This used to be old growth forest

Our part of the world is a little short on natural disasters, as luck should have it. Tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, massive earthquakes, floods, wildfires, locusts, venomous snakes, insects bigger than garden spiders--they were all in rare supply in my neighborhood when I was growing up. However, there was one spectacular event that I watched from the deck of my parents house in 1980. Of course I'm referring to Mt. St. Helens.

The news coverage and smaller eruptions leading up to the big event were fascinating and exciting, being a safe distance away but still in plain view. The big eruption itself was mesmerizing, as was the news footage of the gigantic trees lined up like matchsticks, bridges being washed away by mud, cities to the north being plunged into darkness by falling ash. I couldn't believe Harry Truman would just let himself be taken by the mountain. There was another eruption (now I can't remember if it was before or after the big one) while I was watching an old 1950s Vincent Price movie at the Movie House, and they stopped the movie and sent us home. Being up there on the mountain, however, gave me new appreciation for the massiveness of the eruption. Even 29 years later, it looks nothing like any other place in the Cascade Mountains. The amount of ash is just staggering. Apparently the bottom of the valley is about 300 feet higher now.

Anyway, the trip to Johnston Ridge visitors center was well worth the 2+ hour drive. It still looks like a moonscape, with hardly tree to be found.
In this picture you can kind of see where the massive landslide tore up this ridge at 300+ miles per hours and sheered everything away down to the bedrock. (That is Mt. Adams is peeking over the top of the hills in the distance)
Most of the area around the visitors center is on the side of the ridge that was decimated, so we didn't see all the downed trees lined up like I expected to see. There were a few high up on the far hills, though.

And of course there were some signs of life, now that almost 30 years have past:

Botany Lesson

This is just what I was hoping would happen with this on-line science curriculum the kids are doing through our charter school. M is a really interested in science, and I haven't managed to do nearly as much as he'd like in the past year or so, so I was hopeful that this curriculum would be a hit. So far M has given it pretty favorable reviews, and today after doing a unit on flower anatomy he got inspired do some hands-on science. We went and found a few remaining flowers and cut them to pieces to find all the interesting bits.
We saw some extremely cool sights under the microscope, including this stamen laden with pollen. We used our old trick of putting the camera to the eyepiece, and you can kind of see what we saw. The bits of pollen looked like a bunch of teeny bright yellow insect eggs. Crazy.

St. John's Art Walk

We went on a wonderful walking tour of window art in St. John's this week. There were probably 30 or so shops that had displays by artists who live in or around St. Johns. I don't think I've ever walked around that neighborhood, and it was lovely. We met several of the business owners along the way, including a 91 year old barber who opened his barber shop in the 1940s. The first ten years were a couple of doors down from the current location. Unfortunately most of the pictures have a lot of glare so you can't see the art all that well, but here is one of my favorites which you can see fairly well.
Notice the little guys at the bottom fencing? It was the window of a fencing studio.

I actually didn't see this one, but I wish I had. Very cool!

There are guided tours of the show this weekend, and then the art is coming down Sunday or soon thereafter. I definitely recommend it.

The Holiday Spirit

I have learned from my wise family to embrace those holidays I formerly failed to appreciate (i.e., 4th of July and Halloween). These are the go-for-it holidays. The only way to do them is to throw yourself into them. Fireworks until 1:00 in the morning, gorging in junky candy, giving in to all those hedonistic pleasures your never realized were actually so much fun. Needless to say, we are in the midst of feverish preparations. I don't have a photo of the yard, but there are bats, ghosts, and gravestones galore. Also, some mysterious blood appeared on the porch, and I recently found this picture:
Also, A made these adorable treats tonight, which seem to fit the spirit of Halloween. We like to bite they little toes off, and nibble on they tiny feet...

More Not-Back-To-School Events

We went to Oaks Park today for the Not Back To School day (unlimited rides for $10/kid) and had a great time. I was remembering the first time we went to this event, I think seven years ago. We went with two other homeschooling families and didn't know another soul there. M was just a toddler, and A was afraid to go on anything other than the carousel. We played a game with the other kids we went with and then pretty much just watched the other kids go on rides. I think M went on a kiddy ride that involved motorcycles, but that was about it besides the turn around the carousel.

What a difference seven years makes! A was still not just crazy about the rides and avoided the wildest ones, but she went on a bunch, as did M. The biggest difference, though, was how everywhere I looked I saw kids and parents I knew. It was such a kick to see the younger generation of kids M's age now big enough to run around the park as a gang and go on rides while the parents hang out the shade. Every once in a while you'd run into a parent who would ask "Tell my kid to come check in if you see him, will you?" It felt like we lived in a small town--we didn't know everyone by a long shot, but it felt safe and comfortable, and I knew that if something happened to one of my kids when I wasn't there, there would most likely be someone they did know close by to help them out. At the same time it gave the kids a nice chance to shed their parents for an afternoon and hang with their friends, if they wanted to.

And I love seeing all the teenagers who were just lovely kids--happy, having a good time, and full of positive energy. At one point some other moms and I were watching the kids try out fencing and a gang of 5 or 6 pre-teen and teenage boys say down and shared our table with us. They were doing their own thing, watching the fencers, drinking sodas, and probably just taking a little break. I thought that, knock wood, there would be M and his friends in about 5 years.

Not Back to School

The first day of school--ah, now we homeschoolers have OMSI and skating rinks and corn mazes and movie theaters and the parks back to ourselves during the schoolweek. Such luxury after having to share them with the masses all summer long.

But wait, this year we met our charter school teacher on the first day of school, so maybe I can't say "not back to school" anymore. We're hopeful the charter school will complement our homeschooling nicely, and it certainly will allow us to take more classes at our local homeschool resource center than we could without it, along with the use of some expensive curricula that look to be quite nice.

I like our teacher a lot--her specialty area is P.E., which is a great fit for me, since I seem to think the fresh air and exercise will cure whatever ails you. And, I actually think she'll be a great fit for A, as another role model in the mold of her wonderful older cousins. Lovely young women who, unlike me, have an awareness of modern clothing and makeup, in addition to being capable, resourceful, strong, and good-hearted women.

After spending some time this morning making muffins, cleaning house, and meeting the new teacher, we spent the afternoon with most of the drama club girls plus our homeschooling cousin. The sun was out, the kids ran around like maniacs playing tag, put on a circus, worked up some kind of dance routine to "Fart and Smell" (to the tune of "Heart and Soul"), etc.. Meanwhile, the younger brothers (except for M, who was here at home) apparently spent the afternoon playing in mud on Sauvie's Island and arrived back to get the girls dressed in nothing but towels and seatbelts. Homeschooling at its best.

Tomorrow A starts gymnastics back up, then Not Back to School day at Oak's Park on Friday. All the signs point to a good year, knock on wood.

Block Party 2009

This weekend was our 2nd quarennial block party. That is, the second in 4 years, and this one every bit as fun as the first, if not more. We truly have great neighbors. My bro-in-law set up the kitchen, grilled all manner of comestibles to perfection, and made an amazing paella.
Some friends were kind enough to join us.

Things are starting to gear up here. I bet we had about 40-50 people stop by.
The road was painted,

and so were faces.

When it got dark one neighbor brought his fire pit over to our driveway and we built a fire and brought out the instruments. We had about 5 guitars, 2 fiddles, a bunch of drums, a keyboard, a flute, a trombone, an accordian, a harmonica, and an extremely cool bow-like percussion instrument that I'd never seen before. Seriously fun.

What I've been doing instead of blogging

According to the wise Dave Barry, it's a thin line between hobby and insanity...

You can't see it very well, but the red pair above was my first foray into patterns (it's a diagonal lace). Here is my second attempt, Bamboo Walking Socks:

And my masterpiece in progress, Azure. I just wish the yarn was a little less brightly colored so the pattern would show up a little better.

This weekend was the amazing Sock Summit, where A and I helped break the world record for the most continuous knitters at one time and I laid in the supplies for my next few projects:

...and got some fancy new clogs to show off all my lovely socks, self-horn-tooter that I am!

Happy Garden

Thanks to D's enthusiasm and diligent efforts this year's garden is our best ever. We've been eating salad out of the garden for weeks, and now we're getting a few more things, too. On Friday we had home-grown artichokes (with a dipping sauce made from home-made mayonnaise and home-made yogurt), and a smoked chicken salad. Chicken was done on the grill in the back yard, and the salad included lettuce, radishes, green onions, nastursiums, and herbs from the garden. And smoothies that included some of our very own strawberries. Delicious! For breakfast yesterday we had a first batch of new potatoes.

We gave a big chunk of space to about our 4th try at a sunflower house. Our previous sunflower houses have been pathetically thin and short, but this year's is putting our previous attempts to shame. Unfortunately I've got lettuce and sugar snap peas and cucumbers growing behind the sunflowers. I'm hoping that by the time the sunflowers get much bigger the peas and lettuce will be done and the cucumbers will have climbed up high enough on the fence to be able to get some sun. Our other cucumbers (that are not behind the sunflowers) aren't looking too good, so I'm afraid these may be our only chance at some home-grown cukes. The tallest sunflowers are about 4 feet tall, and we've got California poppies, nastrusiums, and a couple of little (but much pampered) lupine growing between and around the sunflowers.
And we have lots of our favorite flower, the beautiful poppy. The ones in this patch are so densely packed that they are choking each other out, but they still look beautiful, if you ask me.

Silver Falls State Park, 2009

Yay, I found some pictures of our camping trip on the camera! OK, we stayed in cabins, but they didn't have indoor plumbing, so I think I still get to call it camping. Sort of.

Silver Falls is renown for the stunning views of many water falls, which are easily accessible by hiking trails from the campground. However, I saw exactly none of said falls because I was way too comfortable in my camping chair to haul myself out of it for a hike. Fortunately the cabin area was equipped with considerable natural beauty, plus some carts for hauling stuff from cars to cabins that were heavily used by our kids this weekend. 

Seriously, it was a kid's paradise. There was a stream that was about 20 feet across and about a foot deep that ran among the cabins, complete with huge logs fallen across it for bridges, a real foot and bike bridge, and little fish and other critters for catching and examining.

And most important, a plethora of great kids to play with.

End of Year Events

We have had a huge slew of end-of-year events, which I mostly failed to capture on camera, unfortunately. For the sake of documentation, though, I'm going to run through the highlights. 

Here is a picture from the triumphant performance of _Tales of the Tangled Tresses_. Unfortunately I don't have the girls in costume, but this pictures shows at least part of seven of the eight performers. Prior to the performance we had never made a complete run-through, and at the dress rehearsal the day before they were dropping lines all over the place. Plus, we had never practiced outdoors, which was where we were performing it. I was a wee bit uncertain about how it would go. Fortunately it turned out beautifully. There were a couple of dropped lines, which they easily recovered from, and at one point I sent one of the actors out a minute early and kind of wrecked her entrance, but they did a fabulous job and for the most part were wonderfully poised and funny and managed to speak loud enough to be heard.

Other events of great import were the end of year gymnastics show and piano recital. A played her solo piece at the recital, plus duets with two of her friends, all of which went beautifully. A bunch of A's friends take lessons from the incomparable Gaye Rumsey-Riggs and various combinations of kids played duets, plus I played cello with a few of them. For a surprise, the whole gang (including me) worked up a 12-hands, 2-piano plus cello version of Pacabel's Cannon that Gaye had the kids play last year ("Taco Bell Cannon," actually). We played it for her at the recital rehearsal and by some miracle managed to stay together without my screaming out "1-and-2-and-" the whole time. 

The gymnastics show was the only event at which M was also a performer. Everyone did a lovely job, including a very fun dance number to Michael Jackson's Thriller. They actually did the dance twice--once for each of the two shows they put on. (They have too many kids to fit into one show). The kids were delighted with their plaques and were quite happy with how it went.

Lastly, we had our end-of-year camping trip with the homeschool gang. As always, it was incredibly fun and actually relaxing for me. The kids play non-stop, and we grownups hang around and knit and read and visit and nap and every once in a while made a sandwich or two for the kids. 

Whew, so many events, and now next weekend is M's birthday (and his first ever big birthday party), and then a big multi-day family reunion of D's cousins and their families. There will be tons of relatives we've never even met who live all over the U.S. here in town. Should be lots of fun.

Reading Triumph

M's reading is really improving, but he is not yet a fluent reader and usually doesn't spend more than a few minutes reading any particular book. The only exception is, of all things, _The Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook_ and the related Monster Manual. He often pours over these books in bed before falling to sleep, calling out to A and I to tell him what f-o-r-t-i-t-u-d-e and p-a-l-a-d-i-n and s-h-a-d-o-w-s-t-r-i-k-e spell. The same kid who stumbles over parts of Nate the Great just ran downstairs and read aloud with great dramatic inflection "As you open your mouth with a roar, the deadly power of your draconic kin blasts forth to engulf your foes." Though "reading primer" does not leap to mind when you see these books, I bet he isn't the first kid to learn to read from them.

Math Triumph

The kids are in a nice space lately. A is so enjoying all of her activities these days, and spent the car ride to chess club today thinking up historic events she wanted to memorize the dates of. She said "My favorite subject is history, but I also love writing and math and geography. The only thing I'm not that interested in is science, and even that is pretty interesting sometimes." She loves math!!! 

We've been going really slowly in math lately. It only took us 2-3 months to get through _Life of Fred: Fractions_, but _Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents_ has been quite a bit more challenging. We made it through the first 12 or so chapters when I realized that we had gone too fast. We started over, and again started to bog down, this time around chapter 15 or so. 

The chapters are short, and end with 5-8 problems that go over the concepts covered in that chapter and review one or two concepts from previous chapters or from the fractions book. Then, every fifth chapter there is a "bridge" of 10 problems covering everything that has been introduced so far, and you have to get 9 out of 10 correct before moving on to the next chapter. You get five tries to cross each bridge--i.e., there are 5 different sets of problems--and as soon as you get 9 out of 10 on a set you move on to the next chapter. A had a hard time passing the previous bridge and was really not enjoying math at all. 

Once she finally passed that bridge, we mostly set _Life of Fred_ aside and did a variety of stuff for math. She worked on Singapore's _Challenging Word Problems_,  math puzzles I found on the internet, and the Building Thinking Skills_ Figural workbook. Plus, we did a bit of pool (as in billiards) geometry and a fair amount of "trampoline math," where I threw random math problems at her while she was jumping on the trampoline. I did a mixture in multiplication and division facts; formulae for area and perimeter of a circle, rectangle, and triangle; conversion of decimals to fractions; conversion of decimals to percents; and multiplication and division of decimals by powers of 10. We did these for about 2 months, along with the next 5 chapters of Fred: decimals. Then it was time for another bridge. Which she was dreading. But which she passed! Yesterday we did a very triumphant victory lap, a.k.a. Chapter 26.

Guess What This Is

M found this outside the other day, looked at it through the microscope, and took a couple of pictures of it by putting the camera up to the eyepiece and clicking. It worked!

Can you tell what it actually is?

A hummingbird feather.

Thing One and Thing Two

Check out my new babies! Having only hats and wash cloths under my belt, these were a stretch for me, but completely worth it. It is just mind-boggling that you can do a couple little motions with needles and a piece of yarn, and the next thing you know you've woven this net that really does hold together. Then, some amazing person figured out a way to do these same basic stitches and have the fabric curve around in a perfect little heel shape! Incredible!

The whole time I was knitting Sock #1 I worried that it wouldn't be big enough around, so you can imagine my delight as it slid right over my heel with no trouble at all. Until I ran into the end of the sock at about the point where my toes start. Because they were too small I was going to give them to A, but as I worked away on the second sock and fell more in love with every stitch, I couldn't give them up. After I finished the second one, I undid the toe of Sock #1. It took about 30 seconds to undo it back to the point where I was going to pick it back up, and over 3 hours to get all the stitches back on correctly. That's more than 3 minutes per stitch, if anyone is counting. But, I managed to get them all on more-or-less correctly and re-finished Sock #1 this morning. I figured that if I had been paid my hourly wage for my work on these socks, plus needles and yarn, they would have cost me about $450. 

Now that I've worn these babies all day, the thought of going back to my boring old regular socks is bringing me down. I'm casting on Sock #1 of the next pair tonight. 

Second Annual Train Trip to Seattle

Yay, our internet is working again, so I can tell you about our amazingly beautiful sunny and warm day in Seattle today. First we walked up to Pike Street Market and had lunch and checked out the beautiful flowers and other wares. The tulips were absolutely amazing. Them must have a tulip growing area nearby because they were in great abundance and in a multitude of colors and patterns.

Then we walked up to the sculpture garden, which was really cool except that you weren't allowed to touch anything, which was rather a bummer. Here the kids are taking a little rest, far from any actual sculptures they might accidentally bump up against.

I think they were allowed to touch these, which didn't seem to be technically IN the sculpture garden. How often do you get to sit on an eyeball?
The kids didn't know what this object was until I told them:
Right after I snapped this picture a voice boomed out over a loud speaker "PLEASE DON'T TOUCH THE ART IN THE SCULPTURE GARDEN." Yikes! Big Brother is watching us!

Then we walked up to the park around the Space Needle and listened to a lovely band from some Andean country and saw more great sculptures (and climbed on them!). The monorail took us halfway back to the train station, then a quick lemonade stop and back to the station.
We're all exhausted, but it was so much fun, we can't wait until next year's trip.

Plan #438

M: Remember when we used to read from a bunch of different books, instead of just one or two?

A: Yeah, and we actually used to do spelling and look places up on maps when we read about them?

M: And you used to leave little notes for us with stuff to do while you were at work?

Jeez, we've only been off the wagon for a few weeks, really! OK, we got a little busy with the birthday planning and festivities and schoolwork sort of devolved down to Rick Riordon's Percy Jackson series and a Laura Ingalls Wilder book, and some math a few times per week. But isn't it a good thing that my kids are wanting to get back into schoolwork, rather than me having to drag them along? Isn't it funny, the one thing I've been pretty consistent with is math, and that is the thing neither of them want to do now. How can you not like math?

Anyway, we're going to just do math games on the computer for a little while, and concentrate on some other things. Here is our new plan:

1. Pick back up _Our Island Story_ (history of England)

2. Pick back up _Augustus Caesar's World_ (alternate with 1.)

3. Find a D'aulaire picture book biography or something similar to work through a page or so at a time

4. Do regular stories from Fifty Stories Retold and similar books of tales.

5. Pick back up Sequential Spelling

6. Go through this drawing lesson book we have

7. Look up places in books we're reading on maps/globe/atlas

8. Get a steady stream of science online video sites set up.

9. Find a science book to start reading through, or finish the physics one we were reading if we didn't finish it.

10. Print some handwriting practice worksheets for M with science facts on them.

11. Go to the art museum.

M really wants to do more hands-on science, too, and we decided a little while that Singapore was just not right for us. We had the microscope out the other day and that was a big hit, so maybe I could look for some microbiology--grow some molds and get some pond water and stuff like that. We've done more chemistry and physics than biology (other than nature stuff), so that might be a good way to go. I bet I can find a low-tech growing medium on the internet.

A and I are doing another on-line writing class with Bravewriter and for some reason this one has been harder--not more work, but harder to figure out what to write. I think she's hit on an idea she can go with, now, though, so I'm hoping it will be better from here on out. 

Fat Tuesday

Ever since we went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras many years ago, we've been in love with the whole event and the town. New Orleans had so much soul, and so much celebration with such abandon. This was where we discovered that D has been practicing white voodoo all his life, filling our house with little gris-gris offerings. The music, the food, the feast for all of the senses. I think we've watched every documentary about New Orleans and Katrina that is out there, or at least that is available at our library and local video store. 

Here was our homage to New Orleans tonight. The King Cake is ready to decorate, "olive salad" for the muffaletta, with ham, mortadella, salami, mozzarella, and gruyere ready to go. 

Don't forget the hurricanes!

Colored sugar for the King Cake (the middle one is supposed to be purple--turned out kind of gray, unfortunately)
And finally, the feast! It looks a little underwhelming in the picture, but it was an incredibly delicious and very festive meal. Party on.