This Week at Our House #38

I have a list of funny things the kids said this week. I am going to start with that:

• Out of the blue, Joshua asked this question: "What's your favorite natural disaster?" How does one answer that?
• Susan tell me how you are today.

Ummm dad.
Dad, my name is Susan.

Susan what are your favorite things?

Purple and ramen noodles


and chicken and cats and ducks and chickens



Susan what do you hate?
soup
• And the next day: Susan what are your favorite things?
  
  purple, and ramen noodles, and popcorn
• Arwen in the car: "I like big words, because they are so interesting."
• Joseph to Josh: I'm going to scoop out your insides with a spoon.
  Josh: ew, that was too realistic.
• Sam wore a pink, red, and white striped stocking hat to nursery. When we left nursery, Sam said, "I want to go back". He got out of Kate's arms and ran back. Sam has never been to nursery alone before today. John asked what Sam had that made him want to stay in nursery. He was sitting on the floor, reading a board book.
• At 1 am, Susan yelled from her open bedroom door, "Turn off the light, so I can go to sleep!"

We completed our 7th week of school. After this next week, we will be half way through our first semester. We are slightly behind schedule. We will have to do a bit of math during Christmas break. Joseph and Anya are doubling up on some lessons to finish on time and Adam and Rachel are so behind on their assigned book reading, that I will either have to drop some of the books I have assigned for them or make them read them over vacation. 

Rachel is not thriving with school. She has been very unhappy and mopey and sometimes even rebellious about getting the work done. I talked to an online friend of mine whose homeschooled teens work long hours on their own chosen projects. I messaged back and forth about what she does and how Rachel is doing.

Afterwards, I talked to Rachel about what she wants to change. I told her that language and math had to stay, but she could change other things up. We decided to drop science for her and art history. She will instead be spending more time on copying impressionist artwork. She said that she wanted to keep history and keep reading the Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt. That surprised me because she struggles to get that done. 

I told Adam that after this school year, he can start choosing his own course except that he has to continue with math through calculus, and he has to read an american history book series. John said he would still like him to get in a physics course. Adam readily agreed. This year's tough curriculum has really helped him to speed up his reading. I am sure by the end of the school year, he will be ready to take off on his own. Adam said that he is very interested in spending a lot more time on

wood working and computer programming. I am wondering if there is some way he can use the programming to earn money to buy wood and tools.

Joseph said that he would like to start writing a book. I know that, and I plan to give him that time in the coming years, but he needs to learn the language better to be successful.

Anya has not asked for any changes. She is happy enough with what she is doing for school. She may think some of it is hard, but Anya likes to read and tends to find things interesting like Kate and Johnny did.

Gideon hit the 8 month mark this week. He can now stand up without holding on to anything and he can stand himself up in the middle of the floor. He is a strong little boy, and such a delight.

Thursday, we ended the school  early and went to the beach. Hurricane Humberto was about 1000 miles east of our coast and the waves were the tallest ever. There really was no shallow end. I walked in about 3 paces and the water would be at my neck. A wave would come, and it would lift me about 5 more feet. Fortunately, there were two large tide pools and the little kids loved playing in those. When they got tired of that, they rolled down the sand to the ocean. 

Saturday, Johnny had his 18th birthday. I am still surprised that he is 18! He was supposed to be going

on a mission now, but with our strange situation at church and our low finances, he won't be going yet. Hopefully, Kate and Johnny will both get out on a mission this year. 

I have been writing a lot of poetry. I am working pretty hard to get a book out. I don't think it will make much money, though I hope it will make some. I write either religious and political or family, kid, and nature. I think that means that I am really  going for two books.

Kate made a giant whoopie pie cake for Johnny's birthday. It looked like a giant whoopie pie and it tasted like a whoopie pie. It was really good and there was only one piece left.

Ruth and Kate and Johnny are still doing their own work stuff. This has basically estranged them from their grandparents, and I think it will continue to get worse. I am sure that in time they will be successful with their efforts. Ruth has been working on writing and drawing and church history. Kate has finished, though not published, a book, and she is cooking a lot. Johnny does church history and computer programming. I am not sure what the future holds, but I do know that a college education is barely an education anymore. It is a lot of indoctrination, including at BYU. And a college degree is not worth what it once was either. In addition to that, a lot of college degrees are more and more forcing people into careers where they will have to do things that, I

personally find immoral. Ruth was going to college as an english education major with an idea to teach high school english. But things have turned in education. Teachers are required to teach teach very objectionable things, such as girls can be boys and boys can be girls, and comprehensive sexual education even in subjects like math. That does not even touch all of the anti-freedom indoctrination.  I personally do not believe that someone can save their soul while destroying the souls of children for an income. I recognize that other people feel the very differently. I think about the early the Christians, and how they were forced to live in caves or

quit believing. In some ways, I think we are there now. Hard decisions have to be made. We are not planning to waste money on "getting an education" for a job that destroys faith in God. To illustrate what I said about BYU, a friend of my wrote this:


“How to get asked by the BYU administration to leave campus: Hand out pocket Constitutions on Constitution Day.

How not to get asked by the BYU administration to leave: Hand out rainbow bracelets and rainbow stickers on campus for "Rainbow Day" to protest the prophet.

Shows you where BYU is at right now.”

Anyway, our week went fairly well. I am pleased with my family. John is doing well. He has some products up for sale and he has had some job interviews. Something will come up at some point, Right now, though, things are not too bad. Our overhead and our debts are very low.

More Pictures

This Week at Our House # 37 Lots Got Done

Last Saturday I checked the weather and it said there would be no rain for a full week. I decided that we could make double the dinner on Sunday, so we could have it two nights, and then would have time for an after school beach trip on Monday. Just as we were leaving for the beach late Monday afternoon, we noticed storm clouds in the distance. About 2 miles out, there was mild rain. I decided to keep going, thinking the storm was in the opposite direction of the beach. I was wrong and we drove into a huge storm. At that point however, we were far enough and decided to at least get ice cream cones at the grocery store near our beach. Once we went over the

bridge there was no storm. However, when we arrived at the public beach, there was a police car blocking off the entire road. We went and got ice cream and talked about going to a further beach, but by then there was loud thunder and visible lightening. We went home and drove through an even bigger storm. The weather man, as usual was wrong. And it turns out that the tornado that touched down on Emerald Isle during the hurricane, hit our closest beach and will be closed for a while. We thought the double dinner on Sunday was a good idea, so we are

going to try and get to the beach again tomorrow. We will have to go to a beach further out, though. One funny little note was when we arrived home, Sam said to Ruth, "We go back home and died. it rain it rain!"

The rest of the week was pretty good. Rachel is struggling with school, but everyone else is doing well, mostly enjoying what they are learning and getting their work done. I am not sure what to do about Rachel. She is completely unconvinced that she needs to learn anything at all.
Susan finally lost her first tooth. When it came out, there was no drama at all because she waited until it completely dropped out.

Tuesday, I did our weekly grocery trip. Kate and a bunch of the little kids came along with me, while Adam stayed home to do some mowing and Ruth rallied the kids that were home and got the house cleaned. Kate and I are a great team shopping. We have been doing it together for a good number of years, and we have a good system. We got through to stores with long lists and a bunch of little kids very quickly by dividing the list.

I came home with a sushi platter, sold at Sam's Club, and frozen egg rolls for dinner. This is one of those times where I realize what a large group we are. The sushi platter was gone, including the pickled ginger, in less than 10 minutes, and all 32 egg rolls were eaten there after.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I worked on mowing the lawn. I am doing more of the mowing to get more exercise in. When I mow the little kids come out and play outside. Joseph has been working on building a hill for our yard. He spent about the same amount of time on that, as I have spent on mowing.

For a science lab, I bought the kids some little glass chips from the dollar store. They thought they made good Go pieces. Go is a Japanese game. Adam decided to make a Go board. He spent several hours on getting the lines straight, carved, and inked. Then late on Friday, he stained and polyed it. It looks really nice and the kids have spent hours playing Go. They are allowed to read and watch an anime called Hikaru No Go. That is the main reason why they are familiar with the game.

Adam and I fixed the wood finish on our countertops of Friday. That was interesting, because we use the bar in our kitchen all day. It is the heart of the home. The kids were not used to having to stay away from it. But no one seemed to get wet stain and polyurethane on them, so it turned out well.

Adam and I also cleaned out the garage on Friday. That was hot and hard and gross. And later that evening, I finished mowing the south side of our house. I have the north side left, which I will do on Tuesday.

The 40-something year old, drug addicted son of one of our neighbors has moved into a camper on his father's lawn. When he was out mowing his father's yard this week, John brought all of the kids into the house. Josh looked at him from the window and said, "That too drugged man is creepy." He is. When he mows on the riding lawn mower, he talks to himself and hoots and hollers. One time, I heard him say, "Woohoo. I am the man." He's a sad sight. I think our kids have had all the education they need to get on why you are not supposed to do drugs.

Generally we live in a very quiet place. In fact, John was sitting outside with Arwen. She heard a car drive by, seemed surprised and asked John what that noise was.

Kate said that while she was transcribing "good weather for sleighing", Joseph with great concern asked "What kind of slaying?" We thought that was a pretty funny misunderstanding.

Anya spends a lot of time drawing. She has one girl character that she draws everyday. Sometimes she will spend several days on one drawing. If you want to know where Anya is, she is likely sitting down

with her drawing board.

Ruth sent me this about Arwen, "I hugged her and said goodnight and she put her eye against my cheek, blinked and said she had kissed me with her eye."

Gideon wants to be walking. He holds on to furniture to get around and when the furniture ends, he always tries to take a step before getting down and crawling.

Johnny, forgetting that Gideon cannot walk yet, set him down on his feet. Gideon stood for a moment before falling down. Johnny said that Gideon actually can stand. Well, not long enough to be left with nothing to hold onto yet. 

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This Week at Our House # 36 Hurricane Dorian

I really don't feel like blogging this week, so I am going to give a quick recap. We survived Hurricane Dorian! Haha! It was no big deal. We lost two branches from our favorite window tree, but that was all. The hurricane mostly whirred over night and while it put down enough rain to fill our little "ponds", as far as I know there was no flooding anywhere.

We spent the week preparing for the hurricane, which basically meant hurrying up and finishing the roof, except for the half of the garage. It took 15 hours and it was mostly just dealing with the valleys. I definitely way under estimated how hard and how long it is to do a roof. But all that is left we know is easy.

The roof held firm! We didn't lose a single shingle. We didn't lose electricity or water, and we were only without internet for about 6 hours.

Joseph and Joshua were very disappointed. They kept asking when our electricity would go out. When it didn't, they said "that was the stupidest hurricane ever". Kids are funny.

Indeed Dorian was not at all stupid. The Bahamas are devastated and the amount of life lost from the aftermath of the hurricane is not yet known.

We didn't get school in as well as I would have liked, so we will have to do a few math lessons over Christmas break. But for all of the younger school kids, the week was definitely vacation-y. Joseph was just mourning the fact that school will be in full swing tomorrow.

Everyone is doing well. The family seems happy enough and next week will be business as usual.

Pictures

fire ant bites on Gideon's pinky finger

This is our sometimes pond. After the hurricane, the pond was full and the water was cold and clean. The kids had a blast before it dried up again. We've had a dry summer and that has been nice.