Went for a bike ride with TP. The goal was to make it to Roland Olson from home. We ended up having to take a different path due to construction on the interstate and ended up near a friend's subdivision so we decided to stop in and say hello. As we were visiting we heard thunder in the direction of home. We left our friends shortly thereafter and headed home. About half way home (6 miles left to ride) it began to rain. Then we got hail. It really stung the skin. We tried to find shelter among the trees but we were still pelted. TP leaned over me so it wasnt' as bad. It hailed a good 5 minutes. After that we started again. The wind was against us pretty good. It was a struggle to go 18mph on a flat path. By the time we were about 12 minutes from home the sun came out. Once we were back in our subdivision we saw a bunch of leaves and small twigs down. But, we made it. :)
It was still a good ride. And I feel pretty good.
Now I have to go and find the garbage cans, try to straighten up the tomatoes, and dry out my i-home.
Girls playing around Fun with Fire
Please check out an Ken Ham's (Answers in Genesis) 2009 State of the Nation.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/media/video/ondemand/state-of-the-nation/state-of-the-nation
We went out to my parent's cabin Sunday. We had a great time. Tyler did some fishing, and I got to read an excellent book, Standing Firm through the Great Apostasy by Steve Gallagher. It's about how today's church is producing false converts. The book is an eye-opener.
"Scripture makes clear that there is no salvation without repentance" p. 26. This statement makes me think of the seeker-sensitive movement going on within churches that don't want to offend so there is very little talk of sin or repentance. Typically they are just feel good messages.
Mr. Gallagher goes through an entire list of what he calles evidences of true faith. Faith proven by childlikeness, change, obedience, and by fruit. I find myself often thinking of the last. What kind of fruit have I produced? I typically equate this last to telling other's about Christ, which is somehow terrifying to me. At least to strangers and those that I know who have a differing view. What does it say about me, if I am not willing in this life to "rock the boat", for fear of... what? If I really love someone, should I not be more concerned about where they spend eternity vs. whether they like me or not?
Can I be a silent witness for Christ? Can my actions be a witness all by themselves? That can't be. I'm a sinner. A big one at that. What do my actions, my speech really say about me?
Happy Birthday Aunt Laurie!
Day 2 1/2 with no air. Last night was a long night. We went to a friends house, who is on vacation, who has a great pool. It was a nice cool off.
The guy for the water softener is supposed to be here from 1-2. Maybe after he leaves we can go to the pool again. Though the girls may be going to the cabin with mom. Lucky girls.
We had another mouse in the house last night. My dog is a better mouser than both cats put together!
So, Michael Jackson died yesterday. I get that he was a popular celebrity, but the media is covering this story too much.
I survived the roof adventure. I needed to get the "whirlybirds" out of the gutters. We were growing trees. I used the porch off of our deck to get onto the roof. I didn't fall!!
I set the tent up in the front yard. It's really the only place where I should have shade most of the day. I figure it's got to be cooler than in the house.
Off to clean.
ARG!
We had the air and furnace looked at 2 days ago. Nothing was wrong with anything, Terry just thought it was a good idea to have them looked at and see if they were in need of service. Plus, it started as a friend of his started up a new business in heating/air/decks and other home maintenace stuff. The verdict... the furnace was old and prone to cracks, and very dirty. But otherwise looked ok. The guy wanted to come out with his snake camera and take a look. Terry said that had been done about 2 years ago, and we have installed carbon monoxide detectors through out the house, so we felt we could let that go.
The guy also checked the air conditioner. He said it was in excellent shape. No service needed. That was 2 days ago (remember, we had no issues with either). So, we are going through a heat wave, and the air has been set at 72 degrees for the last several days, and starting last night, the air won't drop below 81 in the house. The air coming out of the vents is NOT cold.
Looks like it will be movie day in the sunken family room. Good thing NCIS came in the mail through Netflix! :)
Tyler's Spanish program is causing an error. I had to contact the company only to find out I have to uninstall the program and start over!? That stinks. I'm pretty sure that means he loses everything he has completed so far. Guess it will be review.
We were going to start back into the swing of school work this week, but due to the mess I have created with the flooring, we are going to have to wait a while. The kids are just heartbroken. NOT! :)
I found a great website for classes on DVD. I am going to have Ky take the Brit Lit class and "Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition" I plan on watching the video's with her. Her Brit Lit textbook covers nearly every author mentioned/discussed, so she will have some reading to go with it. I should get the discs on Tuesday.
I am still waiting to recieve her curriculum for Bible. It's been nearly 2 weeks since I ordered it. I'm looking forward to that one too. I've already read most of her Human Anatomy and Physiology text book. I forgot how interesting that class was. I was tempted to get the DVD's from the "Great Courses" website.
I did select a math class for Tyler to watch. Most of it will be over his head, but he enjoys watching anything on the subject. It's titled the "Joy of Mathematics". I'm looking forward to watching the episode on Fibonacci, as is he, thanks to the TV show "Numbers."
Day 1 of Dining room floor
On our last night, there was a threat of thunderstorms. I pulled my tent in under the tarp. It worked through the day on Saturday (rained off and on) that night we decided to begin packing it up and I ended up sleeping in the vacation home, with the 4 kids. It was a bit cramped. I missed having a tent all to myself. The tent is now set up at home in the backyard. It needed some airing out. Tyler and I slept out in there last night. As did Nicki and Chloe.
Tyler had his first sleep over last night. The boys had so much fun. We will have to do that again more often.
Ky had a meeting today in Davis Junction with a friend for her filming. She got to drive. Lucky girl. The rest of us hung out at B&N waiting for her to get dropped off.
I spent nearly 10 hours yesterday uploading all of my lesson plans for next year just with Ky's stuff. After 8 hours, I lost everything in the program. ARG! Which then led to me re-thinking some of her classes. We changed them up a bit. She doesn't seem to care what classes I assign her. I'm actually looking forward to her human anatomy class. I spent today coming up with her midterm exams for the class. I remember quite a bit.
Found NCIS, season 2, on sale today. Yay! It's our latest favorite show. It's the best way to watch a TV series. Back-to-back.
On the Homeschool Lounge, several families were posting pictures of their classrooms. I thought I would post some here.
We took over the living room and turned it into a classroom. It's been great. We spend a lot of time in here.
This is Tyler's reading nook,
sandwiched between all of our fiction books
Tyler's desk is in the corner. Ky uses the center table for working on her computer. (French and Writing - she's working on a novel.)
My desk and one of 9 bookshelves in the classroom. We made it into a library too. All books are in Dewey decimal. I'm hoping to use the library with our homeschool co-op group. 
Kind of a dreary day.
Tyler should be done with Zoology 3 next week. Then we will begin Botany. I purchased a Lapbook kit from Currclick.com and look forward to working on it with him. It should help to reinforce what he will learn. I expect we will finish Botany over the summer.
I am in the process of 
printing on color paper.
Tyler has also started next year's school work in History, Bible and Language Arts. We decided to go with AOP's, Switched-on-Schoolhouse. These three subjects are done on the computer. It's very easy for me, in that it does most of the grading for me. I can access his work from my computer which has been really nice. I tried using this program when we first started homeschooling with Ky. She didn't care for the format and we switched to traditional textbooks.
Both kids will continue with their foreign language through the summer. Ky is using Rosetta Stone's French, and Tyler is using Tell-Me-More's Spanish. Poor Ky had to start over with her french as her computer crashed and we lost everything.
After talking to other homeschool mom's I have realized that Ky will have enough credits to graduate at 16. She will start at RVC with Ryenn. It looks like she will get an Associates in Arts and from there, possible head to NIU for a bachelor's in media communications. She is still thinking she wants to get into film. I've been pretty impressed with what she has been able to do. She has 4 fan video's on youtube. Check it out.
Tyler completed his bird project. We have 3 feeders just outside the classroom window. It's been fun trying to figure what kind of birds we have.
