It's been a while

Yes, it's been a while.  I've been busy working on getting my medications straight.  If you are interested, I'm still working on this one.  I've also been enjoying the cooler weather.  The boys and I got the garden going.  We have some tomatoes almost ready to harvest.  We planted green beans, peas, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, bell peppers, jalapenos, onions, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash and some zinnias.  I'm still thinking about what else to plant.  I still have space in that garden.  Any suggestions?  

We've embarked on a family learning experience.  We are learning sign language.  We have been learning a lot and can now at least understand what is being said by our deaf friends.  When we decided to do this as a family we went to the big chain book stores and got some ASL dictionaries.  This is great for learning words but our question was how to do you speak in ASL.  It's not like speaking in english.  We searched and found a site for ASL grammar.  I got the books in pdf and we have started to figure out how the grammar for ASL works.      

Here I am at one of our sign language practice classes at a friends house.  I think there were about 25 of us learning that day.  Of course it was fun eating the food too.  That was a lot of fun.  We have been driving to a congregation meeting in sign language out of town.  That has been lots of fun also. 

We took a trip to the Houston zoo and really enjoyed the cool breeze that day.  We have also taken days off of school to accomplish other learning experiences.  Also days off with hubby have been fun even if we just stayed home and just did work around the house.  It's the best time of the year when the cold stops and it's just mild enough to be outside in shorts.  That is when we take time off.  It's not much time we have when the weather is perfect to be outside.  We always say our winter is maybe 3months, spring is about 3 weeks and our hot and humid summer is the rest.  BLAH!  


Now that summer is coming on in South Texas it will be time for finishing up our school year.  I hope to be posting some more now.  Nice to be back.

More Vacation

Well we had a blast and now we are home.  It seems like the last two weeks flew by.  This vacation was a big one because as I have already shared we went to different places on the Eastern side of the states. We did D.C. and saw a few museums and walked a lot.  I have no idea how I did all that walking but I did it.  Of course, I was dead at the end of the day but I did it.  In DC I got to see Julia Childs kitchen, it was at one of the museums.  The boys and I also saw a tree we have never seen before.  We commented how it looked like it was peeling from sunburn.  

I also mentioned that we were in Brooklyn and took some tours.  Well a friend that lives there took us to the top of her building.  It was late at night and I was able to take a nice night time picture of the city.  It looks so beautiful at night.     


Then after a few other tours we went on up further north.  All the way to see Niagara Falls.  I think I took at least 100 pictures there alone.  It was so awesome.  The thunder of the water crashing on the rocks below.  Now I am only showing one picture but there were so many that I had to choose just one.  It was an incredible day.

I promised my Canadian friend that I would go to Tim Hortons and have that breakfast sandwich.  So I did.  I'm very obedient. hehe  It was good.  I miss Tim Hortons living down here in Texas.  


After that we started our journey down, down, down south.  We stopped in Alabama and then West Virgina after all we had to sleep to continue our journey home.  Before we got home though, we stopped at a friends home in Louisiana.  We spent two nights there.  The kids had an awesome time and us two moms went on a little trip to Borders.  Yippeeee!  What homeschool mom doesn't like to go there? hehehe  On our way home hubby slowed down so that I could take this picture of the morning.  Can you see the spider webs?  It was rainy, misty and there were lots of webs on the fields and fences.  

We left Texas for the beginning of our trip with temperatures in the 90's and it dropped to the 40's at Niagara Falls then started our way home and we were in the 80's in Louisiana and now that we are home it's in the mid to upper 80's.  That is just not fair!  Oh and we came home to tall grass since it has been raining the whole time we were gone and with rain comes mosquitoes.  Big ones!  Huge ones!  We need some good cold air to get rid of them.  Maybe if my Canadian friends start blowing that cold air down here, please!


That about sums up our trip.  It was a blast and this is something the boys will remember for a long time.  I loved seeing the excitement when they learned something new.  I am tired now but so glad we did this trip.   

Our field trip

We have been on vacation and at the time I am writing this we still are.  This was a great learning experience for all of us.  As our schooling progresses we learn a lot about different places and different parts of the world.  We had planned on this vacation/field trip for a long time and it has finally arrived. 

We got to tour a facility in New York where Bibles and other literature are made.  The boys appreciate how much work goes into each magazine, book, pamplet and bible and how much work goes into packaging everything for delivery.  We got some special tours because we know some friends that work there so it was even more special to see old friends and see what they do. 

The leaves were also changing.  We don't get to see the changing of the leaves much down in Texas so it was wonderful to see it in person.  My youngest commented how wonderful GOD was to have made the leaves in such beautiful colors.  He was picking them up and now we have a big stash in our improvised leaf press which is our road atlas.  Good thing I have such a big book in the van with us. 

We also got a tour of a guitar building factory.  It was the Martin Guitar factory.  They have a small museum and then they give you a free tour of the place.  Hubby is building guitars and is on his third guitar so this was his hands on part of the trip.  This tour was also a review for us since we see the progress of his work and learn what each part of wood is called.  

Of course, there was so much more to our hands on and eyes on learning.  By the time we get home we will have put around 5000 miles on my van.  We did mostly nature viewing with some tours to our learning these past two weeks.

It is so wonderful to learn something in books but it always helps to see it in person.  We got to do it this year in a big way.  We also got to see it rain leaves.  As soon as I get home I will try to post more pictures and highlights of our learning experience. 

Texas is a Country, really!

We went to the zoo on Monday.  It was a nice fun day.  We joked around and laughed all day.  We had a nice time at the zoo.  It's not a very big zoo.  We went through it in an hour.  Like I said, it's not that big.  My youngest got to feed the goats.  




 
We did see some ducks. 



 


We saw big teeth grinning at us.  
 



 

Then my son saw something that made us laugh again.  Click on the picture and take a look at the zoo.  Look at all the countries mentioned.  Now who says that Texas is not a country? 

Continued...

We saw some amazing flowers at the next place we went to. I have never ever seen these before. This was a great surprise. Don't you just think they are great?

So where did we go? We went to the Children's Museum. They had an outdoor flower area and these flowers were there. I am still amazed at the beauty.

Of course the inside was great too. The A/C was wonderful. My baby loved the different things to do. He had never been there. The older two had but my baby hadn't.

They had this area to climb that was so cool. At least my baby thought so.


The mirror was fun. Can you tell? He thought it was so funny. It had a crank on the side to move the mirror and change the shape of his body. He was all smiles with all those mirrors.

Then there was the climbing wall. He had to try that. We all had a great time. Indoors and out.

Hope we get to do more fun things this week.

One Big Baby

I had someone complain that I didn't show any pictures of the baby and what a baby this is. So here is to my friend that wanted to see the baby.

I even took a picture of the white board with the information on this baby. This baby is 8weeks old. Can you imagine? Enjoy the pictures and a little more of our trip to the zoo in Houston.

Time Out or is it?

We have been busy this week and the week is almost over. I can't believe it. Here is what we have been up to.

Monday: We use this day for volunteer work for myself and the boys. It is also our day for groceries and getting things done in town before we get home late in the afternoon. We are always very tired but a happy tired.

Tuesday: We were going to make a trip to the zoo but changed it to Thursday because of rain. So we did school. We did our math and reading. We are also working on a few lapbooks.

Wednesday: I had a friend from out of town come over in the morning. We talked homeschool stuff while the kids played. We had lunch together and the boys went out to play and run around and just have a great physical ed. type of day. All we did that day was continue on our reading of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Thursday: Zoo Day!!!! Yippeeee!! We made a trip to the Houston Zoo. Well, we had to go an hour later because they were going to have some bad thunderstorms early in the morning in Houston. So instead of getting there at 9am when it opens we got there at 10am. Glad we missed all that yucky rain. It turned out to be the most beautiful, cool, breezy, low humidity type of day. It was like the best day to walk around. Well, except for the public school field trips that morning. Have you ever been trampled by a bunch of 6yr olds. Oh, my goodness! My boys just stayed by my side and kept asking me why they were acting like that and why did they all have to yell? Even the teachers and parents were yelling but that was, I imagine, because they had to so they could be heard. Oh and everything was don't touch this or don't do that or stay in line or where is your partner or let's keep up with the group. Anyway, enough of the complaining.

It turned out to be great after lunch because most of the kids left. It was much more quiet and peaceful. We read about different animals. My little one loved the day and would run ahead to see what was next. My middle son loved to listen to me read all the info on different animals that they had. There was a new baby giraffe. At 8 weeks that baby weighs 181 lbs. Wow!! It was soooo cute. They also had a new addition to the zoo. A Red Panda. Now I thought I would see a panda like I saw in the San Diego zoo. Wrong me. It was cute though.

Since it was a windy day we heard the bamboo. Yes, I said heard. They would bang against each other and you could hear a hollow sound. It was so neat to hear that. Reminds me of those bamboo wind chimes that cost way too much money for being bamboo.

After the zoo we went to the Health Museum. It was free admission after 2pm. So we got there at 3 and had fun there too. We saw lungs, the heart, this big boy that if you go around him you see his teeth and on the floor is the tongue with spots for the taste buds. You are actually in his mouth. It's a neat museum and can't beat free!

Finished up the day with dinner at Olive Garden. I love their peach tea. Yum! Oh and we did make a trip to Barnes and Noble but I came out with not one book. *shock, disbelief* We got home at 9:30pm. I am tired and need to finish up here so we can do school tomorrow.

Friday: We will start up our second part of the zoo lapbook now that we did our trip to the zoo.

So no time out for us. All this is learning time.

Zoo Fun

This week has been a little fun. We had a small field trip. Small because we went to the zoo and we have a very small zoo in town. We do plan on going to the zoo in Houston next week. It should be nicer and hopefully not too hot yet. We are of course doing this also into a lapbook experience. HOAC has a lapbook called A Trip to the Zoo. You can lapbook any zoo with it. So for now we just took pictures and had fun at the zoo and went over the first part and took a little trip to our local zoo.

There was a tortoise taking care of the lawn work. We laughed and decided that we needed one of these to take care of our lawn so we don't have to get that mower out. We actually would need a dozen or so but we would settle for one.

Then the peacocks were so beautiful. The male was trying to attract the attention of the female by puffing up and strutting his stuff. She didn't seem to be interested in him at all.

The colors are just gorgeous. Not only did we see the few animals there but also observed these beautiful flowers. They are purple and had an awesome smell. These big fat black bumblebees were attracted to them so the kids didn't stay around there too long.

Can you imagine the smell of those flowers. It's called a Wisteria.

So although we are not finished with out lapbook we did get a good start and are excited about working more on it next week after a trip to the zoo. This lapbook is for grades 3-6 but my 6yr old is doing them. That is the great thing of lapbooks, you can adjust for it to fit your children no matter what grade they are in. Stay tuned next week for our progress on our lapbook.

Nice but sad

On Monday the boys got to go to a special art class day. Their art teacher got permission to take them to a private collection of animals. They were there to draw animals and to see all these animals these individuals hunted from other countries.

I didn't get to go but made hubby take my camera. I could not miss out on this. I didn't know there would be so many animals.

They had fun drawing and being somewhere different. Of course, there had to be a silly picture in the bunch. hehehe

Saturday Fun Day

So what did we do that was fun? Well, we went to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Oh it was so much fun. The weather was perfect. Not too hot and not cold. This is the first time that I took pictures with the boys in a very long time. I normally just take pictures but it was time for me to come out in pictures too. What you see in the background is the Tower of the Americas.

What was there? They had model trains. Now talk about perfect for the little train engineer in our house. It was nice although the train section was too small and they already had christmas decorations up.

There was these large leaves. They were from a tree called the Chinese Parasol Tree. Those leaves sure were huge.

Not only leaves but they also had a Japanese area. Of course, my baby wanted a picture at the little bridge. He is so cute. He loves to be in pictures. I'm glad one of the boys don't give me trouble when it comes to being in pictures.

There were so many nice things in this garden that it is very hard to decide which pictures to show. I took 86 pictures here. This is really a nice place to go for a field trip. I know what will be one of our field trip places for our small homeschool group.

There was also what they call Terrific Treehouse. They were these structures that the kids loved to play in. There were 9 treehouses on the grounds.

Now this botanical garden is a 33 acre garden. We could have spent all day there letting the boys explore. We didn't get to see everything because we were not expecting it to be so big. Next time we will be prepared.

Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them up close.

Where Were We?

We decided at the last minute to take off and spend a night at this cabin and take off in the morning to some sightseeing. We stayed here when we evacuated for hurricane Ike. It is a really nice house cabin.
It is all pine on the inside and looks very cabin-ish.
This was the master bedroom with a very high king bed. I literally had to climb into bed. Not a good thing for someone with arthritis pains.
This is the boys room. Two full size beds. Oh each room had its own tv. The boys liked that.
A little relaxing that night before our next day of fun.
So where did we go? We were going to head on over to Fredricksburg to do a few things but saw this on the way and decided to stop. I sure am glad we did. It was amazing.

We started our drive into the land and came across the family cemetery where LBJ is buried along with Lady Bird and other family. It was a very beautiful place for a cemetery. Huge oak trees overhead. It was breezy and cool in that shade.
This is LBJ's stone, Lady Birds was still not there but there was a vase with flowers where she is at. All the stones are smaller but LBJ's is the tallest one. You can see it under the oak tree in the picture above.
Next stop was the home which was known as the Texas White House. As of now only one room is open to the public. Since Lady Bird died in 2007 only one room has been fixed up and eventually, little by little other rooms will be fixed up and opened up.
This next picture is one I have seen before in books. These chairs under the tall oak trees that were dated to be some 400 yrs old is where the president would sit and hold meetings. It was the most beautiful place to live. I told hubby that that is what I imagine paradise to be. To be cool, breezy, large oak trees, rivers and creeks where you relax and not worry about a thing.
This river passes in front of LBJ's house. It is low at this point but has a little more water in front of the house.
This building was the school house LBJ went to as a child.
An interesting thing is that they still have cattle on the property and they have the brand on its horns. See the LBJ?
We did make a little side trip to Enchanted Rock but we just drove by and didn't stop. The high light of today was the LBJ tour.