their passion translates into riches, I am sure that it will translate into happiness!
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
You almost have to wonder, if Stanford University had known what he would say that day, would they have still invited him to give the speech? Did anyone sitting there take his words to heart, or have they placed their pursuit of the almighty dollar ahead of their passions? Sometimes when someone realized that we homeschool, one of the first questions they ask is "why?", most of the time I don't really think it is a question, more a statement (as in why would anyone do that), but when asked, I almost always respond with the same answer, "I want to give my kids the chance to be passionate about something and the opportunity to pursue that passion." Can I only hope that there passions one day might afford them the wealth that Jobs has found? Of course I can! We can all dream! But regardless of whether their passion translates into riches, I am sure that it will translate into happiness!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
READING INCENTIVE PROGRAMS:
Thought I would share some reading incentive programs (some are for the summer and some are for the school year). If you are aware of any others, please leave a comment here on the blog and I will update my list! I would love to find more incentive programs for teens, since most of ones that run through the school year are only from grades K-6.
BARNES AND NOBLE SUMMER READING PROGRAM: B&N Summer Reading kicks off May 26. Kids can earn a free book! I don't see any details other than the kickoff date on the website, but suspect that it will be there soon. www.bn.com
LIBRARY READING PROGRAMS: All of our local libraries offer summer reading programs for children and teens. From looking at Clermont County Library website, it appears their program kicks off June 6th. I can't find any details at the Hamilton County Library website, but figure we will just pop in to find out all the details.
BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS: Bookworm Wednesdays is a fun and rewarding summer reading program developed to encourage young children to read during the summer months. BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS runs for eight weeks and entitles kids to free admission to a select children's film when they present a book report at a participating Showcase Cinemas, Multiplex Cinemas or Cinema de Lux box office. Accompanying parents or guardians and children under six receive free admission and do not need to submit a book report. Every summer, attendance at BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS has grown and we expect that it will continue. Thanks to our many sponsors there will be more fun and prizes in the seasons to come. http://www.nationalamusements.com/programs/bookworm.asp
READ TO SUCCEED: From their website, We are accepting registrations for the 2009-2010 Read to Succeed program. Log on to www.rtsregistration.com to order the programtoday. I have heard from some homeschoolers that you can register individually and from others that they registered through their local homeschool co-op. Each child that completes the program receives on free admission ticket to a Six Flags Park. Open to children in grades K-6.
BOOK-IT PROGRAM FROM PIZZA HUT: For anyone who might be interested ... This is a reading program which begins October 1st and ends March 31st (certificates are good through May 1st). Children read, based on goals set by the teacher/parent and are rewarded with Pizza Hut personal pan pizza coupons. We have used this program for years and it is always nice to be able to use the certificates for a special lunch out each month. Open to children in grades K-6. Each family must register at their website: www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment/homeschool.asp
Thought I would share some reading incentive programs (some are for the summer and some are for the school year). If you are aware of any others, please leave a comment here on the blog and I will update my list! I would love to find more incentive programs for teens, since most of ones that run through the school year are only from grades K-6.
BARNES AND NOBLE SUMMER READING PROGRAM: B&N Summer Reading kicks off May 26. Kids can earn a free book! I don't see any details other than the kickoff date on the website, but suspect that it will be there soon. www.bn.com
LIBRARY READING PROGRAMS: All of our local libraries offer summer reading programs for children and teens. From looking at Clermont County Library website, it appears their program kicks off June 6th. I can't find any details at the Hamilton County Library website, but figure we will just pop in to find out all the details.
BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS: Bookworm Wednesdays is a fun and rewarding summer reading program developed to encourage young children to read during the summer months. BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS runs for eight weeks and entitles kids to free admission to a select children's film when they present a book report at a participating Showcase Cinemas, Multiplex Cinemas or Cinema de Lux box office. Accompanying parents or guardians and children under six receive free admission and do not need to submit a book report. Every summer, attendance at BOOKWORM WEDNESDAYS has grown and we expect that it will continue. Thanks to our many sponsors there will be more fun and prizes in the seasons to come. http://www.nationalamusements.com/programs/bookworm.asp
READ TO SUCCEED: From their website, We are accepting registrations for the 2009-2010 Read to Succeed program. Log on to www.rtsregistration.com to order the programtoday. I have heard from some homeschoolers that you can register individually and from others that they registered through their local homeschool co-op. Each child that completes the program receives on free admission ticket to a Six Flags Park. Open to children in grades K-6.
BOOK-IT PROGRAM FROM PIZZA HUT: For anyone who might be interested ... This is a reading program which begins October 1st and ends March 31st (certificates are good through May 1st). Children read, based on goals set by the teacher/parent and are rewarded with Pizza Hut personal pan pizza coupons. We have used this program for years and it is always nice to be able to use the certificates for a special lunch out each month. Open to children in grades K-6. Each family must register at their website: www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment/homeschool.asp
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
My friend Wally send me the following article in an email. I just couldn't NOT share it. This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and former president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
It is well worth reading and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. My own grandfather, who died back in 2003 at nearly 90 years old, NEVER made a left turn! My grandmother, never learned to drive. It brought back some memories. Only grandpa would have NEVER listened to a Cubs game, unless they were playing his beloved Reds, he listened to every game on the radio!
----------------------
My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull----!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'
'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars
-- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that.
But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.' It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,loaded with everything, and,since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother..So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.
(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustine's Church. She would walk down and sit in the
front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.
If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.'
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'
'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
'No left turns,' he said.
'What?' I asked.
'No left turns,' he repeated.. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'
'What?' I said again.
'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights.'
'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support 'No,' she said, 'your father is right. We make three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.
'Loses count?' I asked.
'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'
I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.
'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.
She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.
They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'
'You're probably right,' I said.
'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.
'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.
'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.
That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.
He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:
'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'
It is well worth reading and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. My own grandfather, who died back in 2003 at nearly 90 years old, NEVER made a left turn! My grandmother, never learned to drive. It brought back some memories. Only grandpa would have NEVER listened to a Cubs game, unless they were playing his beloved Reds, he listened to every game on the radio!
----------------------
My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull----!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'
'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars
-- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that.
But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.' It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,loaded with everything, and,since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother..So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.
(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustine's Church. She would walk down and sit in the
front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.
If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.'
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'
'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
'No left turns,' he said.
'What?' I asked.
'No left turns,' he repeated.. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'
'What?' I said again.
'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights.'
'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support 'No,' she said, 'your father is right. We make three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.
'Loses count?' I asked.
'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'
I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.
'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.
She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.
They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'
'You're probably right,' I said.
'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.
'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.
'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.
That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.
He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:
'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Too Funny Not to Share!
OK, most of the time I HATE those forwarded emails, but this one was rather funny!
I love this Doctor !
Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true? A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it.. Don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables? A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.
Q:Should I reduce my alcohol intake? A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!
Q:How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies your ratio is two to one, etc.
Q:What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is : No Pain...Good!
Q:Aren't fried foods bad for you? A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! ...... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me? A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure? A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.
Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle? A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape! Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.
AND.... For those of you who watch what you eat , here's the final word on nutrition and health.. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
OK, most of the time I HATE those forwarded emails, but this one was rather funny!
I love this Doctor !
Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true? A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it.. Don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables? A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.
Q:Should I reduce my alcohol intake? A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!
Q:How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies your ratio is two to one, etc.
Q:What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is : No Pain...Good!
Q:Aren't fried foods bad for you? A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! ...... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me? A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure? A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.
Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle? A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape! Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.
AND.... For those of you who watch what you eat , here's the final word on nutrition and health.. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Nineteen Years Ago Today..... 
It is hard to believe that today my oldest son is 18 1/2 years old. Nineteen years ago to today I found out that I was going to be a mother. Exactly 6 months later, he came into the world, way ahead of schedule, fighting for his life. Harder to believe is that my "baby" will soon be having a baby of his own. It isn't the path I would have chosen for him, to be a teen father, but as with so many of the paths in his life, there was no choice on my part. I wouldn't have chosen for him to be a preemie, for him to develop hydrocephalus, for him to have to endure numerous hospitalizations, seizures and brain surgeries, but I know he will travel this path well. He will be a wonderful father, as he has been lead by his wonderful father, and in my opinion nothing beats having a shining example to follow! Sarah will be a wonderful mother, she will turn 21 in August, the same age I was when I gave birth to Brett and a year older than her mother was when she gave birth to her. I always knew I would be a young grandmother, simply because I had given birth young, but I never thought it would be before my 40th birthday! I never thought that it would be possible to love a child that I hadn't given birth to the way I love my own children, but I have found that I definitely can! I have fallen hard for this baby.
So the specifics.....baby is due August 3rd according to Sarah's calculations and July 27th according that little magic wheel. So sometime around the middle of this summer my grandchild will make his or her appearance and will be born into 2 families that are eagerly waiting! What more could you ask for a child?
It is hard to believe that today my oldest son is 18 1/2 years old. Nineteen years ago to today I found out that I was going to be a mother. Exactly 6 months later, he came into the world, way ahead of schedule, fighting for his life. Harder to believe is that my "baby" will soon be having a baby of his own. It isn't the path I would have chosen for him, to be a teen father, but as with so many of the paths in his life, there was no choice on my part. I wouldn't have chosen for him to be a preemie, for him to develop hydrocephalus, for him to have to endure numerous hospitalizations, seizures and brain surgeries, but I know he will travel this path well. He will be a wonderful father, as he has been lead by his wonderful father, and in my opinion nothing beats having a shining example to follow! Sarah will be a wonderful mother, she will turn 21 in August, the same age I was when I gave birth to Brett and a year older than her mother was when she gave birth to her. I always knew I would be a young grandmother, simply because I had given birth young, but I never thought it would be before my 40th birthday! I never thought that it would be possible to love a child that I hadn't given birth to the way I love my own children, but I have found that I definitely can! I have fallen hard for this baby.
And before you begin to think that this news is something that was just recently imparted upon us, let me set the record straight. The day Brett found out Sarah was pregnant he came and told us immediately. That would have been the day after Thanksgiving! I suspected that something might be up from a few things he had said in the few days prior to it, so maybe that softened the news! He didn't try to hide it or make excuses. He came to the adults in his life and explained the situation and enlisted their support. I would have NEVER done the same thing in his situation, heck to this day I wouldn't enlist my mother's help for anything, well at least not for anything life altering. I credit the strong relationship he has with his family and the fact that he knows we love him unconditionally with him coming to us first. Yes, he knew we wouldn't be happy, but he also knew that we would support and help him on this new path. It probably took Jay the longest to adjust, but he has! It probably took him a week to be able to talk to Brett, and I think that hurt Brett the most, knowing that his father was disappointed in him. Brett told me he was surprised, he thought I would take it harder than Jay did, I guess that was meant to be a compliment...lol. I just decided that today was the day that I would share this with everyone as I mused on my 19 years of motherhood!
So the specifics.....baby is due August 3rd according to Sarah's calculations and July 27th according that little magic wheel. So sometime around the middle of this summer my grandchild will make his or her appearance and will be born into 2 families that are eagerly waiting! What more could you ask for a child?
I would have never thought 19 years ago...as I experienced my "first" mother's day as an expectant mom what the next 19 years would bring....who would have been about to anticipate the love, joy, laughter and pain? Nine kids? Child led weaning? Family bed? No vaccinations? Homeschooling? If you had told me that then, I would have laughed at you! It has been an amazing journey......I can't wait to see what the next 19 years have to bring!
Greenacres Wildflower Program
We attended another wonderful program at Greenacres yesterday! For the first time I got to go over and hike the "big trail" across the road. It was a wonderful hike, warm enough for summer clothes, but cool enough that you weren't drenched in sweat by the end of the hike. There were tons of beautiful wildflowers and a large variety of fungi! Will was disappointed that we didn't encounter a snake, but we did see an adorable little toad! Hope you enjoy the slideshow!
We attended another wonderful program at Greenacres yesterday! For the first time I got to go over and hike the "big trail" across the road. It was a wonderful hike, warm enough for summer clothes, but cool enough that you weren't drenched in sweat by the end of the hike. There were tons of beautiful wildflowers and a large variety of fungi! Will was disappointed that we didn't encounter a snake, but we did see an adorable little toad! Hope you enjoy the slideshow!
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Things to do this Summer
I am signed up for MANY email newsletter on a variety of subjects, parenting, mothering, photography, scrapbooking and of course homeschooling. Many I signed up for a long time ago and rarely every really read, but one that came into my inbox today caught my eye "101 Things To Do This Summer" from Homeschool.com (I am in no way endorsing this newsletter, it if far too schooly for this unschool chick, but for once it contained something I found incredibly interesting!)......I think what I liked was that everything had a link with more info in it, although I will admit that MANY of the links I clicked into looked rather DRY and COMPLICATED but you still have to give credit to anyone who would spend time finding sites to support each of their ideas.....
It contained some INCREDIBLY COOL ideas for summer like:
Make a scrapbook of everything you do this summer The Basics of Scrapbooking www.betterphoto.com/photography-for-kids.asp
Compare a book to a movie Compare and Contrast Essay (PDF) www.csudh.edu
Write a poem 30 Days of Poetry www.msrogers.com/English2/poetry/30_days_of_poetry.htm
Sketch a picture of your house from the outside Perspective Drawing www.artyfactory.com/perspective_drawing/perspective_1.htm NOTE FROM ME: COOL IDEA, not so cool link!
Learn how to make a movie Digital Movie Making for Kids http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/intro_video/making_of_movie.html NOTE FROM ME: COOL IDEA, horrible link, far too complicated for any kid in my house!
Create a web site Lissa Explains HTML for Kids www.lissaexplains.com/
Make an obstacle course in your back yardHow To Set Up An Obstacle Course www.ehow.com/how_3113_set-obstacle-course.html
Build a tree house The Tree House Guide www.thetreehouseguide.com/
Have family game nightsWhat Game Should We Play?http://www.hasbro.com/familygamenight/en_US/
Make a collage from magazine words and pictures Collage http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/do/collage.html
Make up bubble solution and have a contest Casey Carle's "Secret" Bubble Solutions www.bubblemania.com/faq/solution.html
Host a yard sale How to Plan a Yard Sale www.ehow.com/how_137461_yard-garage-sale.html
Invent your own board game Design Your Own Board Game http://www.essortment.com/all/boardgamedesig_rxcu.htm
Make your own comic book Comic Creator http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/
Tie-dye some t-shirts How to Tie-Dye http://www.essortment.com/all/tiedyedyefa_rmel.htm
Learn some new outdoor games Games Kids Play www.gameskidsplay.net/
Make something from recyclables Crafts from Recycled Products www.makingfriends.com/recycle.htm
Organize a scavenger hunt Outdoor Scavenger Hunts www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/kids/scavengerhunt.htm
Write a fairy tale Fractured Fairy Tales http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/fairytales/
Create your own holiday A Month With No Holidays? Make Up Your Own!www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson018.shtml
And some REALLY LAME ideas:
Blow up balloons, put notes inside and hand themout to friendsMessage in a Balloonwww.nmhct.nhs.uk/pharmacy/nmha-activities.html HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF LATEX ALLERGIES?????
Make a fire planHome Fire Safetywww.usfa.fema.gov/kids/flash.shtm PLEASE TELL ME YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE? I am surprised they didn't tell us to make sure we had changed our smoke detector batteries too!
Get a magazine subscription (parent permission) Magazine Listing www.magsonthenet.com/chilmag.html This just seems like a LAME thing to put on a list with so many COOL ideas.....come on now...maybe something like CREATE your own magazine, or COMPILE a newsletter with your friends, but encouraging magazine subscriptions????
Donate some of the toys and clothes you no longer use How To Donate Toys www.ehow..com/how_10124_donate-toys-children.html COME ON? You really need to put this on a list, especially a list geared to homeschoolers? Most homeschoolers I know are frugal and pass items on on an ongoing basis. And that there is a WEBSITE telling you HOW to donate items? Well someone had WAY TOO MUCH TIME on their hands!
Spend time with your grandparents 10 Great Activities www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson136.shtml OK? Obviously the author doesn't know the ONE grandparent my children have! But seriously, someone needs to TELL YOU to spend time with your grandparents????
Rent a video of a ballet Easy to Read Profiles of the Histories of Ballets classicalmusic.about.com/od/historyofballet/ Hey GRANT, JACOB AND CADE...wanna watch a DVD of some guys in tights? If you are going to SUGGEST a BALLET, at least encourage families to GO TO A REAL BALLET...even small towns have local ballet companies, why stick kids in front of a TV when they can experience first hand????
Adopt a pet (parent permission) http://www.petfinder.com/ NEED I EXPLAIN THIS ONE???
But it got me thinking.......and I decided to come up with a list of my own!
Letterboxing: http://www.letterboxing.org/ or http://www.atlasquest.com/
Geocaching: Wanna go a little more high tech? http://www.geocaching.com/
Explore a local creek, pond, stream or river: We are lucky, the Little Miami River is just blocks from our house http://www.littlemiamiriver.org/ but there are plenty of creeks, streams and waterways ripe for exploring. For a free guide we really like a copy of Stream Insects and Crustaceans located on pages 9 &10 of this pdf http://www.mostreamteam.org/activity_guide/ST%20Act.%20Guide%20activities/ST%20Act%20Guide%20p%20119-128%20aqua%20stream.pdf I printed it off and lamenated a couple of copies! If you are more the already made/ full color kind of person, our favorite guide is a lamenated trifold entitled PondWatchers: Guide to Ponds and Vernal Pools of Eastern North America ISBN 0-932691-14-5
Go for a bike ride : We are lucky, we live blocks from the Loveland Bike Trail http://www.lovelandbiketrail.com/ but there are plenty of other great places to ride bikes. Do you remember being a kid and riding your bike EVERYWHERE? Recapture that feeling of freedom with your children!
Take in a local youth, highschool or college BASEBALL game: don't live in a city with a major league team or live in a city with a team but can't afford the big league prices? I find youth, highschool and college baseball to be just as exciting (if not moreso since the players tend to be passionate about the game and aren't there for a paycheck) and the admission fee (if there is one at all) if far more reasonable than the MAJORS....you can get in the whole family (and I am talking a family the size of mine) for less than one ticket to a professional game. We are fortunate to live close enough to a WONDERFUL youth baseball complex http://www.tealtownballpark.org/ and just about any day you can find exciting action on at least one field. OK I would avoid the T-BALL games on Friday nights!
Bowling: Many bowling alleys participate in FREE BOWLING in the summer http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/. If you aren't near one of these bowling alleys, check out your local alley for great summer deals. Our favorite alley, Cherry Grove Lanes (http://cglanes.com/) doesn't do the free bowling, but has great summer deals..
Rollback Days Monday - Saturday
May 4th to Aug 22nd Noon - 5 pm
$1.75 Game Open Bowling
$1 Shoe Rental, Hot Dog & Soft Drink
Free Movies: This was by far one of my favorite summer activities, I can't afford to take my gang to the movies, so this is a real treat! Last year both local theater chains that participated also offered specials on popcorn/pop during these shows.
Rave Motion Pictures: http://www.ravemotionpictures.com/ffff.asp
All Rave Motion Pictures locations nationwide will host the Free Family Film Festival 2009. All locations will play these movies on the dates listed:
June 9 & 10 Kung Fu Panda PG 92 minutes
June 16 & 17 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa PG 89 minutes
June 23 & 24 Surf's Up PG 85 minutes
June 30 & July 1 The Tale of Despereaux G 90 minutes
July 7 & 8 Horton Hears A Who! G 86 minutes
July 14 & 15 Space Chimps G 81 minutes
July 21 & 22 Igor PG 87 minutes
July 28 & 29 Shrek the Third PG 93 minutes
ALL MOVIES START AT 10AM
Regal Theater Group: http://www.regmovies.com/nowshowing/familyfilmfestivalschedule.aspx you have to check the website for your local theater, here is the listing for the one we attend, they offer 2 choices most week!:
Deerfield Stadium 16 5500 Deerfield Blvd Mason ,OH 45040 513-770-3186
06/16/2009-06/17/2009 Kit Kittredge: American Girl (G) AND Star Wars: Clone Wars (PG)
06/23/2009-06/24/2009 Everyone's Hero (G) AND Inkheart (PG)
06/30/2009-07/01/2009 Space Chimps (G) AND Kung Fu Panda (PG)
07/07/2009-07/08/2009 Charlotte's Web (G) AND Journey To The Center Of The Earth (PG)
07/14/2009-07/15/2009 Horton Hears A Who (G) AND Firehouse Dog (PG)
07/21/2009-07/22/2009 Wallace And Gromit (G) AND Evan Almighty (PG)
07/28/2009-07/29/2009 Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Veggie Tale Movie (G) AND Alvin And The Chipmunks (PG)
08/04/2009-08/05/2009 Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (G)
08/11/2009-08/12/2009 March Of The Penguins (G) AND Igor (PG)
Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for kids to spend a weekday morning in the summer.
OK....enough for now....I will add more later!
I am signed up for MANY email newsletter on a variety of subjects, parenting, mothering, photography, scrapbooking and of course homeschooling. Many I signed up for a long time ago and rarely every really read, but one that came into my inbox today caught my eye "101 Things To Do This Summer" from Homeschool.com (I am in no way endorsing this newsletter, it if far too schooly for this unschool chick, but for once it contained something I found incredibly interesting!)......I think what I liked was that everything had a link with more info in it, although I will admit that MANY of the links I clicked into looked rather DRY and COMPLICATED but you still have to give credit to anyone who would spend time finding sites to support each of their ideas.....
It contained some INCREDIBLY COOL ideas for summer like:
Make a scrapbook of everything you do this summer The Basics of Scrapbooking www.betterphoto.com/photography-for-kids.asp
Compare a book to a movie Compare and Contrast Essay (PDF) www.csudh.edu
Write a poem 30 Days of Poetry www.msrogers.com/English2/poetry/30_days_of_poetry.htm
Sketch a picture of your house from the outside Perspective Drawing www.artyfactory.com/perspective_drawing/perspective_1.htm NOTE FROM ME: COOL IDEA, not so cool link!
Learn how to make a movie Digital Movie Making for Kids http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/intro_video/making_of_movie.html NOTE FROM ME: COOL IDEA, horrible link, far too complicated for any kid in my house!
Create a web site Lissa Explains HTML for Kids www.lissaexplains.com/
Make an obstacle course in your back yardHow To Set Up An Obstacle Course www.ehow.com/how_3113_set-obstacle-course.html
Build a tree house The Tree House Guide www.thetreehouseguide.com/
Have family game nightsWhat Game Should We Play?http://www.hasbro.com/familygamenight/en_US/
Make a collage from magazine words and pictures Collage http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/do/collage.html
Make up bubble solution and have a contest Casey Carle's "Secret" Bubble Solutions www.bubblemania.com/faq/solution.html
Host a yard sale How to Plan a Yard Sale www.ehow.com/how_137461_yard-garage-sale.html
Invent your own board game Design Your Own Board Game http://www.essortment.com/all/boardgamedesig_rxcu.htm
Make your own comic book Comic Creator http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/
Tie-dye some t-shirts How to Tie-Dye http://www.essortment.com/all/tiedyedyefa_rmel.htm
Learn some new outdoor games Games Kids Play www.gameskidsplay.net/
Make something from recyclables Crafts from Recycled Products www.makingfriends.com/recycle.htm
Organize a scavenger hunt Outdoor Scavenger Hunts www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/kids/scavengerhunt.htm
Write a fairy tale Fractured Fairy Tales http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/fairytales/
Create your own holiday A Month With No Holidays? Make Up Your Own!www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson018.shtml
And some REALLY LAME ideas:
Blow up balloons, put notes inside and hand themout to friendsMessage in a Balloonwww.nmhct.nhs.uk/pharmacy/nmha-activities.html HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF LATEX ALLERGIES?????
Make a fire planHome Fire Safetywww.usfa.fema.gov/kids/flash.shtm PLEASE TELL ME YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE? I am surprised they didn't tell us to make sure we had changed our smoke detector batteries too!
Get a magazine subscription (parent permission) Magazine Listing www.magsonthenet.com/chilmag.html This just seems like a LAME thing to put on a list with so many COOL ideas.....come on now...maybe something like CREATE your own magazine, or COMPILE a newsletter with your friends, but encouraging magazine subscriptions????
Donate some of the toys and clothes you no longer use How To Donate Toys www.ehow..com/how_10124_donate-toys-children.html COME ON? You really need to put this on a list, especially a list geared to homeschoolers? Most homeschoolers I know are frugal and pass items on on an ongoing basis. And that there is a WEBSITE telling you HOW to donate items? Well someone had WAY TOO MUCH TIME on their hands!
Spend time with your grandparents 10 Great Activities www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson136.shtml OK? Obviously the author doesn't know the ONE grandparent my children have! But seriously, someone needs to TELL YOU to spend time with your grandparents????
Rent a video of a ballet Easy to Read Profiles of the Histories of Ballets classicalmusic.about.com/od/historyofballet/ Hey GRANT, JACOB AND CADE...wanna watch a DVD of some guys in tights? If you are going to SUGGEST a BALLET, at least encourage families to GO TO A REAL BALLET...even small towns have local ballet companies, why stick kids in front of a TV when they can experience first hand????
Adopt a pet (parent permission) http://www.petfinder.com/ NEED I EXPLAIN THIS ONE???
But it got me thinking.......and I decided to come up with a list of my own!
Letterboxing: http://www.letterboxing.org/ or http://www.atlasquest.com/
Geocaching: Wanna go a little more high tech? http://www.geocaching.com/
Explore a local creek, pond, stream or river: We are lucky, the Little Miami River is just blocks from our house http://www.littlemiamiriver.org/ but there are plenty of creeks, streams and waterways ripe for exploring. For a free guide we really like a copy of Stream Insects and Crustaceans located on pages 9 &10 of this pdf http://www.mostreamteam.org/activity_guide/ST%20Act.%20Guide%20activities/ST%20Act%20Guide%20p%20119-128%20aqua%20stream.pdf I printed it off and lamenated a couple of copies! If you are more the already made/ full color kind of person, our favorite guide is a lamenated trifold entitled PondWatchers: Guide to Ponds and Vernal Pools of Eastern North America ISBN 0-932691-14-5
Go for a bike ride : We are lucky, we live blocks from the Loveland Bike Trail http://www.lovelandbiketrail.com/ but there are plenty of other great places to ride bikes. Do you remember being a kid and riding your bike EVERYWHERE? Recapture that feeling of freedom with your children!
Take in a local youth, highschool or college BASEBALL game: don't live in a city with a major league team or live in a city with a team but can't afford the big league prices? I find youth, highschool and college baseball to be just as exciting (if not moreso since the players tend to be passionate about the game and aren't there for a paycheck) and the admission fee (if there is one at all) if far more reasonable than the MAJORS....you can get in the whole family (and I am talking a family the size of mine) for less than one ticket to a professional game. We are fortunate to live close enough to a WONDERFUL youth baseball complex http://www.tealtownballpark.org/ and just about any day you can find exciting action on at least one field. OK I would avoid the T-BALL games on Friday nights!
Bowling: Many bowling alleys participate in FREE BOWLING in the summer http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/. If you aren't near one of these bowling alleys, check out your local alley for great summer deals. Our favorite alley, Cherry Grove Lanes (http://cglanes.com/) doesn't do the free bowling, but has great summer deals..
Rollback Days Monday - Saturday
May 4th to Aug 22nd Noon - 5 pm
$1.75 Game Open Bowling
$1 Shoe Rental, Hot Dog & Soft Drink
Free Movies: This was by far one of my favorite summer activities, I can't afford to take my gang to the movies, so this is a real treat! Last year both local theater chains that participated also offered specials on popcorn/pop during these shows.
Rave Motion Pictures: http://www.ravemotionpictures.com/ffff.asp
All Rave Motion Pictures locations nationwide will host the Free Family Film Festival 2009. All locations will play these movies on the dates listed:
June 9 & 10 Kung Fu Panda PG 92 minutes
June 16 & 17 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa PG 89 minutes
June 23 & 24 Surf's Up PG 85 minutes
June 30 & July 1 The Tale of Despereaux G 90 minutes
July 7 & 8 Horton Hears A Who! G 86 minutes
July 14 & 15 Space Chimps G 81 minutes
July 21 & 22 Igor PG 87 minutes
July 28 & 29 Shrek the Third PG 93 minutes
ALL MOVIES START AT 10AM
Regal Theater Group: http://www.regmovies.com/nowshowing/familyfilmfestivalschedule.aspx you have to check the website for your local theater, here is the listing for the one we attend, they offer 2 choices most week!:
Deerfield Stadium 16 5500 Deerfield Blvd Mason ,OH 45040 513-770-3186
06/16/2009-06/17/2009 Kit Kittredge: American Girl (G) AND Star Wars: Clone Wars (PG)
06/23/2009-06/24/2009 Everyone's Hero (G) AND Inkheart (PG)
06/30/2009-07/01/2009 Space Chimps (G) AND Kung Fu Panda (PG)
07/07/2009-07/08/2009 Charlotte's Web (G) AND Journey To The Center Of The Earth (PG)
07/14/2009-07/15/2009 Horton Hears A Who (G) AND Firehouse Dog (PG)
07/21/2009-07/22/2009 Wallace And Gromit (G) AND Evan Almighty (PG)
07/28/2009-07/29/2009 Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Veggie Tale Movie (G) AND Alvin And The Chipmunks (PG)
08/04/2009-08/05/2009 Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (G)
08/11/2009-08/12/2009 March Of The Penguins (G) AND Igor (PG)
Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for kids to spend a weekday morning in the summer.
OK....enough for now....I will add more later!
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Spring has definitely SPRUNG here, we are at the baseball fields just about anytime it isn't raining. I love baseball season, being in the sun, the company, the excitement of the game. Grant (13) played last night and the game was a real nail biter....we were winning 2-0 in the top of the 7th (we play 7 inning games) and the other team scored 4 runs, so when we got up to bat, we were trailing 4-2.......the boys managed to rally and come back, winning 5-4.....our team went undefeated last season, and it was funny to watch the crowd gather last night as news spread around the park that we were losing a game! Tonight, if the rain stops and the fields are playable, Cade (9) has a game! And if it doesn't rain tomorrow, another game for Cade...a makeup for one of the many rainouts already this season! 
Dance season is winding down. Our final competition of the season is this weekend, we will be at the competition, Friday night, all day Saturday (literally from 6 AM to midnight) and Sunday from 7 AM to 11:30 PM.....I love watching the kids dance, but I am not looking forward to the schedule! The girls are trying to decide what the want to do next year, so there is a POSSIBILITY that they may not be competing next year....Emily is looking into taking more classic ballet training and Hannah is just fed up with the hypocrisy at our current studio. It is funny to watch them navigate this new path... approaching new studios and instructors and watching the reaction when they realize that it isn't ME they (new studios) have to impress, it is my daughters...I don't think most people are comfortable with children making decisions, they tend to look to the adult/parent. I like to witness their reaction when they realize that the decision is firmly in the hands of my children.
I love being able to get outside again. We had a blast hanging out at the park this past Monday...Luke just LOVES playing on the playground equipment now, it is so cute to watch him run around with excitement and explore everything! We typically tend to hang out in the Loveland/Milford area but when we were heading home, the boys told me that they are wanting to explore some different parks. They film their own videos called DKK (Dumbest Kids You Know) for youtube (along with their friend Chris and any stray kids they can rope into participating!) and Grant informed me that they had "worn out" that park! Wonder if it was the park or the cop that "visited" with them while they were filming their stupid stunts?
I am going to try to get better about updating things here....I feel so bad when I don't add anything for days or weeks at a time...I think about BLOGGING all the time, I just don't get around to it!
Dance season is winding down. Our final competition of the season is this weekend, we will be at the competition, Friday night, all day Saturday (literally from 6 AM to midnight) and Sunday from 7 AM to 11:30 PM.....I love watching the kids dance, but I am not looking forward to the schedule! The girls are trying to decide what the want to do next year, so there is a POSSIBILITY that they may not be competing next year....Emily is looking into taking more classic ballet training and Hannah is just fed up with the hypocrisy at our current studio. It is funny to watch them navigate this new path... approaching new studios and instructors and watching the reaction when they realize that it isn't ME they (new studios) have to impress, it is my daughters...I don't think most people are comfortable with children making decisions, they tend to look to the adult/parent. I like to witness their reaction when they realize that the decision is firmly in the hands of my children.
I love being able to get outside again. We had a blast hanging out at the park this past Monday...Luke just LOVES playing on the playground equipment now, it is so cute to watch him run around with excitement and explore everything! We typically tend to hang out in the Loveland/Milford area but when we were heading home, the boys told me that they are wanting to explore some different parks. They film their own videos called DKK (Dumbest Kids You Know) for youtube (along with their friend Chris and any stray kids they can rope into participating!) and Grant informed me that they had "worn out" that park! Wonder if it was the park or the cop that "visited" with them while they were filming their stupid stunts?
I am going to try to get better about updating things here....I feel so bad when I don't add anything for days or weeks at a time...I think about BLOGGING all the time, I just don't get around to it!
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