Thanksgiving

You know what they say about the best-laid plans. . .

We had our Thanksgiving planned out pretty well. Wednesday morning I had to go to K-Light to do some voicework, but most of the day was scheduled to bake some pies and dinner rolls to take to Mom & Dad's. I arrived in Coos Bay at 7:45 a.m. and thought I'd just swing the van by the shop next door and have them check out the squeeking sound I'd been hearing lately. I did all my work at K-Light, and then sat on the couch in the lobby and read an entire book while I waited for the van to be ready. Finally, a few minutes after 4:00 I was on my way home. So much for baking!

I did get one pie done that evening--a delicious apple sour cream pie. Thursday morning we headed to Gold Beach and spent the day there with Mom, Dad, Auntie, Hap, Laurie, and adorable little Braidon.

The food was spectaculor, as usual. The kids played games, the guys watched football (and then fell asleep), and the final event of the day was teaching Igor a true American guy sport: towel snapping fights. After teaching Igor how to snap a towel (which he quickly became quite good at), Brad, Hap, and Igor engaged in an all-out war. When they finally called a truce, they compared their battle wounds....and I must say, I've never seen a towel fight result in anything like this before. Their legs were covered with welts, and in a couple places the skin was nearly broken. All I can say is I'm glad I was a spectator and not a participant!

Girls Night Out

Julianne and I decided to get away and have some fun--just the two of us. Friday afternoon, we headed off to Eugene for some girls time away. We checked into our motel room and set up my laptop so we could watch a DVD--the first disc of season 2 of Alias. Julianne watched season 1 last year with Marie and has been dying to see season 2. We had a pizza delivered to the room and got started.

After watching the first two episodes, we took a break and drove down the street to buy a tub of movie theatre popcorn. We brought it back to our room and watched two more episodes of Alias before turning in for the night.

On Saturday, we hit the malls, and spent the day shopping. We had no agenda whatsoever--we could just play it by ear and do what we wanted, which was wonderful. We had a great lunch at Chili's (my favorite!), following by more shopping and then a nice drive home. Watching the movie, eating yummy food, and shopping, shopping, shopping were all fun, but mostly it was great to just have some alone time together.

Horsin' around

After attending a workshop on unit studies over the summer, I decided to give it a try this year. Using this method, we choose a topic and most of our subjects relate to the topic. Our first unit study was on Russia, and it went well, although we had to give ourselves a little grace as we got used to this new method.

Now we're getting ready to wrap up our unit study on horses. We have had so much fun with this one! We have learned about different breeds of horses, including their origin, size, characteristics, and common uses. We've learned the names used to describe the colors and markings of a horse. We've diagramed the anatomy of the horse and labeled the parts of the hoof. We've discussed many famous people and places that have some connection with the horse: ancient Egypt (one of the first civilizations to use horses), George Washington (who owned the first mule in the U.S.), and Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Spanish-American war.

Julianne read Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (which she says is one of the best books ever spoiled by the worst ending ever) and Caleb is about to finish up The Black Stallion. I am reading Black Beauty aloud to them, which is a real treat since this is my first time reading it! We watched the documentary on Sea Biscuit, which the kids thought would be boring, but actually found fascinating.

We've used books to teach different methods of drawing a horse from scratch. We've learned about the body language of a horse. The kids have written descriptive paragraphs, a poem, looked up definitions for "horse" vocabulary, and copied famous quotes that relate to horses.

Our latest project was determining how much it costs to own a horse. We called a stable and a farrier (photo), and visited the vet and a feed & tack store. All our projects have been used to make a cool notebook for each child that I know they will enjoy looking back on for years to come.

Best of all, the kids have had FUN and are all retaining so much of what they're learning. When I picked Elisa up from church last night, her teacher told me that during a game of charades, Elisa stumped the other kids by acting out dressage.

We are just about finished, and if the weather cooperates, our grand finale will be a trip to a riding stable for a horse ride. The Edward Jones guy in Cresent City is a real cowboy and has invited us to visit his ranch, so we are hoping to eventually make a trip there.

When you come try out the new guest room, you'll have to take a peek at the kids' horse notebooks too!

Be our guest

Last summer we painted Marie's old room so Caleb could move into it, and then painted the guest room for Igor. Caleb's old room is now the guest room. I intended to paint it over the summer but ran out of time, and ever since have been looking for a good weekend to get the job done. This was it!

Mom came Saturday morning to help me while Brad went to get a load of wood. We taped all the edges and primed the walls. What I forgot to take into consideration was that the cooler fall weather would increase the drying time of the paint. The primer was taking so long to dry that we finally gave up and went shopping. :-)

Today after church I painted and I love it! The walls are now a soft, soothing butter-yellow. We moved most of the furniture back into the room, but had to leave it away from the walls, which were still tacky. Once the room is all put back together, I'll try to post a picture. Or better yet, come check it out for yourself!

Show & Tell

Caleb had Show & Tell at co-op today. He had a hard time deciding what to bring, but finally settled on bringing Betsy. There's nothing she likes more than kids, so she was thrilled to be there.

Caleb told the kids how we got her at the pound, and he demonstrated how well she obeys. She was surprisingly cooperative, even though she was very excited.

Caleb did a great job and the kids enjoyed petting and playing with Betsy.

Fall Chess Tournament

Today was the first chess tournament of the year. Originally only Julianne and Caleb were going to enter, but Igor and Elisa decided to participate at the last minute too. All four ended up with a trophy!


Elisa hasn't been playing at home lately, so her skills haven't really improved. She has a good understanding of how the pieces move, but still doesn't know how to strategize to checkmate her opponent. She came out with one win and four losses, but that was good enough for a 2nd place trophy for the K-1 division.

Caleb's skills are still sharp, and he easily defeated his first four opponents. (The above picture is one of his wins.) In between rounds he played football with the other boys, and was dripping with sweat during his chess matches. After four wins he went into the championship round against his friend, Matthew, as he has done in the past several tournaments. Brad and I watched the game, and Caleb was ahead early on and seemed headed for an easy win. However, he seemed very distracted--looking around the room and not giving much thought to his moves. Eventually, Matthew took advantage of the opportunity and captured Caleb's queen, leading to a win for Matthew and a second place trophy for Caleb.

Julianne played well, and came out with three wins and two losses. She plays in the upper division against middle and high school students. She took second place for the 7th grade division. The picture above is her securing a strong win.


Igor doesn't play much, but he is a strategic thinker and
always puts 110% into whatever he does. His first game took 90 minutes and gave him a hard-fought win. He had some tough competition, and one of his losses was due to "the stupid American rule that if you touch a piece, you must move it..." :-) He was surprised to wind up with a 2nd place trophy in the 9-10 grade division.

It was a fun day and we are very proud of them all!

Cooking with the Italians

For my Countries & Cultures class, I brought in my two Italian students, Gianluca and Marina. They shared the culture of Italy with us and taught us to make Spaghetti al Carbonara. It was delicious!

First, Gianluca boiled the water and added salt to taste. While we waited for the water to reach a boil, the girls cut bacon into small pieces while our Italian teachers grated an entire wedge of Parmesan cheese.

We browned the bacon and drained the cooked noodles, and the time came to mix it all together. Stir, stir, stir....add some cheese....stir, stir, stir...more cheese. Oh, did I mention they put in three raw eggs? Gianluca assured us the heat of the bacon and noodles would cook the egg. I'm not entirely convinced, but oh well..when in Rome. . .

The kids had fun and were proud of the finished product. What a great experience!

Our Italian teachers, Marina and Gianluca with their class of aspiring Italian chefs.

The girls loved it so much they asked for seconds--and the recipe so they could make it at home.