Little Bird Blue...A Dream Come True

Let me tell you a tale of a little bird blue
Its siblings left the house, and they all flew
But when this one jumped, it couldn't quite fly

Hop, skip, jump, hop, flutter, flap, flap

Clumsily through the yard while its mama watched over
It couldn't move correctly, both parents sort of hovered
As the sun began to set, Sialia wailed a cry

Tweet, squawk, chirp, peep, chipper, tweet, tweet

Sarah wanted pictures so crept up to the baby
The parents didn't like that much and they went for the lady
With out-stretched hand and camera up, the bird still would not fly

Twitter, cheap, chipper, peep,...

Back in the birdhouse, Sarah put him
He snuggled in the nest, but then he tried again
He jumped his way across the yard, still unable to fly

This time silent, but parents watching on,
He may have slept until the dawn
But Sarah kept her distance.

A Wee Visitor

Will and Ben were playing outside in the backyard as they took a break from home school lessons today. It wasn't long before Will came rushing inside really upset about something. When he calmed down, he told me he stepped on a baby squirrel. I followed him outside to see what it was he was talking about -- I couldn't figure out how he would've done that. Sure, enough, there in the grass at the base of a tree was a little fuzzy, eyes-still-sealed squirrel. Once we realized he was still breathing, didn't seem to have any broken bones (from our inexperienced investigation), and its mama didn't seem to be anywhere nearby we brought him inside and put him in a box so our dog wouldn't eat it while we researched online. I made some phone calls and learned from a squirrel rescuer that we shouldn't feed it until we try to return it to its mama. On her recommendation, we put the little fuzz ball in a nest of dried grass in a basket that we tied to the tree we found him near. The lady checked with us through out the day to see if the mama had come for him or not. By dusk, the mama squirrel had searched on the tree he wasn't tied to, but she didn't get him, so I took the little one to the lady who would raise him and release him. It was an unplanned, but interesting, lesson for our first day of home school!

First Day of School

Heading off to Innovation Academy are Maddie, third grade, and Jon, fourth grade. Maddie has Mrs. O'Briant, and Jon has two teachers: Mrs. York for language arts and social studies, and Mrs. Tarrant for math and science. He had Mrs. Tarrant as a teacher last year, too, so he is excited to know one of his teachers already. Both kids with have Mrs. Hilbig for fine arts and Mrs. Marcano for PE; the kids know both of those teachers already, too.

The other two are staying home for school this year. Will is doing sixth grade, and Ben is doing third. They will start at Venture next week, so I will get a day off most weeks while they are at Venture.

All of us are looking forward to great things happening this year!

E.M.A. - Friday & Sunday

Fri - picnic shopping, visit dad, plan change, played with friends, stormy, Will at Kaleb's house
Sat - splash kingdom and picnic

Well, we almost had a major adventure "FAIL," but it all worked out in the end.
Yesterday, Friday, the surprise plan was to shop for and prepare a picnic lunch, "kidnap" Allen from work (it was prearranged with him), then spend the day at Splash Kingdom using the tickets Santa put in our stockings. So... we prepared the lunch and went to the refinery to get Allen. While we were waiting for him, Barbie texted me asking if the kids could come play with her kids. I replied that we were on our way out of town, but maybe we could later this weekend. Allen came out to the car, told us one of his units was down, and said he would have to be on his phone the whole time if he came with us. He gave the kids the option of postponing until Saturday so that he could come with us or the kids could go today without him.

Major.
Disappointment.
TIMES SIX!

I convinced the kids we should wait for Allen (I wasn't crazy about the idea of trying to keep up with all of them on my own in a really crowded place). I called Barbie to ask if the invitation to play was still open and we arranged for some kids to be at the Brown's and some to come to our home to play. The kids played with friends all day, so it was a successful Friday. It turned out to be a great way to go because it started storming around 2:00 pm -- so we would've had disappointment even if we had made it to the water park.

Yesterday was still stormy, but today (Sunday) was supposed to be beautiful. We spent yesterday getting ready for school -- grocery shopping, making school lunches, packing backpacks (for two kids). Today went to early church service, as usual, and then headed to the water park. We ate our picnic lunch and spent several hours at the park. We stopped in Canton for dinner, then headed home and got ready for the first day of school.

E.M.A. - Thursday

Today didn't quite work out as I planned, but I had a back up plan ready to go for our rainy day. We started the morning at Dunkin Donuts, a favorite place of mine when I was a kid. This was just a treat since we had already had a healthy breakfast before we left for our adventure.

Next, we headed to the theater for a dollar movie with popcorn and drinks.

Our afternoon was spent at home, and it was still raining. Several of our AHG scouts came over and Joni taught them how to make corn husk dolls. The girls were learning how to make them so THEY can teach others how to make them at an upcoming meeting.

E.M.A. - Wednesday

We found another GREAT adventure today! Although I have had Lufkin on our adventure list several times in past years, it never happened because someone got sick and we had to stay home, or we had to go with a rainy-day back up plan. Each time I've quietly changed the plan, I've been a bit disappointed that we didn't get to go to Lufkin.

Today, we made it to Lufkin! Now, Lufkin doesn't seem like it would be so exciting, but there is a beautiful zoo there and it was the perfect summer morning for a zoo outing. The Ellen Trout zoo is a hidden gem -- it is BEAUTIFUL! The gardens are planned so that we felt like we were going through a jungle, and we never could see too far ahead. The lush greenery hid about 80 peacocks and peahens, though they were loud enough we were not ever surprised to see them when they were on the sidewalks. Many of the exhibits were done creatively -- the crocodiles were enclosed in an area that was made to look like a fallen bridge, for example -- and streams and fountains connected several areas.

A little red train goes around the big park where the zoo is located, and the kids really wanted to ride the train. Though it wasn't on my original plan, I had no good reason NOT to do it... so we did. We rode around the park on the train, then got into our car just as the raindrops started falling.

Lunch was at an old drive-in with a cafe -- it was established in 1948 was still sporting decor from decades back. We had burgers, fries, and onion rings in a laid-back atmosphere.

Our final Lufkin site was the Texas Forestry Museum. It was an interesting display of the history of the forest industry -- from planting tree seeds and the science of East Texas trees, to the history of the beginning of local lumber and paper mills, to the history of the small towns built around those areas. Some of the exhibits were more interesting than others to us, but the kids' favorite part was the train and depot. The train was an outside exhibit and the kids could climb on parts of it and they spent a lot of time pretending they were on a time machine while I sat and watched birds.

It was about an hour and a half drive home and I remembered just how much these early morning adventures can wear us all out.

E.M.A. - Tuesday

Today was another fun day. We started the morning at the farmers' market and I gave each of the kids five one-dollar bills to spend. That was such a favorite event two years ago, that they have asked to do it again. We came home with lots of fruits and veggies, and even some jam. I still think it is a great use of $20 -- especially since they eat veggies for all their snacks for awhile.

Next, we stopped at Walmart. I gave each of the them a budget of $20 to spend on a charity. Will picked out several containers of peanut butter, canned chicken, and beans to take to the local food pantry. Jon chose to spend his twenty on bars of soap, washcloths, toothbrushes, and hair-clips for the girls' home. Maddie picked out a variety of school supplies to drop off at our church for children who need help getting school supplies. Ben picked out a lot of Gatorade for the local fire station.

We dropped off all the groceries at three of the locations pretty quickly. The last stop was the fire station, and the firefighters were happy to let the kids take a tour of the fancy trucks.

It was a hundred-dollar day, but I think the seeds that were planted were worth it!

E.M.A. - Monday

Here we go AGAIN!! It is the seven day countdown to the first day of school. This is our seventh year of early morning adventures (but I didn't have an official name for the first few years.) Each morning, bright and early, the kids and I get up, get ready, and get out the door by 7:30am to practice the habit for when school starts. I don't tell any of the kids what our adventure for the day is UNTIL they are buckled in the car. I've found that the surprise is usually what keeps them moving in the morning, so we will probably keep that part up for a long time.

This morning as we were backing out of the driveway, I told them our plan: a private (Kaisers-only) tennis lesson at the tennis and swim club. It was a "hit"! Really, the kids enjoyed it and were sad when it was over -- anxious to play again soon. After that, we headed to Lowe's. They were not quite as excited about that, but they helped me pick out some house plants that would be in our home schoolroom. Finally, we headed to the pool (back to the same place we played tennis) for the afternoon.

Lego Art

Nana and Papa stopped by today on the way home from their own trip. We all headed to the art museum to see the Art of Lego exhibit.