Enjoying the Journey

Moving On

2010-03-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure it's ever really going to feel like the time to emerge. So, I'm starting to think if it is ever going to happen, I'm going to need to force it a little. A lot of things are getting 'back to normal' on the surface, but underneath, nothing is the same. And I think it's finally occurring to me, that it never will be.

I had this thought recently that I'd eventually like to resurface in the blogosphere with a beautiful tribute post, in memory of my mother. And that after that, I'd be able to move on - go back to 'Enjoying the Journey' ~ here on the blog, but more importantly, in real life. But, the thought of going back to inane posts about sleepovers and marshmallows - the thought of actually letting myself enjoy the journey again - without her to share it with, still feels wrong. At the same time, this sort of hibernation I've been in is starting to feel wrong too. So, here goes.

Dolores Connell Schafer

Young Beauty

Adoring Mother

Delighted Grandmother

Forever Friend

Some of the things that will always bring my mom to mind...

family
cooking
little league baseball
chardonnay
NYC
soup
St. Augustine
Linda
diabetes
hospitals
Barack Obama
Meryl Streep
Paul Newman
primary peritoneal cancer
wigs
Philadelphia
Wilt Chamberlain
June 29
July 13

Peanuts
Winnie the Pooh
op
scrabble
crossword puzzles
German chocolate pie
holidays
compassion
Joan Baez
Elizabeth Berg
Lifetime movies
Terms of Endearment
Crimes of the Heart
swimming pools
the beach
charity
sewing
window treatments
quilting

Her spirit is alive and well in each one of these incredible people.

I love you Mom, and I miss you more than words can say.

Marshmallow Madness

2009-05-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

A little disclaimer...the pictures in this post are not for those with weak stomachs!

So Chel, how many of those things do you think you can stuff in your mouth at once?

SIX...not bad!

Now, let's see what that big mouth brother of yours can do...

Oh no, I think he's gonna hurl!

On second thought, I think I'm gonna hurl!

Crowned the official winner, with EIGHT marshmallows!

At least until Matthew gets home...

Another Party Post!

2009-05-16T19:08:00.001-07:00

It's official, Matthew is 10! Unfortunately, I forgot to get a group shot with all of the party guests until the morning after - so the non-sleepover guests aren't in this one. There were 5 girls and 2 boys not pictured here that joined us for most of the festivities.

Let's see...where to begin?? So, people started to arrive - and while Matthew was insistent that he wanted the 'sisters' in on the party, in the early stages there was definitely some boy/girl segregation going on.

Once we had the gang gathered, we headed over to Mom's backyard for swimming and a cookout.

Next on the agenda was a trip to the baseball field, now we get some real co-ed fun!

Can you spot Chelsea doing a cartwheel in the outfield in this one...

Okay, none of those were great pix, but I wanted to give a little feel for the action. Here are some better shots from the field.

We brought the cake and ice cream to the field too. Here's Jono giving Matthew his first taste...

YUM!

How about some sugar rush induced table dancing....

And, what were those concerns over the boys and girls not comingling enough? Hmmm...

This may be totally inappropriate and politically incorrect, but a friend of Chelsea's sent her this link just before the party, so she had to play it for everyone. They ended up going back to it over and over again throughout the afternoon/evening/night to the point that it became sort of the theme song of the party! Here they are listening..

They must have put everyone at the party's name in this thing at least 3 times, and it never failed to crack them up. Listen at your own risk...by the 6th or 7th time you hear it, it actually does become pretty hilarious - and I don't know why each time you hear it say a new name it gets funnier.

After we got home from the field and listened to Da Breakup Song a few thousand more times, we played 'Who Knows Matthew Best' and then Matthew opened presents.

Next we played flashlight tag for a while and soon after, the girls headed home (and took Chelsea with them) Everyone decided it must be time for what has become the traditional late night trip down to the elementary school for Capture the Flag. I stayed behind and cleaned up a bit - and enjoyed some time with one of the VERY understanding moms whose son wasn't spending the night, but who didn't want to miss out on the adventure. The boys finally headed home when the security guard who lives on campus came and shoed them away after close to 2 hours!

They started to wind down after that...

Matthew was standing guard in the kitchen.

And checking to see if it was bedtime yet.....ummmm...YEP!

I woke up on Mothers' Day morning to the sounds of 13 boys laughing and playing! While I was glad they'd all be going back to their own moms soon, and that I'd be getting Chelsea back for family time, in that moment, I was as happy as could be - hosting the boys and watching Matthew revel in the end of a great birthday party!!

Strange Children!

2009-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm minding my own business at 11pm on Wednesday night, wrapping up a chat with my sister on the computer and trying to get to bed. Just realizing how late it is and wondering if the kids are still all up too, I wander into the playroom and find this...

Okay, a little odd, but at least they have their blankets and are ready for bed, right?

Wrong...

Are they supposed to be superheros, or what??

Turns out the costumes are all about being dressed appropriately for the wrestling match!

There's your slice of life for this time!

Couple of other quickies...

Andy spotted this guy in the backyard from the kitchen window and went out and got this shot. It was giant...about 6 inches across. cool!

And, Chelsea's class went to a minor league baseball game this week. Andy and Matthew tagged along. Here is C with friends. She's stunning, isn't she??

Hendricks Spring Carnival - Open Stage

2009-05-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

The neighborhood elementary school that Chelsea attends has an annual spring carnival. All the standard booths - cake walk, ring toss, face painting, dunking booth (mental note...post picture of Andy in dunking booth!), etc. All the while, there is a stage set up and kids are entertaining the folks that want to sit still. The performances range from those who seem to wander on stage and decide what to do when they get there to the costumed and choreographed. It's a riot - kids on pogo sticks, with hula hoops, gymnasts, singers, dancers, air guitar players, knock knock joke tellers and so on. Here are Chelsea and her friends performing at the carnival last year

And here they are a couple of weeks ago at this year's carnival (minus one of the performers who is at another school this year)

Headed out to the ball field now - it's a beautiful day for it. Enjoy the journey...and the weekend!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Peep

We had lots of family here in Jax for Easter weekend. As I mentioned last time, my sister was already here. Next, my brother Ken and his family arrived (a.k.a. the Kens) from Baton Rouge, and then the Dans arrived for a shorter stay from the old homestead in Ormond Beach. We had a fun and relaxing cookout in my mom's back yard Friday night after the brothers and their families arrived.

here are the brothers

See Bob, told you you should have showed up. Now these two clowns are on my blog being called 'the brothers'. What does that make you??? (stay tuned)

As you can see, the one on the right likes to talk

and talk

and explain

which occasionally puts his wife, JoAnn, to sleep

Dan is probably wondering right now why I am making fun of my one and only blog fan right here on my blog! Good question....let me think on that!

Truth be told, the favorite mealtime pastime of the brothers (both pictured and not) is synchronized speaking.

Not as much wine on this table, but they're still managing to have fun! Okay, guess which guest isn't related to me.

So, besides Easter, we were also celebrating many March and April birthdays. Chelsea did a fabulous job with the cake decorating!

Stylish part hats, right?

Here's Dan, showing off his uncley-ness.

And, my sister and I showing off our twinishness.

The next night, we went out to dinner. And, guess who showed up?? Brother #3, now known to all far and wide as....

Grandpa Bob!

Seriously! We were just being seated at the restaurant, when Bob got a text from his daughter Amber telling him she is PREGNANT!! Yay!! I tried to take a picture of the phone screen with the text message on it, but that didn't work so well, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.

I was seated right across from my niece, Sophia when she got her dessert. So, obviously, I had to take these...

I got a family Easter present for us all. A game called Bananagrams that I had heard rave reviews of from some unschooling friends. It was a hit!

Sunday night Bob came back - this time with his family :-) My sister made some of her now famous cobbler and we played more Bananagrams. Here's Bob's daughter Rachel with Chelsea...

Thanks so much to all who traveled to see us. It was a blast. I'm still full!

Spring Break II

2009-04-17T16:53:00.001-07:00

Okay - so, it's been really hard to make myself keep up this blogging thing, but I'm determined to do it. Or, at least determined not to give it up yet! So, I'm going to nix the attempts to arrange pictures into little groups of two or four and add captions or any of that. I don't actually know how to code in html, so when I want to do something new, I poke around the internet until I find an explanation or example and then cut and paste code to imitate it. Then, when I want to do it again later, I go in and edit an old post where I did it before and cut and paste some more. It all ends up getting pretty confusing and time consuming. The uploading of the pictures themselves is time consuming as well, but I'm hoping if I nix the embedded coding it will help. So, here we go.

I think I left off when the kids had set up a tent in my mom's backyard one night when a major storm was expected. I drove in the worst rain storm I'd ever driven through that night to the airport to pick up my sister who, as it turns out, had been rerouted to Orlando because of said storm. I had heard earlier in the evening that the kids had been spotted in Mom's cottage cooking pop-corn in the microwave and eating ice cream they found in the deep freezer. So, I assumed that is where they ended up for the night. But, it turns out all but one or two of them actually slept in the tent. This was a REALLY big storm! But, they all survived - here's the after picture. Notice the crutches in front of the tent, LOL. I promise this kid was already on crutches before we got a hold of him!

My sister, Suzanne (a.k.a. Zanny or occaaionally Aunt Zanny), did finally arrive. Here you can spot her in the background. She appears to be making a serious study of Matthew's Mario Kart techniques.

So, the next big sleepover involved a couple of neighborhood girls (that we had to import because our resident girl, Chelsea, was off gallivanting around Savannah with her gal-pals) who decided to use their hair-dressing and fashion sense on the boys. Several boys ended up updating their respective Facebook and MySpace pages after this modeling session!

It all started with Patrick...

Here he is with his hair-dressers

Now they've recruited their next victim...

Introducing..........Matthew

Ahhh...yet another customer!

They had to make a midnight run to get Devin's hair straightener before getting to work on Conner

Jono apparently needed no work at all, just some shades.

Not sure what Matthew and Jono are up to here.

Are these some kind of gang signs???

Oh right, I forgot....that's the international symbol for "Hey mama, I need a bagel!"

Hey, give me one too!

That's all I've got! We tried for a perfect sleepover record during Spring Break, but we didn't quite hit it. We had guests 8 of 10 nights though, which we all agreed was pretty impressive, and most importantly...lots of FUN!

Haircut

2009-04-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Before

After

Spring Break

2009-04-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

So - the kids are on Spring Break, and you know what that means. Sleepover City! I must admit we did have one night with no extra kids at our house. And, if you don't count the ones in my mom's backyard, we have no kids at all tonight! Although I have a sneaking suspicion we could have some before morning!

Here's the tent after preparing for the thunderstorms scheduled to roll in tonight....

Meanwhile, Chelsea has been jet setting around with her friends - spending the front part of her break in Daytona Beach, then 2 nights at home before heading off to Savannah for more girl time. I had to miss out on this mother/daughter trip with a few other families because I was away from work 3 days last week on jury duty.

Patrick, in his typical social director fashion, has been arranging for there to be friends around at all times.

Andy took a gang of kids up to the baseball field on Monday and Tuesday afternoon for some fun (but took no pictures...boo!!) We also headed downtown on Tuesday night with group of friends from Matthew's baseball team for a UF vs FSU baseball game that was being played here in town. Again...no camera! The game was called due to rain in the middle of the 5th inning, but it was fun while it lasted.

During Chelsea's brief time home between trips, she set up a facebook page. This required a little photo shoot to come up with just the right profile picture.

Here are a few more random pictures of Matthew and his friend Jack's Spring Break fun.

I'm headed out to the airport to pick up my sister now. Yea!!

A Visit from the Rusaks

2009-03-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

Andy's youngest sister Julie came to visit this weekend with her family. We had a great time! Julie was 14 years old when I first met her. Now, she's all grown up and an amazing mom to three sweet boys as well as a cherished friend of mine. We hadn't seen the Rusaks in three years, which means we had never met this cutie pie...

Upon arrival, Jake immediately entered a nerf dart gun war zone. He was quickly trained by his cousins and placed on the front line.

After nerf guns, playing soccer, climbing in the tree house, and much chatting around the kitchen table, we headed down to San Marco on foot for dinner.

Chelsea wouldn't let anyone else near the stroller - she wanted sole responsibility for Cooper. She did a great job of putting him to sleep so that Julie could enjoy a dinner using both hands! Matthew, Henry, and Jake enjoyed having their own table at Pizza Palace.

After dinner the kids climbed around on the statues of the lions while the boring grown-ups continued our chatting. Actually, Julie and my mom were in deep conversation, Andy and Dave were talking sports, and I was eavesdropping on both conversations while taking pictures of the kids.

The more than mile walk home didn't dampen anyone's spirits!

When we got home Matthew gave a little violin concert for the crowd and Chelsea performed some gymnastics tricks. Patrick, of course, wowed us the entire evening with his texting skills.

After a liesurely breakfast and a little time on the wii on Saturday morning, we headed out to Matthew's baseball game. Matthew showed off for his extended family by pitching two scoreless innings that included his throwing a runner out at home, throwing another runner out stealing second while catching, and hitting an impressive 3 run homer. Quite a game for Matthew! Unfortunately, his team (the Knights), went down 9-8 in a hard-fought game.

A heart-felt thanks to the Rusaks for taking the time and making the effort to drive up to Jax to see us during their busy week's vacation visit to the family homestead in Central Florida. We had a blast!! Here's hoping it won't be three more years until we see them again!

Home Run Boy

2009-03-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

Well, 3 games this weekend and no wins. But, Matthew had an out of the park home run last night and an in the park home run today. So, he had a little fun :-)

Another Friday, Another Sleepover

2009-03-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

How does it happen? Well, first it's just a friend coming over after school.

Then, another friend comes, and there's enough for a football game!

Patrick has some time to text between plays because, well...it takes the littler ones a while to recover from his tackles.

Hmmm...maybe they should be wearing these...

P says we need more big kids....

>

Oh, here's one!

And, if you want to dance, you'd better bring some girls into the mix.

One thing just sort of leads to another and BAM!

It's a party!

Just a Little Ramble

2009-03-06T17:58:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm neglecting my blog. Is it better to blog about nothing, or not to blog at all? We've all been sick around here, so energy levels have been low and nights have been for sleeping instead of uploading pictures! We may finally be coming out of the February funk and the weather this weekend promises to be warmer and sunny, so things are looking up all the way around.

On the sports front, Patrick wrapped up his first season of soccer with his middle school team this week. He's trying to decide between a community soccer league for the spring or trying out for his school's baseball team. Chelsea has moved into a sightly more advanced gymnastics class and is bumping her commitment up to two classes a week (tues and thurs)starting this coming week. Matthew has baseball games both Saturday (rec team coached by Andy) and Sunday (advanced team) for many weeks to come. Andy is not playing soccer these days due to a long neglected knee injury that is starting to demand more attention. I am taking a (VERY SHORT!) break from yoga due to sudden and severe hypertension detected at a routine PCP visit. Exercise is of course a good thing in the long run, but I was told my heart was getting quite the work out just sitting still right now, thank you very much. I'm taking some meds and going back to see the PCP next week and expect I'll be back to my regular activity level after that. Sounds like Andy and I are both getting old, huh?

Patrick brought 3 friends home from school today - all girls. Another boy came a little later. They played basketball most of the afternoon in a neighbor's driveway along with the siblings and a neighborhood friend. After that they headed over to my mom's for a quick dip in the pool. It had warmed up in the high 70s today for the first time in a long time, so they were all starting to long for summer. They were quickly reminded that it was early March when they jumped in the pool - it didn't last long! They came inside at dark for pizza and a movie. Two guests are still here, but oddly no one that doesn't live here is scheduled to spend the night!

Well, that's about all the nothing I can think of to blog about. I'll leave you with a few pix of Matthew and his nerf gun obsession.

Armed and Dangerous

League Champions

2009-03-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

It was the Jazz vs the Bulls in the final game of the season. They were tied for first place with 7 wins and 2 losses each. When the two teams met earlier in the season, the Bulls came out on top. But, this time, the Jazz beat the Bulls handily. Final score 43-21.

EC Web Show

2009-02-24T14:43:00.000-08:00

I mentioned yesterday that the lighting on this video is poor, but I encouraged her to go ahead and post it. Hey - episode one is supposed to be rough, right??

Gaggle of Girls

2009-02-23T14:05:00.001-08:00

So - we decided there had been far too many boys in the house lately and we needed to have a bunch of Chelsea's girlfriends over for a sleepover! She has a tight group of friends at school and they headed over hear Saturday afternoon after a car wash they had at the school as a fund raiser for the trip to Washington D.C. they are going on. They spent the afternoon performing bizarre operations on each other. Something about implanting bricks and making each other's hands go into a hole in the ground. It's better left at that! We had a nice dinner, then Andy took them down to the school for some night capture the flag (we did this at Patrick's birthday party and I knew it would become another sleepover tradition!). When they got home, they started watching The Sound of Music. A couple of them were getting tired and they really wanted to stay awake later, so they decided to fill the sink with ice water and dunk their heads in to wake themselves up. This turned into quite the activity! Unbelievably the noise this created didn't wake Andy up. Then they set the timer for an hour, so they could do it again. Matthew got some of the second round on video.

I wish I had pictures or videos of the other activity they kept going back to, but somehow I fell down on the job! They were swinging each other (one person at the hands and another at the feet) onto the couch. They took turns doing this for a long time! I wouldn't have wanted them doing it unsupervised, but I was actually really impressed with how safety conscious they were being without any prompting from me. They kept the back and arm of the couch padded with pillows and blankets, as well as the floor in front of the couch and they always had a spotter at the back of the couch to make sure the person tossed onto the couch didn't fly through the window behind it, LOL. No team of two could quite get either Patrick or me onto the couch. I think Patrick and I were able to get Matthew on there once, but it wasn't pretty!

I put a halt to head dunking and body throwing when I headed to bed and miraculously they kept things quiet enough for me to sleep (I'm a really light sleeper!) Chelsea and her friend Emily decided to try to start a little 'web show' and recorded a first episode in the morning before Emily went home. We didn't watch it back and find out the lighting was really poor until Emily had already left. I think Chelsea wants to get a better video before uploading to youtube, but I'm hoping I'll get her permission to post it here at least (stay tuned!)

Big sports week this week - Patrick has 3 soccer games (mon, tue, thurs) and then this weekend Matthew wraps up his basketball season and has the season opener of the baseball season all in one day. Then his advanced baseball team is playing 2 games in a mini-tournament on Sunday. I'll bring the camera!

A Couple of Quick Notes

2009-02-20T19:31:00.000-08:00

We've been having fun with this little engineering game. And Matthew added to the nerf arsenal this week with the purchase of rifley looking thingy he calls an Air Blasters Double Shot.

Our Tuesday afternoons/evenings have evolved into insanity. Matthew has group violin lesson, while Patrick has a soccer game that Andy goes and helps coach. Meanwhile, I take Chelsea to gymnastics. My mom picks Matthew up at group lesson and brings him home so that he can do a quick change into his baseball gear for practice. Andy gets home from soccer with Patrick and heads right back out with Matthew to baseball practice (Andy coaches his team). Chelsea and I arrive home from gymnastics just in time to watch American Idol with Patrick. Matthew and Andy don't usually roll in until after 9. It actually all works out fairly well, the only problem for me is that my Tuesday yoga class was squeezed out. Tues/Thurs are my favorite classes, so that's a bummer. I've been substituting Wed nights...not quite as good, but it'll work for now.

We have a couple of boys sleeping over tonight, and had extra boys here every night of the kids' three day weekend last week, so we've declared tomorrow night a girls' night and Chelsea is having her gang of girls over. I'm charging the battery in my camera in the hopes that they'll provide some fun blogging material ;-)

Weekend Rundown

2009-02-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

The erector set emerged from the closet.

Friday night, while Matthew and his sleepover buddy collaborated on a master plan...

Patrick played teenager in the bedroom

Saturday night Patrick and his friend had a double date for Valentine's Day. Well, technically a triple date, because Andy and I went along, but we tried our best to hang back and be invisible. I spared him taking any pictures on this outing, so you'll just have to leave it to your imagination.

Afterward, his friend spent the night, and along with Matthew, they christened the swimming pool with the first swim of 2009!

You can tell how freezing they were if you click on the basketball picture!

Today was another baseball day.

No school tomorrow, so another couple of sleepover friends here tonight. I have to work in the morning, so they've sworn to keep it a quiet one, so that I can get some sleep. What are the odds??

How to work, sleep, and blog??

2009-02-13T04:58:00.000-08:00

Wow - this is even harder than I thought to find time and energy for. But, it's only February, can't give up a new years resolution yet, can I?? I thought my problem would be spazzing over what I write - editing to get it just right in an attempt to come across as witty, intelligent and interesting. I vowed not to do that because I knew the only way there would be time to blog regularly would be to just throw stuff out there. I figured I'd make it sort of an online photo album/scrap book and not worry much about text....thinking this would make it less time consuming. Little did I know that uploading pictures and arranging them throughout the post would be the real time sucker.

Sunday was finally P's actual birthday. My mom always makes kids work for their presents! Patrick had to crack the code on the back of her card to find it this year.

We spent most of the day at the baseball field, because Matthew played in a double header. It was a beautiful day, so Patrick brought his book, and Chelsea practiced gymnastics and cheers with a gang of girls at the park while Andy and I enjoyed the baseball games. Then we all went out to TGIFriday's so that Patrick could have his favorite baby-back ribs for his birthday dinner.

Monday, Grammy and Matthew headed to the alligator pond for some bird watching. They caught an egret, a blue heron in flight, and a woodpecker in these pix. (click on the first one that just looks like a tree trunk and you can see the woodpecker's red head)

Okay, last picture.

Random Cuteness

Fantabulous Friday

2009-02-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how much I love Fridays?? That's my day to play home school mom...my fantasy job :-) It means I have work hours to make up on the weekend, but it is well worth it!
Today started with building a fire - I was nice enough to do the outside work of gathering sticks/wood before waking Matthew (usually his job). We had breakfast by the fire and read Story of the World. We're on the second volume, and Robin Hood is in the picture on the cover, so we've been wondering when he'd appear in our story. Today was the day!

Next it was time to get dressed and head outside for some fresh air. Matthew said he'd like to go golfing, but knew I couldn't be away from my computer (work) for that long, so he settled for hitting balls into the net in the backyard.

We were taking turns hitting balls, and when I finished one of my turns, I couldn't find Matthew. Here's where he was....

(the roof of the garage)

Inspired by Robin Hood and his recent Medieval Faire experience, Matthew decided a little archery was in order.

He made this quiver last year after he got an archery set for Christmas. You see why we thought duct tape was appropriate for his stocking this year!

I guess the memory of making the quiver got Matthew thinking about pvc pipe and what else he might like to do with it, because he suddenly decided he wanted to make a geyser tube. This sounded like a good idea since one of his friends from the River City Unschoolers group expressed interest in doing the Coke and Mentos experiment, but when I heard there was drilling involved, I started looking to postpone this project to an Andy day. Matthew said he'd be happy to just get the pvc pipe cut for today, so he did that.

We headed back inside for some violin practice. Matthew's annual recital is coming up on March 20, so we are trying to get the current song he is learning down in the hopes of learning one more new one before recital time.

We fit in another chapter of Life of Fred Fractions before it was time to head out to pick up Patrick at school. This quirky quasi-curriculum is working out really well for us! Another week I'll have to elaborate on this resource that I stumbled on while reading this (AMAZING) unschooling mom's blog.

Lately, I purposely arrive a little early for pick up at Patrick's school to leave Matthew and I enough time to fit in a story from Roald Dahl's Boy: Tales of Childhood Days while we wait. This was a gift that my sister (the famous Aunt Zanny) gave Matthew during her last visit, and it's been a really fun read!

Truly enjoying the journey.

The Party Post

2009-02-02T14:52:00.001-08:00

So, we had the big 13 yo birthday party, and it was a huge success! Patrick invited a whopping 29 guests, but lucky for us, we ended up with 17. Along with our 3 kids we had 20 here at least some of the time. This made for a really nice size crowd. It was big enough that Patrick still felt like he was having a BIG party, and it wasn't so many that it was a real squash just to have them all in the house. It also turned out to be a really good number of people for the two games we had planned that called for breaking up into teams. In each case we ended up going with 4 teams - and the teams were small enough that everyone really had a role in the game.

My mom was the first one to suggest a scavenger hunt, and we all thought it was a good idea. But, none of us had ever organized one and of course we didn't get around to real planning until a day or two before the party. So, we were a little stumped as to how to go about it. Then, Chelsea had a brainstorm, and if you ask me, it was a stroke of genius! Here's what we did....

We made a list of math problems and the answers to the problems were house numbers. Each math problem had a code word with it. Once you figured out the math problem, you knew which house to go to to say that code word. Then, you had to find the house, knock on the door and say the code word to the person who answered. If you had the right code, the person there would give you an object. The first team to collect all 6 objects would win. I am really baffled as to how Chelsea thought of this, but it worked out perfectly. She even took on the job of walking around the neighborhood recruiting neighbors to participate!

Is this legal...can they make us do math at a birthday party??

On the run...

Next we headed down to the elementary school to tire them out some more ;-) They played capture the flag, soccer, four square, basketball, and did gymnastics.

Oddly enough, Andy has the ice cream man's phone number in his cell phone, so we called him and asked him to come by.

It was getting dark by the time we headed back home. After pizza and salad for dinner, we moved on to a game that has been a staple of Patrick's birthday parties for years..."Who Knows Patrick Best?"
In the past, we've done this in sort of a game show format, with teams sitting on opposite sides of the room, taking turns answering questions, and the ability to 'steal' a question from the opposing team if they miss it. This time, Patrick wanted to go with a written test.

We were careful to put kids from both neighborhood and school on each team, so they could answer all types of questions. We put each team in a room, and they went to work...

Then, Patrick graded the tests aloud in dramatic fashion, while everyone huddled around him.
There were 35 questions and we ended with a tie for first place with 23 correct answers. We gave a quick 2 question tie breaker quiz, but it was still a tie after that, so we let both teams split the prize.
Next, we headed back outside for some flashlight tag. Soon, it was getting close to time for the girls to head home, so we went back in for cake and presents.

The highlight of the boys' sleepover portion of the party was the midnight trip back to the elementary school for more capture the flag. Andy took them down there around 11pm, and they didn't get back until 1:30am! Apparently it was a roaring success. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to fast become yet another sleepover tradition.

Happy Birthday Patrick!

Unschooly Fun

2009-02-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

After a break over the holidays, our River City Unschoolers group is getting back to their Thursday afternoon gatherings. This week, Gail was the gracious host, and Matthew had a great time learning to use her pottery wheel.

Trampoline jumping and Rock Band are two other must-dos whenever Matthew visits there! The kids in the group are starting to participate in our yahoo e-mail group and are getting involved in planning activities for our Thursday meetings. We're looking forward to more pottery, Valentine candy making, science experiments, and whatever else the gang is inspired to organize.

Then, on Friday, Andy and Matthew headed to Gainesville for the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. They had a blast!!

Jousting Tournament

Archery

Andy and Matthew got to fence! They had a balloon on each shoulder, and the object was to pop the other player's balloons. You can see Andy won the match, with one remaining balloon

Matthew was in his element!

Quick...someone hit the pause button!

2009-01-26T19:55:00.001-08:00

So much to do, so little time to blog about it!! This is going to be a quickie, I am determined to get to bed before midnight for once.

So....let's see. Science Spectacular! This is an event that the middle school Patrick goes to (a science and math magnet school) puts on at Chelsea's elementary school. It's basically a marketing ploy - to get the kids interested in science and in their school. Patrick goes as a student volunteer, Andy goes as a parent volunteer bringing Matthew along with him, and of course Chelsea is there at school as a participant(they all did this last year as well)...so everyone in the family ends up there except me! I guess someone around here has to earn a living, right? Matthew and Andy got to man the Coke and Mentos experiment station (pretty good gig!!)

We got new carpet in our family room. Matthew and Chelsea had some fun on the dollies that we moved the furniture around on. Then, the day after it was installed, I was doing the breakfast dishes and Andy said to me, "Stop what you are doing right now, and go get a picture of this. The boys are playing a video game together happily, without fighting - on the new carpet. You'll need this for your blog!" LOL...now that's the spirit!!

The couch and drapes will be going shortly too, don't worry ;-)

Lots of sports going on these days. Matthew is playing basketball and getting ready to start another baseball season. Patrick had his first soccer game playing for his middle school team, and is also playing in a recreational flag football league on the weekends.

No pictures of this yet, but Chelsea very recently started taking a gymnastics class again. She broke her arm 2 years ago at her first competitive gymnastics event, and hadn't gotten back on that horse since. She was suddenly ready to give it a go again, and she is loving it :-)

Okay, midnight is fast approaching. To bed.

Evening Fun and Morning Cold

2009-01-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here are some random things that were happening around the house last night. Matthew was making a helmet from a cardboard box and some duct tape (he got duct tape in his stocking - I guess this is why!)

We made Patrick's birthday party invitations, and printed approximately a gazillion copies because he is apparently inviting everyone he's ever met.

P&C snagged some snuggle time with Tess.

Then we awoke to temps in the low 20s. We don't really have the wardrobes here to accommodate that, but Chelsea did her best! She wore 7 layers of clothes when she took off this morning to man her patrol post at school.

Lucky me got to work from home today, so I didn't have to brave the cold. But tomorrow morning I'll be up and out before 7am....brrrrrrrr!

The Cottage

2009-01-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

My mom (who lives across the street) has a detached garage that has been turned into a little one bedroom apartment. We call it 'the cottage' because, well, it sounds a lot classier than 'the garage apartment' and because the previous owners left this sign behind on the door.
So, one of the ways the kids like to add some novelty to a sleepover, is to have it in the cottage. Sort of like camping out in the backyard - but with indoor plumbing. Not to mention a microwave and refrigerator! We've decided to keep the cottage sleepovers unisex...call us prudes ;-) The boys each were invited to a friend's to sleep over last night, so the girls got the cottage this time.
They made some microwave mystery meat for dinner.

AND, most importantly, helped me test the new setting I found on my camera that allows me to shoot people that are moving without turning them into ghosts!!!

You may have pieced together the fact that this left Andy and I alone in the house for the night. DATE!

Sleepy

2009-01-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

Too sleepy to blog, but figured I'd share a sleepy photo before heading off to bed. So, the camera isn't all bad. I think I just need to learn how to use it. Just now in about 5 minutes of internet research, I already discovered a setting that I think fixed the problem of major blur and ghostly effects when there is any kind of movement. So, I guess I just need to stop whining and invest a little time in learning to use it. But, not tonight!

p.s. Matthew is faking, Andy is not.

Confession

2009-01-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

I hate my new camera!! It takes crappy pictures. I guess you get what you pay for? I've only ever borrowed digital cameras, have never shopped for one. But, I've never used one that I had trouble getting decent pictures from. Maybe because I always borrowed them from people who weren't cheap like me. I thought I didn't need anything fancy. I didn't care about bells and whistles. I paid attention to the mega pixels and the brand name, and that's pretty much it. Its a Sony Cyber-shot. The worst part is that two days before Christmas my mom's camera broke while in my possession. The lens just suddenly wouldn't close. I read all over the internet about what everyone referred to as 'the dreaded lens error'. Tried every goofy fix I read about online, but to no avail. So now what do I do?? Here I thought we would now have 2 nice cameras on the block and instead we have none. I guess I need to look into having my mom's repaired. The only reason I haven't done so yet is that everything I read online implied that they were prohibitively expensive to fix - hence the suggestions to whack it around in an attempt to fix (as in, it's already broken, so don't worry about damaging it)

On the bright side...we're having another fun sleepover tonight!

This time with some of Patrick's school friends. No school here tomorrow. They had the longest injury and argument-free tackle football game in the front yard on record to date. Now playing virtual football on the PS2. There have also been nerf gun wars, laser tag and a bizarre amount of cereal eating.

Meanwhile, Chelsea is stacking and unstacking solo cups and has a drawer full of cards on the kitchen table sorting them.
The other day she was arranging V-8 cans in the pantry and when Andy questioned her about it she said, 'It's your fault for sending me to Montessori!'

Tales of a Random Sleepover

2009-01-12T16:19:00.001-08:00

Sleepovers are pretty much a standard part of our weekends. They vary in size from small - 1 or 2 guests, medium - 3 or 4 guests, big (but not uncommon) 5 to 8 guests, and what we officially deem a "BIG Sleepover" which has to date been as many as 15 guests. A BIG Sleepover could be for a birthday, to mark the beginning or end of summer vacation or Spring Break, or just because we haven't had one in a while. Patrick is lobbying to have the mother of all big sleepovers for his next birthday coming up in February.

This past weekend, one of Chelsea's friends came Cosmic Bowling with us and spent the night Friday night, but that hardly counted, so we had four friends here on Saturday night - which makes for more of a party atmosphere. There are three neighborhood brother/sister combos that are part of the regular cast of characters - two of these pairs were with us Saturday night.

There was dinner, flashlight tag, wii fit, Age of Mythology, fun with glow sticks in the front yard (they made a jump rope out of them!), some interesting poster art, a cool little percussion jam session

A few rounds of Mafia,

and eventually settling in sleeping bags and believe it or not watching The Notebook?? Go figure!

If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

2009-01-10T09:49:00.001-08:00

So, there were at least two really fun outings yesterday that I forgot to take my camera on! So, how am I supposed to blog about them without any pictures? I'm not even sure they really happened.

Well, I'll give it a shot. The first was a bike ride Matthew and I took to the duck pond. We brought our Story of the World book, some bread for the ducks and some water and snacks for ourselves. We alternated reading about English knights and Japanese samurai with playing follow the leader, climbing trees and feeding the ducks. The weather was fabulous and we had a wonderful time :-)

Earlier, when he and I were working on Life of Fred Fractions at the kitchen table, Matthew told me "I have un-motion sickness." Took me just a second to figure out that he was telling me he had been sitting too long and needed to move! So, he ran around the house a couple of times, grabbed his nerf dart gun, snuck up on me and shot me with it, then sat back down to finish the chapter. I love that he was self-aware enough to figure out exactly what he needed and I really love the way he so aptly put it into words. Okay, I guess I just think he's cute ;-)

The other fun outing yesterday was dinner and Cosmic Bowling with friends from the River City Unschoolers group that we are a part of. This is a fairly new group and has been our first opportunity to meet up with other unschoolers in real life (as opposed to in cyberspace!) The group is relatively small, but we have really been enjoying the get togethers. It is the first home school group we've been involved with that Matthew always looks forward to meeting up with regardless of the activity. Andy and Matthew hang out with them on Thursday afternoons, but there are also occational weekend outings like this one that the whole family can participate in. We just plain enjoy each others company, which is a real find! I'm very grateful to my friend Keti for establishing the group and facilitating the gatherings.

Our Education Journey

2009-01-09T13:26:00.001-08:00

Since I'm sure my interest (bordering on obsession) in alternative education will come up in my ramblings here, I thought I'd post a little synopsis of the education journey we've traversed with our kids to date. This will, for the most part, be a cut and paste of a post I wrote on a home schooling message board where people who had kids both at school and at home were discussing the challenges of having a foot in both of those worlds. For those of you who don't frequent message boards...DS= Dear Son, DD = Dear Daughter, DH = Dear Husband

Year 1
Send oldest DS to neighborhood public school (with fabulous reputation) for Kindy
Have serious philosophical issues with the school and end up moving him to a private Montessori school at Winter Break
Years 2&3
Happy with Montessori school – over the next couple of years, younger sibs follow
Year 4
Yikes – 3 kids in private school!!
Doing lots of reading about unschooling – fantasizing about quitting work, having the kids quit school and living our lives freely together
Reality – I can’t afford to quit work – even with the savings on tuition
Year 5
DH – to the rescue – he’ll stay home with kids (he already an at-home parent at this point – but will agree to have them with him f/t)
DH attempting to live out my fantasy – me jealous, DH unenthusiastic
Year 6
I swing a way to do most of my work from home - to become more a part of the home life and to allow for more flexibility (not everyone has to go on every outing, etc)
Older 2 decide they want to try neighborhood public school – want to be a part of what ‘everyone’ is doing
So – we quickly go from 1 parent home with 3 kids to 2 parents home with 1 kid!!
Year 7
After a year home alone, youngest DS decides to try public school as well
He is less than thrilled with the PS experience and comes back home at Winter Break
Year 8 (the here and now)
Older 2 in their 3rd year of public school and still happy with their decisions
Youngest DS still at home and we are finally having more success developing a social network, and bringing along Dad’s enthusiasm. DS has a faculty of teachers! DH substitute teaches on Monday and Fridays – so my mom (a.k.a. Grammy) has DS on Mondays and I have him on Fridays. DH has him Tues, Wed, and Thurs.
With Grammy he does a lot of cooking, sewing, gardening and outings. With DH he goes violin lessons, golf lessons, PE class (DH leads this class for a homeschool group), field trips and get togethers with home schooling groups, does science experiments, woodworking and practices baseball and football.
With me on our Fridays together and sometimes in the evenings (when the others are either doing homework or in bed) we tend to get slightly more schooly. We are on the 2nd volume of Story of the World, he is doing Rosetta Stone Spanish, Life of Fred Fractions, we are doing a read aloud, we sometimes do spelling/vocab work – but always with plenty of sword fighting and youtube surfing (or whatever his passion of the day happens to be) in between. The more open I am to following his lead and joining him in his world, the more willing and open he is to following mine.

So, that is where we are. Enjoying the journey :-)

National Champs!

2009-01-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

What a game, what a team, what a night!! I grew up in a family of Gator football fans, my husband, Andy, and I met at the University of Florida, and my kids are carrying on the Gator football fanatic tradition as well. So, we are one happy crew this morning.

We watched the game at my mom's house (across the street) as we do most big sporting events. Mom has cable and a decent T.V. (we have neither), so while the habit was born mostly from necessity, I really like the way it turns watching into a social event and takes on a party atmosphere.

There was LOTS of energy in the room and much running outside to scream and shout, wave the Gator flag and wrestle around between plays.

It was a rude awakening for everyone this morning after being up until well after midnight, but the big win boosted everyone's energy level this morning enough to compensate for lack of sleep.

Go Gators!!

From Practice Baby to the Teen Experiment

2009-01-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

I always called Patrick my practice baby. I am the youngest in my family and was never much of a babysitter growing up, so he was my first ever baby experience. I was clueless and terrified! I remember having a little panic attack one day when I was getting close to my due date that I thought....what if they send me home from the hospital with him before my mom can get herself to town?? Then, I immediately shifted to thinking OMG...what business do I have having a baby if I'm afraid to take it home?

Well, fast forward 13 years. In one month I'll be the mother of a teenager!! As a little early initiation into teenager-hood, Patrick got a cell phone for Christmas. Here is his reaction:

Now whenever he is absorbed in cyber-conversation via texting and ignoring the tantilizing real life coversations the rest of us are engaging in around him, we like to taunt him by singing this line from a favorite youtube video, "Your ipod's my ipod. No texting at the table!"

Oddly enough, I'm actually looking forward to the Teen Experiment. Maybe I'm growing up too!

Happy New Blog!

2009-01-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it was sort of a New Year goal of mine to start and keep up with a blog. Over the past couple of years, I've contemplated blogging for a variety of reasons. To document our home schooling, to allow for closer contact with friends and family, as a personal journal, or just for fun! So, now I've decided that I don't need to have a theme or focus, I'll just get started and see what happens.

Part of the inspiration for starting now is that I finally got my own digital camera for Christmas! It's nothing fancy, but I have always wanted one, so I'm very happy about it. I've had access to my Mom's whenever I wanted, but it isn't the same as having one at your disposal right when a kid decides to put together a funky costume, or looks particularly beautiful, goofy, or both!

A friend of mine recently pointed me to this website, which was the inspiration for the title of this blog: http://www.enjoyparenting.com/ It was a very timely read for me - meshing well with things I've been thinking and talking about lately.

Okay - since my camera is part of my blogging inspiration, I'll have to include a couple of pictures in my kick-off post.

I love this picture of the boys when they came out and saw their presents on Christmas morning.

And here is the one and only girl-child. Decked out for her starring role in her 5th grade school musical.

Guess that's it for now. My first post. Here's hoping I'll keep this up somehow.