Still here

So this old blog is still here. I wasn't even sure, thinking that I may have deleted it at some point when I stopped writing.

This morning I've felt like writing. I think maybe I'm longing for the good old days a bit. Our school year has begun again, but it feels so different. Kids are all doing different things this year, and everything feels scattered. We used to be together for Morning Time, spending a good hour at the beginning of the day reading.  We read Catechism, sang a hymn, memorized Scripture together, studied cultures and missions, music and poetry. I miss those days.

I miss studying the same history together and doing the reading together. The boys are both studying world history this year, but they're using different books and studying separately. The girls and I are studying world cultures, and while it's been fun and interesting, it's just not the same as everyone being together, reading the same books and talking it through.

Maybe this is just part of the process of children growing up, a necessity of the difference in their ages. We've got a Kindergartener and a high schooler. Nine years separate them.

But right now I feel like I want to cling to the togetherness that has marked our years in the past. I want to dig in my heels and pull us all back to what we've valued about homeschooling all these years: being together as a family and focusing on what is true, good, and beautiful. It's worth fighting for. Now I just have to decide to do it.

A New Season and a New Hobby

We've finally rolled out of winter and into spring around here. Over the last weeks we've watched the crocuses, then the daffodils, and now all manner of plants and trees come back to life. (Maybe this blog will too?) 

Elsa and I started collecting flowers from around the yard to press into a flower book. It's been fun learning what types they are. And I'm ever so glad that they're all just springing up and I didn't have to do a thing! I just LOVE perennials!

We've seen at least one critter in our backyard, too, apart from the squirrels. A raccoon has been making the rounds, pawing the windows to get at the cat who likes to stare out into the yard at night.  He has also shown a propensity for digging out the potted plants on the deck and trying to reach the bird feeders. 

Yes, bird feeders - with an 's'. I think maybe I've become a little obsessed. We've hung a clear bird feeder on the window, a suet feeder in the flower bed, and there are blue-bird houses at the perimeter of the yard. All day long, we watch birds. (We do get other things done, too. Things like school and laundry. Sometimes.)

Our list of birds that we've seen is growing. We're now up to eighteen different types. The $1 that I paid at the library book sale for the North American Wildlife book years ago may just bee one of the best-spent dollars in my life. It's been super helpful in identifying the birds we've seen as well as figuring out the types of flowers that are planted around the house. 

Now that I've discovered the Audubon Society's app for identifying birds, the book may not be as necessary. (Yes, that means that I have a birding app on my phone. It's so cool!) But it's still fun to pull the book out and search the old-fashioned way.

So here are some pictures of birds that we've seen in our yard, some very commonly seen varieties and others that I'm noticing for the first time. Oh, and we've named some of them...because it's fun!

Louie

 and Louise!

a Black-capped Chickadee 

Mr. Blue-Jay

a Downy Woodpecker (male) 

a Bluebird (male) 

a Common Flicker (a type of woodpecker) 

a Hairy Woodpecker (male) 

Tufted Titmice (aka Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers) 

 a Carolina Wren

female and male Brown-headed Cowbirds

a Pileated Woodpecker

American goldfinches 

Nutsy, the White-breasted Nuthatch

a Red-bellied Woodpecker

a Wild Turkey

a Chipping Sparrow

Chicago

Last weekend Stephen and I got away for about 30 hours to explore Chicago a bit with only Squeaky for company.

The highlights of the trip included a pit stop at Uncle Bob's for lunch... 

a Sweet Georgia Peach shake

a view from the Skydeck of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower and still the tallest building in the US)...

We let Squeaky go out onto the Skyjack first.

some Chicago deep-dish stuffed pizza...

a walk through a candy bar...

the historic Palmer House hotel...

Squeaky liked it.

Really cool, ornate fixtures.

A grand piano in the elevator lobby? Yes, please!

another elevator lobby

the Myopic Bookstore, a quirky used bookstore (where I found a cookbook for El Charro, our favorite Tucson restaurant...an awesome find!)...

and a boat tour of the shore of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.

Trump Tower

The Chicago Tribune building

Leaving the city behind as we headed out through the lock onto Lake Michigan.

The pictures end there because I accidentally deleted them from the camera card before they were all copied over to the computer. Bummer. The best pictures were the ones of the architecture along the Chicago River. I guess we'll just have to go back to do the tour again one day.

There was also a stop at Trader Joe's tacked on at the end because, well, when you're near to TJ's, you just have to go and stock up! 

Out and About

We are currently on a week-long break from school and are enjoying a visit from Grandma...which explains how I finally have time for a blog post. Switching to a new computer means learning how Mac works. I like Mac, I do. But somethings are just very different...which means a blog post (with pictures) is a lot more work than it used to be.

In early September we enjoyed a trip to the local apple orchard. We didn't pick our own this year, but we did bring home some apples. Nothing like the 2.5 bushels we picked a few years back that kept me in the kitchen for days, but enough to munch on. 

I liked this and would've bought it, but our wall space in this house is so limited, that there's no where in the kitchen to put it.

Gold-mining

I was surprised she actually let the goats eat from her hand.

We've slowly been making our way around the area here and getting to know a little bit of Illinois. The boys and I drove two hours southeast of here to an Indelible Grace concert a month ago. It was at a small church out "in the sticks" and as we were on our way, I was wondering if there really was a church all the way out there. I'm glad to say that there was, and the band was actually there! The music was good, and we were glad we made the trek.
In anticipation of our study of ancient history this year, I discovered that there was a museum at University of Illinois with permanent exhibits from a number of ancient cultures. The Spurlock Museum was a good drive from here, but it was really neat to see some artifacts that we've talked about in our history readings. There were two of the Terra Cotta warriors on display, and although the boys vaguely remembered seeing them when the National Geographic museum in DC had them on display, it was neat to see them again.

And we saw some examples of cuneiform and even a cuneiform tablet with the seal of Nebuchadnezzar II on it!

 There was also a real mummy. Very weird to see, but pretty cool. 

Elsa's favorite exhibit was the to-scale teepee.
 

And the younger kids enjoyed dressing up in some of the clothing from different cultures as well as playing music on some of the different instruments.

Like many others, we were excited about the lunar eclipse/supermoon viewing a few weeks ago, especially since Cade and Elsa and I have been studying astronomy this year. At first it appeared as if it would be too cloudy to see it, but we decided to throw everybody in the car in their jimmies and drive around to see if there was a break in the clouds. Since our house is surrounded by woods, we couldn't get a good view of the sky from here. 

And it worked! We parked out next to some corn or soy fields (because that's pretty much all they grow around here) and just watched. I took a few pictures but without a tripod or a big zoom, they were just so-so. Still, it was a neat experience...one the kids won't forget soon. They had fun sitting on the car hood to keep warm in the chilly night air, and even if they don't remember why they were sitting on the hood of the car, it will be a fun memory.

Yesterday we took a tour of the Caterpillar Visitor Center with Grandma. It is a small museum of sorts, but really fun. The kids loved climbing on the different kinds of equipment, and they especially liked using the simulators. Elsa drove a bulldozer right into a ditch! 

The size of the equipment is just staggering. I had no idea they made trucks so huge! The 797 is a 400 ton truck used in mining (I think), and the thing has 14-foot tall wheels. It takes 13 rail cars to transport the truck in pieces. No wonder there are so many railroad tracks around here! It's so huge that there was a small movie theater in the "bed" of the truck where we watched a short film about CAT. It was just massive. You can see the size of it with the kids standing next to it. 

Luke is standing in front of the 400 ton truck.

Buckle up!

 

The kids are already looking forward to going back.