I'm watching Hailey watch the news. Her reactions to the stories are very interesting. She was so concerned about a fire she heard about until she heard that no one was injured and then she was so relieved. She sometimes has a curious look about her, and then she has a confused look. Watching the traffic report she was so worried because she thought we might get stuck in the traffic on the Bay Bridge when we leave for Vegas. I had to explain that we went in a totally different direction when driving to Vegas. Hey, I think I will take out the map and have her find out the way from here to Vegas.

There are flowers of all kinds growing in my yard which is really cool because back in Vegas, nothing grew for long except the palm tree in my back yard, and even it was dying. So I went out to take a picture or two of the plants in my
yard, and there were the squirrels, ready to drive my dog nuts. As you can see in the picture, she was up on the couch watching a squirrel climb the tree in the front, and she has this funny curl in her lip as she was giving us a low growl to let us know she was on the hunt. Those little critters just drive her insane. But, I have to admit that it is kind of funny to watch her try to chase them. Hopefully she will never catch one, but it could happen. Let's just hope she doesn't try to bring one in if she does. Maybe we should take down that doggie door. Hmmmmm.

The home schooling group I joined has been having some very interesting conversations over the group email loop about unschooling. Some are very defined in what they think it is or is supposed to look like. Others are very concerned that they are being labeled. Isn't it amazing how by raising your children in the way you feel is best you can get caught up in a battle of what it is supposed to be called and what it is supposed to look like? I mean, in my opinion, all that really matters is that you are loving your children the way God intended. Yet we have people that we place in some type of authority and let them define what learning should be like for our children. And I feel like these children aren't ours in the first place. They are children of God in my opinion. He basically created them and placed them in our care because we had that something to give them that would help define who they would be so that they could become and do what was intended for them to do. And sometimes I feel like He gives them to us because He has something specific for us to learn or do that is provided by something the children have to offer us. But either way, God is entrusting us with his creations. That is HUGE! Wow, thinking about it that way makes me hope I don't screw up!

Anyway, I am just throwing out there some thoughts from my brain which isn't always functioning properly these days.


So Mackenzie is learning the theme to Star Wars on the piano this week. I am so proud! She has the beginning down and is currently working on the next part.

Hailey is learning super-cali-fragile blah blah, Okay, I don't know how to spell it, but it's that really annoying song from Mary Poppins. She plays it so well, and I loved it the first hundred times, but now it is just really annoying.

I found a house that was really perfect for us, 4bedrooms, 2baths with a bitchin back yard and great hard wood floors, and it is just over 1800 sq. feet. But the price is all fuc%*^ up!!!! 789,000! Let's see, if we actually agreed on that amount, with crappy financing we would have a house payment of about $3500.00! The part that really sucks is that it is right near a park, and a home schooling family live right across the street! I would love to buy that house, but just not for that much money!!! Perhaps some day we will find a home we can call ours. But for now, I won't complain because we are super blessed to be where we are.

Hope to see some familiar faces at the end of the month in Vegas. But most of all I am looking forward to the pool! I am also wondering if it will feel weird at all coming back to Vegas after living here for the last five months.

So the trip to Deer Hill Farm was awesome. The girls really had a great time. We made cotton thread by carding the wool from a sheep and then pulling it and twisting it all the while trying to make it as thin as possible, and the lanolin in the wool gets all over your hands and it feels kind of good and makes your hands soft. The kids also went into the hay loft and it took quite a few kids to lift a bail of hay. They fed chickens, groomed horses, ponies, and mules. They held rabbits and chickens, went into the hen house to get eggs right from under the chickens, saw and handled the baby chicks, climbed fences, among other things. It was really great to have the girls get to experience it all. We will have to make another trip some time. They have summer camps there and there are all kind of trails around the property. Fun! Our next adventure is to travel to the Red Wood forest. But that won't be for a little while.

We are about to leave on a fieldtrip to Deer Hill Farms. I will make sure we take lots of photos to share of our adventure.

First though, I had to share this little story.
We were at the park and since it was during "school hours" there were no other kids there, however there was a group of 4-5year olds doing soccer over on another field far from where we were. So I am looking off towards the trees that surround the parking lot and along comes this little kid. He could only be one of the soccer stars because of the way he is dressed. So I see him, and then start looking for the parent who must be behind him a ways. I see no one. This little boy wandered from the soccer group and decided he was going to stop at this playground and play. I asked him if his mom or dad knew where he was and he tells me that his mom dropped him off for soccer and she won't mind if he is there. I restate my question and he ignores me. So I tell him that mom's and dad's don't normally like not knowing where their kids are, that it scares them. He looks at me and smiles, perhaps giggles and continues to play. So I decide to wait it out and if no one shows up by the time we have to leave, I will call the cops. Pretty soon, here comes this black truck screeching into the parking lot, and a hysterical mother races out screaming the name of her child. He runs to her and she is flipping out about how everyone is looking for him. The kid, seeing his mother's look starts crying and mom precedes to have a little talk with him.

How easily he could have been gone. If it were not me, but some kind of child predator sitting in that park, in the amount of time it took for someone to get there, (around 10 minutes) this little boy would have been gone, probably never to be found. I prayed right there for those two people. Then Mackenzie comes to me and says, "who drops their kid off alone?" Hailey says, "you have do be dropped off alone for school. Every day kids get dropped off alone at school." Mackenzie looked at me and said, "Yes, but not little kids like that." Hailey tells her about kindergarten and daycare. Mackenzie shook her head and walked away saying "glad I don't go to school or daycare."


Oh, time to go, well, I will have to share the rest of this story later. Blessings!