Wordless Wednesday

Luke's Vegetable Soup

Luke and I sprouted some seeds last week.  I did not expect them to do well, they were from store bought veggies and I really thought those were incapable of growth...  I could not have been more wrong!  By Sunday, our acorn squash needed to be put in a pot (we'd grown them in wet paper towels) and our potato looked pretty desparate too.  We spent Monday potting them:

<---acorn squash

potato --->

We've been reading Growing Vegetable Soup and so in January Luke is learning about plants...  aren't I the best planner?!?

We're heading out to the library to print out some things from here and this may be Luke's first really coehesive, everything works together week!  Granted, it's starting on Tuesday, but Monday would've just ruined it anyway.

Bad case of the Moooondays.

It all started badly.  I needed to cover in the church office today.  Instead of getting up and dressed, Drew decides to argue:
'You don't work in the office on Monday, Mom.'
'I do today, getupdressedbrushedandlet'sgo!'
'No, you don't work on Mondays.'
'Now.'
Twenty minutes later, Luke is dressed, the car is warmed up and Drew is...  asleep in bed.  It took everything I had to keep from dragging him to church in his pjs.

I was on time, just.  Then, I start working and it turns out that someone else needs to use the printer.  That's okay, it just meant I had to put off doing any of the printing/typing (99% of the work).  Then, the boys start getting antsy.  Then, they start arguing.  I was climbing the walls, trying to be patient with everything...

Then, Luke climbed on the stage.  This wasn't in the chapel, it was downstairs in the common room.  Luke climbed up there (like he always does), only this time Drew took it upon himself to get Luke down.  He grabbed Luke and promptly tripped and fell backwards...  slamming Luke's face into the floor.  Thankfully, he still has a mouthful of teeth.  The only difference is the lovely kissy lips that swelled up... and the blood...  everywhere (it seemed like it anyway).

By the time we got home I was ready to implode.  We've managed to take our quizes, but very little other than that got done.

Augh.

Well, it wasn't free, but I'm glad we went all the same :)

Today was, according to my Pack Leader (Cub Scouts), a free day in honor of Robert E. Lee's Birthday (which is Tuesday) at Stratford Hall (his birthplace).  Little Drew and I scrambledish to get there an hour late...  I had to go to the coffee shop this morning and pick up some joe and then ran over to the bakery to get breakfast, so we were late.  Anyway, we get to the ticket gate at Stratford Hall and...  the gate keeper denied us entrance.  He said it was most definitely NOT a free day.

Now, I love Stratford Hall, it's beautiful and educational, and beautiful, but...  it's 10 big ones for an adult (rediculous when you consider George Washington's Birthplace is HALF that) and 5 smackers for a kid.  We usually only go on Lee's birthday, when it's free, because I'm a tightwad...  This time, though...  those big brown eyes next to me pleading, I shelled out the $15.

I am SO GLAD I did!  We were, literally, the only two visitors.

 We had a private tour of Lee's home with a grandmotherly type guide that made it feel like she was telling us gossip about people she knew (she was not a period worker).  Here's some more pics!

The oval site is a new archaeological dig.  They found a basement and some other stuff underneath fields that have been farmed as long as there have been records.

Andrew took a few pictures, this is one of the carraiges.  These aren't all display only, they actually use them for carraige days.

This is the view out of one of the lower floor doors.  You can see the family tomb (forgot who's there, I'm terrible!) and the compass/weather vain, they all line up, I thought that was pretty neat.

This is the bridge you cross to between the visitor's center and the main touristy area.  It's really hard to show the drop in the middle, but years of erosion mean that you're quite a ways up.  You can just see Andrew halway down the bridge.

These are the cliffs.  When you hike down to where the mill is at you get some really nice views of the Potomac and the cliffs.  These are in worse shape than the others in the area.  Andrew and I watched rocks and earth slipping down.  It seemed like anytime you looked at them bits and pieces were falling off.  It is beautiful, though.

See how happy!

This is the mill.  It's rediculous, I've lived her over 20 years, I've been to Lee's birthplace countless times, yet this is the first time I've ever wandered down to the mill.  It was, of course, not open, but splendid all the same.  We have about 14 pictures just of the ice under where the water goes and around the big wheel.

The mill pond, it's much larger than you might think and besides sporting a mill, it also has a nifty little overrun ditch that has rapids and waterfalls.  It's a concrete ditch, nothing fancy, but I think we spent about twenty minutes here, just dropping gumballs into the little creek to watch them bounce over the rapids and go flying into the oblivion off the falls.

The hike back from the mill.  It's always harder going back than it is embarking.

We really had a wonderful time, my boy and me, but now we must run out and procur dinner for Dad and Luke (who were out doing manly shopping).

Friday review!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were, to my recollection, well enough.  Thursday brought with it the terror of a Science Fair Project due...  Friday.  To be fair, my mother informed me Wednesday evening, after Jo had already gone on to her youth group meeting.

This is Jo at about 11p, we weren't even close to finished.  I don't know how much coffee I drank.  My darling husband showed up at about 7:30p to pick up the boys and brought me a tankard he ground and brewed himself.  Needless to say, the coffee made me a little jittery (I held off eating with the hopes of having chicken cooked by the same darling man), so most of our pictures turned out slightly out of focus.  The next picture was taken at 1a when we were finally finished.

It was a hard won victory for science.  Right.

Anyway, there are two more kids to talk about..........................................................

Luke has been growing a few things in the kitchen.  There a potato suspended in some tubberware full of water and some acorn squash seeds wrapped in moist paper towels and dangling in a ziplock bag from the light about the stove (warmest place in the house).  I am very happy to say that all are sprouting (score another one for science).  At library time today Luke learned about different kinds of bears, those that hibernate and those that don't.  The craft was really neat.  We used epsom salt in water and painted it over the bear pictures.  It ends up really nice and sparkly:

Luke also played outside on Wednesday...  in his pjs...  I'm so cool!

All that time up last night has made me feel a little sick and pretty tired.  I wanted to sleep today, but I had pretty well given the boys Wednesday and Thursday off.  Drew and I did a little bit of work outside Wednesday (it was above freezing, we HAD to spend some time outside), but Thursday was mostly spent with me trying to gather everything for the estupido fair.  For all the moms worrying over kids spending an hour doing five or ten math problems... Drew has been on the same math review sheet for two days.  The same kid that thinks finding the orbit of an astronaut is fun, turns into a mule the moment you put a page of, I kid you not, simple multiplication fact families infront of him.  For pity's sake, really.

History was great, though.  We've just done chapter 1 in Story of the World Vol. 3 and we have the dubloons to prove it!

Latin, Grammar, and everything else plodded on as usual for the most part.  All his reviews at the beginning of the week went well, we'll see how the slacking effects his grades on Monday.  I'm just glad we get all the heavy stuff done at the beginnning of the week.  It makes it so much easier for me to slack off while he just reviews all the new stuff for the rest of the week.

Is it bad that I thought today, well we're so far ahead no one will know if we just put it off?  Ugh.  I hope I win first place in the fair...  er uh...  I mean I hope Jo wins.  Really, she did most of the work.  I gathered the stuff together, but made her run the experiments, tally the data, record it, etc.  I did do most of the glueing onto the backboard, but who'm I kidding?  That is the best part!

No Hive?

I don't know what happens if you end up banned from a forum.  I don't know why I would have been banned, so I have to wonder...  can anyone else get into the Hive?  I've been trying all morning, but can't even get into Peace Hill Press, so I'm assuming they're down (or my internet company is evil).

Any thoughts?

Nothing to do with anything, really. I'm just curious.

Does anyone else read the captchas before they post?  I've noticed that they are almost words (and normally hilarious words).  I think I'm going to start posting the captchas at the bottoms of my comments, because for some bizarre reason I enjoy reading those wierd little letter mixtures.

So, if anyone cares to, could you comment on this with your captcha code?  Just so I can see what mine look like LOL.

Really.

Comment

with the captcha.