It's the classic children's museum
big chair photo!

Back to the Routine

Well, not quite. The routine is sometimes interrupted by awesome things like visiting the local children's museum with "long-lost" friends we followed her from the west coast. The girls had a blast exploring the museum that included things like a bubble zone with people-sized bubbles, theater with a light & sound board they could control, a physics-based circus where they could lift an elephant using a lever among other cool activities, a town with a bank, library, store, fire station, etc., etc., etc.

When we are attempting to establish the routine, we've been slowly easing ourselves into it. The girls have been learning tons of practical housekeeping things  as we've been settling in, and of course we had a "science intensive" with Grandma's gardening visit, but here's what we're up to in some other topics:

Reading: At the girls request, this was the first subject to be added back into the routine. Lion continues to insist on primarily sight reading and has been avidly reading our anthology of Dick & Jane stories. She's also picked up a few easy readers (like Bears on Wheels) that we found at the local library. Monkey is still not a completely confident reader, but we've changed tactics and so far have met enthusiastic success. Rather than looking for something mildly interesting among   easy readers, we checked out a book I knew she'd love--the first book of the Spiderwick Chronicles. It's certainly beyond her ability to read on her own, but with assistance on tough words and my reading every other page outright, she's cheerfully struggling through and her reading skills are definitely improving! In fact, her reading lesson is usually the first thing she wants to do! Bug doesn't actually have reading lessons per se. We just have an understanding that she should spend some time reading every day. That's never a problem: she blitzed through all five Spiderwick books in a matter of days, read an anthology of Aesop's fables, several stories out of a book of Norse mythology, a Kate DiCamillo book, most of my complete collection of Beatrix Potter stories, etc. etc.

our happy little drummer!

Writing: We've been working on composition lately, though we haven't been doing much actual writing on paper. We've done lots of rounds with Story Cubes  (roll picture dice and tell a story based on what lands).  Monkey and Lion enthusiastically weave elaborate fairy tales; Bug groans when I pull them out, but she can usually come up with at least a few sentences. I also recently pulled out the story cards, and taught the girls about the 5 Ws. This exercise seemed particularly helpful to Bug, who often struggles to even get started with story prompts. We did recently pick up a spelling unit at Bug's request (She was writing something on her own and getting frustrated with having to ask me for help spelling things: "Mom, if you teach us spelling again, I'll know more of these words all by myself." Well, ok then.)

Math: Since we don't yet have internet or a functional printer, the big girls haven't been doing their usual combination of Khan Academy and math drills worksheets. However, we've been doing lots of flashcards, and I've been throwing in practical math at every opportunity (for example, at the grocery store the other day, I had the girls pick out four pears and figure out about how much we'd have to pay for them--find the price per pound sign, weigh the pears, then round both numbers to easy-to-work-with numbers and multiply to find the total). Meanwhile, Lion and I worked our way through a kindergarten math assessment (I was reading through a list of published standards, and would occasionally call her over, "Hey, Lion, can you . . . ?" She would prove she could do it or admit ignorance and move on.) As expected, she's all but done with kindergarten math, and I now have a short list of topics we ought to focus on.

(Because a frame on my desk needs
a new photo and it's too cute not
to share!)

History: For history/civics we're continuing our study of the U.S. Presidents by making our way through a workbook and getting some additional sources from the library.

Bible & Religion: Now that we're no longer travelling and keeping crazy schedules, we've been much more consistent with our morning Bible readings. We're now in the book of Acts in their story Bible. Our church here doesn't have a program for kids' to memorize Bible verses, so we're on own again. Now that we're in a liturgical church, the first thing I had us work on was the Lord's Prayer. We talked through the meaning of every phrase as well as why we say it together in church every Sunday. It took a couple of weeks, and now the girls can proudly participate in another part of the service! Speaking of which, the girls and I also took a little time one morning to go through an order of worship, so I could explain each aspect of the worship service and why we do it. I also made the big girls ribbon bookmarks to bring to church with us: they spend the prelude and welcome/announcements time looking up the hymns we'll be singing that morning. Lion loves hymnals! During the service she follows along with me and does her best to sing along, then frequently spends part of the sermon leafing through a hymnal. In fact, since our church is getting new ones, Pastor R even let Lion bring one of the old ones home to be her very own!

Personal Projects: Of course, the girls always have their own things they're doing. The three of them together have been regularly organizing restaurants in the playroom, coming up with elaborate story lines involving ALL of their stuffed animals, and performing readers theater versions of Elephant & Piggie books (hilarious). Monkey has spent lots of time drawing and practicing her new drum (she is so excited about having her very own real snare drum). She and Bug even collaborated on a duet with one of Bug's songs from her piano lessons. Bug has lots of interests: she's still practicing typing, she's watched several silent films, she had me teach her a basic crochet stitch and made a cape for one of her dolls, she and I are both learning how to use the sewing machine, she reassembled her balsa wood house and finished decorating it (she even designed and built a poolside pergola out of clothes pins and Popsicle sticks).

Grandma's Visit! (May 3-5)

We packed a lot of fun into just a couple of days! Grandma was here for a purpose--as a "guest lecturer" to help us set up our first vegetable garden. She arrived Tuesday afternoon and was excitedly given a grand tour by the girls. We spent the afternoon hanging out, chitchatting, and starting to think about gardening things. Then she accompanied the girls and I to their first music lesson here. Her presence was invaluable! This music school is much bigger than their last one, and  I was supposed to be in three places at once!

That evening we pulled out the books and charts she brought, and really set to work planning the garden and writing our shopping list. We spent the next morning at Lowe's filling the trunk of my car with various bags of soils and tomato cages, every cup holder with a plant, and a small plastic bag with seeds and gardening gloves. We were set to go!

The girls and I spent a good part of the afternoon digging up the garden plot. Lion was a great little digger, and worked really hard to help me get it all turned over and broken up. Monkey and Bug did a little digging, but they quickly decided it was more fun to rescue earthworms (which they kept in a flower pot with some dirt until the worms could continue doing their good work in our garden) and to kill "greedy grubs."

We topped off the day with swimming lessons, followed by Wednesday night supper and a hymn sing at our new church. This was particularly fun to take Grandma along to because there were still people who remember her from when she was a member decades ago! (I have to admit it's fun--and a little weird--to be in a church where people remember me as a preschooler!)

The next morning the real planting began! We put down hardware cloth to keep out the moles we discovered at the other end of the yard, mixed in the gardening and topsoil (Lion and I had to make another run for a few more bags, while Monkey and Bug stayed to help Grandma pour it in), and planted our plants! That day we planted three pepper plants, three sweet potato plants, and four tomato plants. The girls were great gardeners: they helped cut off the pots and followed instructions about how deep and wide to dig and much of the plant to bury. It was a bit of a chilly, wet day so we decided to go inside for hot tea and hold off on planting the seeds until we had nicer weather. (We have since planted cucumbers, cilantro, and basil.)

The girls have been diligently checking on and when necessary watering our garden. I'll confess now to having a black thumb. The girls are really excited, though, so I hope we can pull this off!

Settling In (April 18th - May 3rd)

"Today is best day ever! Why? Because today is moving day!" --Lion, spontaneously quoting Oh from Home during our drive to the new house.

They were so excited to be moving into our new place! They were bouncing like it was Christmas morning on the front porch before we let them in to see it for the first time. They immediately rushed through the house, naming all the rooms and marveling at how much space we have now (literally twice the square footage of our townhouse on the west coast).

We arrived on Monday afternoon in order to receive the fridge on Tuesday, but the moving truck wasn't going to arrive until Wednesday. Rather than wait around an empty house all Tuesday morning, the girls and I acquired library cards and YMCA memberships,  got them signed up for swimming lessons, and came home with a stack of books to read! As usual, we hit the ground running!

Move-in day was just as exciting as Lion anticipated! The girls were particularly excited about figuring out where their beds and dressers would go: their room is big enough to accomodate three twin beds (nobody had to be bunked this time!), and we were able to buy them each a new dresser to replace the two they'd been sharing (which had fallen apart and been ditched before the move). Also for the first time ever, their playroom is an upstairs room (with a door and everything!), so we put them in charge of arranging their playthings. I did eventually pitch in to help them sort out the bins and organize the closet, but they were thrilled to be taking responsibility for some of the unpacking!

(Just a note about our move-in process: We make the movers unpack and take all the empty boxes with them. Not only do we not have to deal with discarding a ton of boxes, but I'm much more motivated to clear the piles of stuff from the middle of the floor--or our bed--than I would be to empty neatly stacked boxes. Within a week we had it all put away and most of the pictures hung.)

Among the prioritized settling-in projects, the girls were also able to help Daddy construct their climbing dome (we haven't had room for it in two years!) and a raised garden bed. Unfortunately, since then it's rained too much for them to get much use out the dome yet. (I'll talk more about the garden bed in my next post about Grandma coming to visit.)

The climbing dome in progress!

The girls contemplate the tools for the job while waiting for Daddy to help with the garden bed.

While the girls didn't actually get to help with the next project, they were very enthusiastic observers of the process of Daddy finishing their dressers. We decided to buy good quality unfinished furniture, then Daddy found a stain that reasonably matched their beds. Everyone is very pleased with the results!

(At some point I'll do a "Where It Happens: Mid-Atlantic Edition," and you'll all get to see photos of our new digs!)

Now the round-up of new activities:

Church: We surprised ourselves a bit, and already found our church home! It's a liturgical church only a mile from our house (and coincidently, the one I was baptized in as an infant). The congregation is small and friendly, and the girls immediately made friends with the pastor's kids, who interestingly enough, sat with us our first Sunday there! The pastor's husband was out of town that weekend, and when their mom instructed them to "find a grown up to sit with during the service," they beelined for the new family with three little girls. (What's a couple more, right?) On our second visit, we attended Sunday school (They have that here! Hooray!), which includes children's choir for the kids. The girls went their separate ways with their new teachers without hesitation!

 Swimming: The girls are thrilled to be back in the pool! I even managed to get them signed up for back-to-back lessons two nights a week. Their first lesson was all very basic, and they were a little disappointed. I assured them their teacher was just figuring out where everyone was, and sure enough their next lesson was more challenging--just enough to keep everybody interested. By far their favorite part about this pool is the indoor splash pad! Mr. C turns it on for free time, but there are also family open swim times that we'll be getting in on!

Music: We also got the girls started with their music lessons already! God worked another miracle: not only did we find a music school where all the girls can study, but they're even scheduled for the same thirty minute time slot! This, despite the fact that two of them are now playing piano. Bug decided to break off her love/hate relationship with violin and try piano. So far she is loving it, and she and Lion both really like their teachers. Monkey is cheerfully sticking with drums (and thrilled that we finally have room to get her a real drum); however, she's less than cheerful about her new teacher. Mr. R is actually great, but he's very high energy and talks loud and fast. He's going to take our introverted Monkey a little getting used to. Also, he had her trying to play standing up at a real snare drum, when she's only ever played sitting with either a full electric kit or drum pads. It was just too much, and the poor girl broke down. We discussed the situation, and next week is going to be much better. She's been practicing enthusiastically, so I have high hopes for a relatively smooth transition going forward.

Library: Our local library is a mere mile away, and right next to our church and the Y! It's a nice little branch library with a kids' wing that has several kid-sized tables along with lots of armchair seating and bean bag seating. The girls have decided (accurately, I believe) that they are too old for storytime. However, we're still there every week for our usual large stack of books!

Martial Arts: They're not actually signed up for any yet, but Daddy visited a couple schools. We think we'll be going with Brazilian jujutsu at an MMA school. We were hoping to find another Japanese-style dojo, but sadly that doesn't seem to exist around here. I'll keep you posted!

Coast to Coast (March 26-April 18)

Time to hit the road! This time around we decided to take the northern route all the way from the Pacific coast to our final destination on the Atlantic coast. That is a lot of driving time! For their actual time spent in the car, I prepared a binder for each girl containing a set of Easter coloring pages, an itinerary and map of our route, a coloring page for each state we'd be traveling through (featuring a state map, state bird, and other local icons), a road sign scavenger hunt, a license plate check list, and a set of mazes, dot-to-dots, sudoku and kenken puzzles. They also had the usual collection of small toys and travel games, books to read (including a fully-loaded nook for Bug), and they acquired a couple sets of paper dolls along the way. By far one of their favorite activities was creating things out a massive bag colorful pipe cleaners. Proud parenting brag: They didn't watch a single in-car movie for the entire drive! Instead we listened to Adventures in Odyssey and Chronicles of Narnia audio dramas (the first four books). They loved them! (which is especially good because my lighter went on the fritz a few days into our trip, and I couldn't have powered the DVD player anyway).

Of course, we had to have adventures! We turned this into a three-week road trip in order to visit friends and family and see the sights along the way. Here's the itinerary:

Reno, NV: We met up with a college friend of Daddy and mine and his family at a local park, so all the kids could play, then went out to dinner with them.

Nampa, ID: The girls were thrilled to get in a quick visit with some of their friends on this stop! Our former pastor and his family recently moved there, and we got to catch up with them before they headed back to church in the evening.

Craters of the Moon: This was an unplanned stop along the highway. We started noticing increasing numbers of distinct, starkly black rocks. Monkey and Bug called it: These looked like volcanic rock formations! Sure enough we soon noticed signs for Craters of the Moon National Park and stopped to tour the visitors center and take a walk around.

Yellowstone National Park, WY: This was another visit with a college buddy, who happens to live and work inside the park. It snowed overnight, which made our morning walk to admire the hot springs quite chilly and a little slippery. It didn't take them long to figure out which spots on the boardwalk were above the hottest springs! We also enjoyed the visitor's center, which had lots of good info about local history, geology, and wildlife as well as taxidermied specimens of the latter. Since the bears were just waking up for the spring we decided not to risk any actual hiking, but we did drive through the park to admire the scenery and look for wildlife. During our driving in and around the park we spotted bison, elk, coyotes, magpies, pronghorns, and bighorn sheep. We also went looking for owls: we spotted their nest and poked through some pellets, but we think the owls themselves were probably hunkered down in the nest to escape the biting wind.

Bison own the road!

Everyone enjoyed the warmth of Mammoth Hot Springs.

 Bozeman, MT: Another meet-up with old friends--this time one of Daddy's friends from high school and her family. It was also another chance for the girls to get some running around and playground time.

A Highway in South Dakota: I don't remember where we were exactly, but we drove into an unexpected snowstorm and discovered my car does NOT handle snow well! Two of the girls and I skidded across the left lane and ended up in the median. Fortunately, there were no other cars around, and Daddy pulled over to wait for us to get back on the road. We said lots of prayers and drove very slowly to the next exit with a hotel. (FYI, Daddy parked the car at the hotel and confirmed that I wasn't a bad driver; my car really, really can't handle snow!) So, what does one do when snowbound in South Dakota? Go swimming, of course! The girls had a blast in the indoor pool, and by morning the roads had cleared up.

Mount Rushmore: The girls were skeptical about this stop, but when we rounded a bend in the road, and saw the four massive heads of Presidents looming above us, Bug exclaimed, "That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!!" Mission accomplished. Of course, we stopped to get a closer look at the monument, watch a video and wander through the museum about its creation, history, and maintenance. We decided to stick around for lunch and sample some buffalo! Between the five of us we tried buffalo burgers, hot dogs, chili, and stew. Yum!

Jewel Cave: That same afternoon we took a guided tour of the third longest cave in the world. The tour covers a mere fraction of its depths but features some very cool rock formations and taught us not only about its geologic formation but also its history as a public attraction and national monument.

Badlands National Park: The girls loved getting to do some rock climbing in this impressive park! We had to cut their rock scrambling short and have a good conversation about stewardship and conservation when we realized how much damage our explorations were doing to the formations. They were disappointed, but they perked up when we headed for a mile and a half hike that began with warning signs about narrow ledges and a long ladder. Once again they proved themselves awesome hikers and conquered another tough trail! This was also the first trail they've been on that involved the necessity of looking for trail markers and the practice of walking as far as you can within sight of the last marker to try to find the next one. As usual we also toured the visitors' center and learned about fossils, ancient local wildlife, erosion, and herbivores vs. carnivores. During our hiking and driving around the park, we also spotted rabbits, pronghorns, and innumerable prairie dogs!

We conquered another tough trail!

Wall Drug: You can't see the Badlands without stopping in at Wall Drug! The girls were highly entertained by the endless billboards leading up to it, and had a great time exploring the little shops and displays and getting in a few fun photo ops.

Minuteman Missile Historic Site: We happened to spot the sign for this site and decided to stop in. It turned out to be an unexpectedly neat site, featuring a tour of the missile command center by a former operations commander. A few days later, at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, we got to see one of the actual minuteman missiles.

Wheaton College, IL: This was another stop to see friends from college (both now professors at Wheaton). Daddy actually gave a talk to one of their classes about his career path (he majored in the subject she teaches), and we also got to view the college's extensive geology and taxidermy exhibits as well as explore the Wade Center, which features things like the original wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis to write the Chronicles of Narnia and his and J.R.R.Tolkien's writing desks. We ended our visit with dinner at our friends' house and more time for the girls to play outside with their son.

Sadly, you can't actually climb into the inspirational wardrobe.

Uncle P & Aunt S's house! The girls had a blast getting to play with their little cousin R, and just hanging around the house with family. We also took the opportunity to take a short, brisk hike through the woods and along the shore of Lake Michigan. Then we experienced the local delight of shopping in Grand Haven and eating at Calvers.

Cousins!

Ann Arbor, MI: This one wasn't an overnight--just an extended pit stop to eat lunch with some friends we knew from a previous location who moved there recently. Good times!
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: This was a huge museum that traced the history of flight from the Wright brothers to modern stealth bombers and space flight by having us walk through hangars full of representative aircraft. We had fun comparing the different planes and seeing how and why the technology developed.

Wright Brothers Museums: This stop was actually two different locations: one near the flight field where the brothers did a lot of their work and featuring a flight simulator of one of the first  successful planes. All three girls got to try it out with some assistance from the docents. The other museum located at the brothers bike shop in downtown Dayton was much more extensive and went into their personal history and the development of their work in flight.

Grandma & Granddad's House: Our penultimate stop and certainly our most extended--the girls at least got to spend about a week! (Daddy and I left for a couple of days in the middle to close on our new house and buy boring things like a fridge.) Aunt K and her son H were also able to drive in for a visit, so they got to see both their cousins on this trip! The week's activities included: exploring all the old toys and Aunt K's old dance costumes, playing on the playset and around Grandma's little pond, harvesting dandelion greens as an addition to dinner, helping Granddad plant a tree, decorating and eating a belated Easter bunny cake, going for walks along the River Walk, exploring the local science center (including getting to release the new butterflies into the butterfly garden! Grandma's got connections!), and exploring the trails in Grandma and Granddad's woods (they identified lots of plants including wild grape vines and blackberry bushes, found beaver-gnawed sticks and tiny river clams, watched preying mantises hatch, and spotted minnows in the creek). We even got to visit their church on Sunday and see more college friends! Last, but not least: Bug donated 12 inches of hair to Locks of Love! She was so excited and loves her new do!

She was very hesitant about touching butterflies, but look at that sweet little smile!

Aunt K has the best dress up clothes!

My outdoorsy girls LOVED exploring the woods with Granddad.
(And, yes, that is indeed Granddad's machete Monkey's holding.
Proper safety precautions were discussed.)

 Just for the record: For homeschooling purposes, these were not wasted vacation days. I actually counted most of our days as school days. By my count we covered the following subjects: geography, art, reading & literature, math, life skills, Bible/religion, character building, geology, natural history, biology, physics, history, civics/social studies, and music. And chances are good I missed a few!
On to the next adventure!

There's a woset in my closet &
a zelf on my shelf!

Settling Out (March 16-26)

That's right. We've moved so many times that Lion coined a term for that phase when you're moving a away, but not actually gone yet. Since our packers were scheduled a full 10 days before  we left the West Coast, that transition lasted a long time this go round. But we made the most of our time! Besides the combination of excitement, anxiety, and boredom involved in watching all our belongings get packed up and loaded into a huge truck, here are highlights:

St. Patrick's Day The girls had an all-day playdate with some friends of ours that also involved eating green food for lunch and attending a neigborhood St. Patty's Day celebration with crafts and games.

Paths of History The downtown of our little city has a self-guided historical walking tour that girls and I had just never gotten around to. It's about two miles long, and features visits to sites like the first custom house on the west coast, the first brick house, the first Protestant church, the first theater, the first general store (it still has the safe where 49ers stored their gold), and a number of historical gardens and courtyards.

Baja California No, we didn't visit the place, but we did see the new exhibit at the aquarium featuring creatures of Baja California's deserts, mangrove forests, and coral reefs. The garden and moray eels were definitely the girls' favorite. Of course, we hit up a few of the girls's favorite spots as well.

One last picture in the clam shell!

Big Basin Redwoods State Park We decided we needed to get in one last good California hike. We decided to try a slightly longer hike this time, so we packed a lunch and headed out for a supposedly 7-mile loop that would take us by Berry Creek Falls. Along the way, we spotted lots of little waterfalls, huge redwoods, 6 lizards, and 13 banana slugs! The woods and the falls were lovely, but it was definitely not 7 miles! Knowing our usual pace, we felt like it was a lot longer: GoogleMaps estimated the trail to be about 9.5 miles and the step tracker on my phone says I walked about 14 miles. We had not planned on pushing our little girls so far, but they were awesome! We decided we all deserved Cheese-on-a-Stick and Blizzards on the way home.

!

They conquered another hike with a warning sign!

Graduation & Papaw Of course, we had to attend Daddy's graduation ceremony before we left. The girls sat so patiently through the hour-and-a-half ceremony! Realizing they knew some of the other graduates definitely helped keep them interested. Daddy's biological father also came into town for graduation, so the girls got to meet their Papaw for the first time. It was a good visit that also involved an outing for ice cream and a favorite rock scrambling location.

Last Things These were bittersweet recognitions: our last Sunday at our church, their last Awana Club, our last night at OCF, last visit to the library. Perhaps their favorite last thing was a last picnic park date with a couple of other families. We will miss all our California places and people!