Cindy's Life as She Knows It

This week the heat disappeared and cool mornings and evenings and glorious afternoons replaced it.  It has hovered in the low 70's with blue skies and clear air.  I have spent less time on the deck than I would have liked, but I have enjoyed my time at home very much.  Our truck was down again and we had three drivers and one car, so I was the odd man out, staying home every day but today, when my daughter took us to co-op.  I actually wish it could be this way every week.  I love my home and being here during the day.  I love homeschooling and working on the deck, hearing my granddaughter chatter as she plays, putting her down for a nap with a light blanket over her to keep off the chill.  My son has been working well and getting finished before 2, sometimes as early as noon, and this has been a welcome change. This week we started delving into Ancient Greece.  We are reading the Magic Tree House Hour of the Olympics in Literature, doing Greek ...

Friday started out a very busy couple of days.  We had our annual field trip to the Anne Arundel County Fair Kids Day and enjoyed time with my granddaughter, Natalie and some homeschooling friends. Dakota, Natalie and friends enjoyed seeing the livestock, watching the pig and duck races and riding the rides.  I particularly enjoyed my granddaughter this year.  She was so much fun and really loved every minute.  She would say "Run, piggy, run!!" and when they ran back into the trailer after a race she would say "Oh no!  What wrong?".  Way too cute!  She and Dakota and I rode the merry go round at least four times.  She was terrified and clung tight, but loved it, asking for "more horsey!" each time it was over.  I got her a Dora blow up toy and we had lemonade and snacks and Dakota got to ride with his girlfriend and her sisters too.  It was over by noon, which really wasn't an issue for me at all. Another exciting event this Friday was...

Yesterday I tried to teach my son about 9/11.  We have talked about the subject before and watched just small snippets of TV coverage specials in documentaries, but I am not ready to show him the human terror and carnage that is depicted.  He is nine, so he understands more now and we are reading the I Survived series currently, focusing on the 9/11 attack.  The memory for those who lived through it will never dull and even though my other three kids were not grown, with my older son only being eight at the time, they all remember the fear as the country virtually shut down as a result of the unknown.  What would happen next?  Were we safe?  Never before had our country ever feared outsiders.  Never before had war been on our soil.  Now we were afraid and we hugged our loved ones closed and dared to think...what if, and not in a good way. My nine year old is a fairly empathetic person.  He feels bad for others when he sees them hurting or i...

Yesterday was our start of Dakota's third grade year and my thirteenth year of homeschooling.  It was the first year, however, that I didn't cram in work for the first several weeks....too much for any one child to do...then stress over not getting it done.  He started the morning in his pjs doing a Lego Star Wars kit he got for his birthday (art).  The we had an awesome day out on the deck, doing his new routine for morning work, playing addition math war and remembering how to write in cursive as we practiced our spelling words.  He did the first half of a getting to know his science text activity, a math review sheet and we read a book and did a close activity on Amelia Earhart.  He read a couple of back to school themed books, did half of a Meet Me packet and we were finished, including a 45 minute lunch bread, before 2:00.  Very, very nice.  PE was football practice from 5:30 to 8:00pm. Today, Thursday, is the Baltimore Ravens opener and Dakota ...

On Tuesday, September 3, 2013, my little man turned nine.  He officially went from being a "little kid" to a "tween" or "big kid" and he is the light of my life.  He has spunk, swag and plenty of sass, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.  We celebrated all weekend, but on his special day (after a trip to New York and a big dinner the night before) we went to breakfast at Bob Evans, ordering extra bacon, and then to Walmart, where he used his birthday money to buy a video game and two Star Wars Lego kits.  After football that night, we had cupcakes for everyone. While I am nervous about raising such a strong willed young man through his teenage years, I am also excited about all the fun times ahead.  My boy has a great sense of humor and a plan for the future and I look forward to going along for the ride.

This weekend we had our first trip with my new travel company, Sun and Sports Travel.  We loaded a bus at 6:30am and were on our way by 6:35.  I had gone around the parking lot before boarding talking to the people I had previously only "known" through email and found them all to be kind and friendly.  Our trip down was uneventful.  We got to know a few of the people sitting closest to us and we all watched the Oriole's highlight video from last year.  Dakota and his friend Logan were the only children aboard, but they were well behaved and excited to get to the stadium.  As we got to New York there was a heavy downpour, but it had stopped by the time we parked the bus and everyone disembarked and headed over to Yankee Stadium.  We took pictures and walked around a bit and then the gates opened at 11am and we went inside.  We headed up to the Malibu Rooftop Deck for our luncheon and got to know a few more people while we munched on ...