We have been busy. The girls are doing an art class and I will post pics of that later. They are making some awesome art pieces.

A few weeks ago we went to the Chabot Space Center and that was cool! The girls wore space suits and set their feet in the footprints of the first astronauts to the moon. We also saw some very cool movies about the earth and space.

Yesterday we went to take a ride on a train at the Niles Canyon Railroad which is connected with the Transcontinental Railroad. It was fun and we learned some history, but most of the old guys on the train were grumpy. And there were so many kids it was super loud for the first half of the ride. Hailey hung out with her friend Haley on the trip, and Mackenzie enjoyed the sun and fresh air.

I will have to write more after school.

Stuff in my head today

It's time to asses the kid's education this year and decide what to use for the next year so I am going to two different home schooling conventions. One in Vegas and one in Sacramento. The one in Vegas will be small and familiar, the one in Sacramento will be huge and unfamiliar. I am looking forward to both.
The one in Sacramento will have tons of activities for the kids as well, but get this, I'm planning on going without them. Momma is taking a little weekend vacation people! I will get three days and two nights alone in a hotel room by the pool. I can go and brows the vendor hall and not feel stressed out. I can sleep in, or get up early, or read a book or journal. I can hog the bed and hog the blanket or........ let's just say that I am very happy to be going. I need a break. It has been a stressful year of new everything, so I am taking a much needed trip to re-energize.

On another note, the grandmas are doing okay, but not great. Shad and the girls are going to Ohio next month to visit and help out for a week. I am going to have a week of school, cleaning and babysitting the dog and turtles. Actually, now that I think about it, I get a whole week to myself! Wooohooooo! A double vacation of sorts. Yet, I wish I could go because I really like Ohio and I would love to get to know grandma a little better. This is going to be a not so fun trip for them I think. :(

Grandma in Vegas is feeling the affects of the second round of chemo which was a little stronger this time. She is loosing her hair too I am told so I am getting ready to send her a beautiful red sun hat that I found. Knowing her, she will wear it once out of self made obligation and then give it away to someone in the family, or to a friend. But I don't care. If she just puts it on her head once that's good enough, She is a fighter! I love that about Gram.

Hope your day is a happy one. Keep the peace!

Life

I was realizing that I get so fired up about certain subjects. Subjects like family and education, art and music. It feels good to feel for a change.

My den is all cleaned up and newly organized. I spent two days going through old papers and boxes of art supplies so I could get things in order. For some reason I am on a serious cleaning and organizing kick this week. Crazy! My next project is the filing cabinet. :) Shredding is good!

We have been looking for a house. Shad went out back to check on the girls the other day and saw them playing in the hose on this super small square of concrete in the backyard and came inside and said "That's it, we have to find a house." It was funny actually. So we have hooked up with a realtor and we have an appointment with him this Saturday to go look at a few places. Part of me is excited, but I am planning on being super picky about what we are willing to buy. The prices here are so fricken crazy. The house across the street, if in Vegas, would go for about 500,000. Here they are trying to sell it for 1.4 mil. Unbelievable! I am ultimately leaving it all in God's hands because I am fine with where we are right now.

I am creating my own home school record book that if any good I will try to make available to the masses. Right now I have a first copy that I am making some changes to, but I should have my first one done by next week. It's been a fun project and has helped me get connected with some of the home schoolers around here. You wouldn't believe some of the responses I got during my research on it. Wild!

Gotta go to the park now. Keep the peace!

Vegas

Some how we always have card games going on when we visit Vegas. We always end up with all of the kids spending the night with us and we end up going out to eat at least once at Macayos too. Tradition? I guess to some degree. The card game is Trash Can, the snacks are root beer floats, and the dinner, well, I can't quite remember, but it was pretty good.

I miss them a lot, and through the tears we managed to have some fun. It was a good trip.

We are off to art class! Keep the peace people!

Here are the bees from the other day. I guess the plan worked because they were gone the next day. Who knew you could trap a bunch of bees in a box with soda in it.

These are also some recent pics of the girls. They are growing way too fast for me. Hailey is 5'4 now and Mackenzie is quickly catching up.

Later I will post some pics from our trip to visit grandma.

Today is sunny with a bit of wind. It is a lazy Sunday for sure. I have a lot of school to get done this week, but I am finally on the last leg of this current class. 14 classes down and about 21 more to go! If I can find more school money and keep up this pace, I will be done by November of 2009! Wooohoooo! Okay, I am trying real hard to keep a positive outlook here so just stay with me. Time is passing by fast though so it's all good!

Hailey is currently learning French now and Mackenzie is studying Spanish. It has been fun to learn along with them, although I do better with Spanish than French. It must have something to do with taking it three years in high school. It's fun to listen to them speaking another language. I am taking them to art classes starting Tuesday and will share pics of that here later on. They will be working with clay and oils, then do a short study on drawing. At the same time I will be getting some instruction on some teaching techniques. We are also taking a trip to the Chabot Space Center this Thursday and I will share pics of that as well.

Hope all is well with friends and family. I think of everyone often and wonder what they are up to. I'm sure it is nothing but peace loving goodness!

Keep the peace people!

Just an update...

Granny is doing pretty well with the first chemo treatment. She was sick and weak for a couple of days but doing much better now. She gets another treatment in a couple of weeks and hopefully will do just as well. We were able to help and give Shad's mom a break which she really needed too. Sorry to those who we missed, but granny was the main focus on this trip.

Now we have a trip to Ohio to plan. A trip that has come a lot sooner than expected. Yep, another sick granny. Such is life!

I found a copy of The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer yesterday and I love it! It keeps my interest and will make a great read for the girls later on. I also found these really cool books for reading and vocabulary called The Vocabulary Teacher's Book of Lists and The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists. They have tons of cool facts and explanations on all kinds of words. I will share an example with you:

Atom Bomb versus Hydrogen Bomb
The atom bomb uses fission and was as powerful as 20,000 tons of TNT. It flattened a city and killed 75,000 people in Hiroshima in 1945.

The hydrogen bomb is a thousand times more powerful. It blew a crater a mile wide and two hundred feet deep in a test on the Pacific Atoll in 1952.

Old Derogatory Terms
Scurvy- this is used to describe a mean, nasty, contemptible person who is probably ugly besides. Scurvy is also a disease caused by lack of Vitamin C that causes skin spots.

(These are from the book The Vocabulary Teacher's Book of Lists by Edward B. Fry, Ph.D.)

There is also another book we found that is pretty good so far. It's the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

Welp, I'm off to read for school (mine) and get the girls working on theirs.

Oh, one last thing. We were over by the KFC by our grocery store and we saw a police van with some caution tape around part of the parking lot. Out of curiosity we walked over to see what was up. I was not ready for what I saw. No, not a dead body, but a box tipped over with about a million bees swarming around it. The girls freaked out. Apparently there were some workers jack-hammering the parking lot and they were suddenly swarmed by bees. The cop put soda in a box and threw it in the area of the bees with the hope that they would swarm into the box and he would be able to collect them that way. Can anyone see a problem with this yet? He then said he would be back in an hour to check the progress. HMmmmmm. Well, we left after that but I keep wondering what happened. Think the cop caught the bees?

Keep the peace people!!!!