Aren't they cute?

Oreo and Lanah are really snuggling a lot together this afternoon. We even saw Lanah grooming Oreo, which is almost as rare as Halley's Comet!

First Week of School

So, our first week of 6th grade is almost over. It's a "light schedule", since we're still working in the afternoons. In September, we'll start the full schedule (including poetry, Latin, science, civics, and art). Here's the recap:

Bible...We're using Training Hearts, Teaching Minds by Starr Meade. This week was catechism question 1: "What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."

Math...We're using manipulatives to work on multiplication facts, a weak area for ds.

History...The Monroe Doctrine. In addition to the worksheet, test, and project, ds read a short biography of Monroe, and filled in a book report sheet. We also listened to several chapters of History of US in the car.

Geography...Physical features (mountains, bays, rivers, coastal plains, plateau) of the original thirteen colonies. This one was frustrating, because our little atlas was no help. I checked out two different atlases from the library yesterday.

Writing...As usual, my creative ds turned a writing assignment into something more. He used powerpoint to create a presentation on the Monroe Doctrine. My favorite part is the page talking about Spain losing Florida. He used a photo of a baby crying, and labeled it "Spain".

Music...Ancient music and the Middle Ages. Today, we'll be looking at some videos of Gregorian chant on youtube.

Grammar...Started Winston Grammar. I think the hands-on and visual aspects will be very helpful.

Vocabulary...Megawords 2. I think this will be fairly easy for him, except spelling the words. I think this will be good for him.

Other...Buiilding Thinking Skills.

Oh, wow! Brand-new bunnies!

Today was a day of surprises at the rabbit rescue. When we arrived, I went to the garage to load up the wagon with litter (Wednesday is Litter Box Day). As I pulled the wagon up to the bunny barn, Noah came out, saying, "Mom, there's something crawling around on the floor; it's creeping me out!" I expected it to be a bug; hopefully not another huge spider (which I still think was a baby tarantula).
What he had found was a little mammal, dusty, squirming on the floor, half under the cabinet where we keep medical supplies. It was gray, about 4" long. At first I thought it might be a squirrel or even a mole. Yes, I was INSIDE a rabbit rescue, but my first thought was NOT "baby rabbit". We weren't aware of any of our rabbits being in the family way; we get them all spayed and neutered ASAP. But as I stooped to pick up the creature, I saw distinctive ears and tail. Sure enough, it was a newborn rabbit!
When Erika got there, a few minutes later, we found another five babies stashed behind the litter box in a cage. She handed the babies to me as she took them out of the cage; one was cold, so she told me to put it inside my shirt, next to my skin. The residents of the cage are two female rabbits who arrived just this week from another shelter. They were scheduled to be spayed tomorrow. Oops.
So Blueberry Muffin is a mommy now! She's a gorgeous and very nice gray and white Rex rabbit, and her babies appear to be some gray, and some gray and white spotted like their mom. (No fur yet, but their skin is spotted.)

Back to School!

It's time to Someone to start sixth grade tomorrow! Woohoo! I spent a lot of time agonizing over curriculum choices, and I'm pretty happy with my plans.

We'll be using:
Veritas Press History
Megawords 2, then Vocabulary from Classical Roots
Phonetic Zoo
Latin for Children
Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization
Training Hearts, Teaching Minds
Winston Grammar
Building Thinking Skills
Young Scholars' Guide to Composers
Artistic Pursuits
Information, Please!
How Government Works
Lyrical Life Science
Read and Understand Poetry
Institute for Excellence in Writing

Whew! It looks like a LOT, but some of those subjects will be done only weekly. We won't be starting a full schedule until Sept. 8th; we're easing into things.

Ridiculous Cuteness!

We have new bunnies at the shelter. They're Harlequin bunnies, four weeks old. So tiny and unbelievably adorable! Don't you agree?

Our Latest Adventure

Well, there's never a dull moment around here! Wednesday, we took ds to the children's hospital for a sleep-deprived EEG. We had to keep him up ALL NIGHT the night before!! Thanks to our dear friends who loaned us a Playstation 3, it wasn't too bad. We should get the results soon.

Sunday afternoon siesta

So I was taking my usual Sunday afternoon siesta in the recliner when Noah decided I needed some rabbits. Tubby and The Princess snuggled in for awhile. Aren't they the cutest? Awww.

(Note that I am wearing the perfect Sunday afternoon laziness ensemble: yoga pants and an oversized "Frodo Lives" t-shirt.)

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Well, now that I think about it, I don't think there were any bears. But definitely lions and tigers. And Madagascar hissing cockroaches, meerkats, a leopard, many different parrots and macaws, and even a hairless guinea pig.

We went to Wildlife World Zoo with friends from church. It was stinkin' hot, but other than that, we had a great time. Here's a video of Noah feeding a giraffe.



The highlight of the zoo for me, as usual, was seeing the big cats. I have a lifelong fascination with them, especially the tigers. They have four "baby" tigers at this zoo right now. (About a year old now, I think.) Beautiful.

For Noah, the highlight was the meerkats. He adores them. Also any baby animals. Babies we saw (besides the tigers) included: warthog, hamsters, porcupines, prairie dogs, ducks...

Oh boy, does this bring back memories!

I just found out about www.hulu.com, where you can view movies and Tv shows. Look what I found! This really takes me back. This was one of my FAVORITE shows! I wanted to be Penny Robinson! And thought Don was handsome. Sigh.

Every 25 years

Twenty-five years ago, I was a junior in high school. I had braces on my teeth, and a boyfriend named Tim. He took me to the Rock Superbowl at the stadium to see The Police, my favorite band. It was my first rock concert. It was a big deal, too; The Police were huge superstars, and Martha Quinn from MTV was there. The opening acts were Eric Burdon and the Animals (did I spell that right?) and Bryan Adams, but everyone was really there to see The Police.

There were over ten thousand people there, I'm sure. The stadium was packed. People were singing along and holding up their cigarette lighters. I was thrilled. I bought a T-shirt, which I still hung on to until just a few years ago, when it was disintegrating.

Well, The Police reunited a couple of years ago, and did a world tour. When they came to town then, the tickets were way too expensive, so we didn't go. But this time, apparently their final tour together, the tickets were a bit more affordable (at least the cheap seats), so we went. It was my Mother's Day present.

Very similar. An outdoor venue, with over ten thousand people in attendance. People singing along and holding up their cigarette lighters. All the old songs. The band was amazing.

I never imagined THEN that I'd see The Police again in 25 years, as a homeschooling mom. (I happened to have a homeschool catalog in my purse last night. I thought it was funny when the security person had to look through my purse. I bet I was the only one there with a Veritas Press catalog.) Twenty-five years is a long time. How did it go by already?

We joked about seeing The Police again in another 25 years. Stewart Copeland will be 90 years old then, and I think Sting will be 80. We'll see if my new T-shirt is still in good condition then.

Hmm...I wonder if this is true.

Take the Quiz here!

I would have thought I'm more of a Marianne-Dashwood-after-she's-learned-her-lesson-and-fallen-for-Col.-Brandon-type, but who knows? I've never been in Anne Eliot's position.

Which one are you?

My singing career

One of my passions is singing. Has been my whole life. Shortly after we moved to AZ, I saw a notice in the newspaper that a choral group was performing Mozart's "Requiem". I couldn't make the concert, but the group's website was mentioned in the paper. So I checked out their website, and emailed the group's president. A month or so later, I was performing John Rutter's "Requiem" with them in a music festival. I stayed.

Over the years, we've performed Haydn's "Creation", Handel's "Messiah" and "Judas Maccabeus", Vivaldi's "Gloria", Bach's "Magnificat", Mendelssohn's "Elijah", and many others.

This past weekend, we did three performances of Cathedral Classics, an overview of cathedral music beginning in the medieval era and continuing to the 20th century. It was, as usual, a blast. I loved the Renaissance pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli the best. During the instrumental (organ and brass) pieces, I enjoyed imagining all of us in Renaissance attire, sitting at a banquet in a great hall. "Gloria" by John Rutter was fun, too, especially the third movement, which is bouncy and jazzy.

Next on our calendar: Schubert's "Mass in G". I've never even heard this before, as far as I know.

If you're in the valley, please consider coming to one of our concerts.

Today's Hike

It was a lovely, breezy day today, with a high of about 80. We took a hike, and snapped a few pictures. (We would have snapped more, but I left the digital camera unplugged, and the battery died.) That's my hubby above.
That's me below. (The fanny pack makes my dupa look MUCH bigger than it really is, okay?

Here's my son. He found that walking stick at Lake Tahoe last summer.

We saw lots and lots of wildflowers: lupines, owl's clover, fiddleneck, desert mallow, brittlebush, scorpionweed, and more. It's hard to believe how different these hills will look a few months from now.

Quote of the Day

I saw this quote in a signature line on my favorite homeschooling message board. It fits me so well!

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
A. A. Milne

Feeling Thankful

I thought I'd mention a few things I'm thankful for this weekend...

1. That dh and ds had safe travel to and from a church men's retreat in Prescott.

2. That ds emailed me on his dad's Blackberry an hour after they left, saying he loves me and he missed me already!

3. That I got a good haircut today. Boy, did I need it! I was looking very frumpy.

Wildflowers coming soon!

We went for a family hike on the waterfall trail today. Gorgeous weather, about 70 degrees at the most, blue skies. Lots of people on the trail, of course.

There were so many green plants and weeds everywhere! This will be a great wildflower season, I think. We saw some flowers today, actually. A few Mexican gold poppies, and even fewer fiddlenecks and scorpionweeds.

In a few weeks, I'll start taking my camera out to capture the flowers.

My other blog

I have another blog now, with photos and info about some of my rabbit friends. Check it out!

Bunnies AZ

Please leave some comments!

They're bonding!

After a rocky start, the bunnies' relationship is going really well. After the first week or so, Oreo started grooming Lanah sometimes when she demanded it. She stopped chasing him around, and stopped demanding to be groomed every five minutes (both of which behaviors were driving Oreo bonkers!). They started lying down next to each other of their own accord. Finally, we also glimpsed Lanah grooming Oreo. We started putting them in a cage together, first for a few hours at a time, then longer. Now, they are sharing a cage and doing very well. They snuggle, groom each other, and get along great. No more chasing or annoying.

It's very sweet to see them being friends, and we're glad Oreo is no longer lonely when we're out of the house or busy. When we went to Flagstaff, we loaded them up with lots of food, hay, treats, water, and new toys. They were fine.

Snow Days

My mom generously gave us a check for Christmas, to use for anything we wanted. We immediately decided to use it for a trip up to Flagstaff to play in the snow. We considered using it for a day of skiing, but ended up deciding we'd rather go for a whole weekend of sledding instead. It was a great weekend!

Of course, whenever you have a klutz (me) doing anything active, there is great potential for injury, and I didn't disappoint. (The very first time we went up to Wing Mountain, I slipped in an icy patch walking down the hill, and cracked my tailbone.)

Saturday morning at Crowley, Noah started playing with a boy about his age. The boy's dad and I chatted briefly, during which time he pointed out a nearby sled run with a "ramp" near the bottom, and said, "That one's fun." I had never dared to go down one of these runs where someone had built up the icy snow to make a ramp. For some reason, I dared this time. The snow was wet, and I was going at a high rate of speed when I hit the "ramp". I became airborne, tightened my grip on the handles, and experienced a jarring impact. I lay on my side for a few moments, assessing the damage. My back and shoulders hurt in a number of places. I tasted blood in my mouth; I had bit my lip. Thankfully, I found I could get up and walk, and nothing seemed to be broken. When Steven reached me, he demanded, "Why did you go down that run?" Stupidly, I replied, "That guy said it would be fun." As we trudged up the hill, I noticed my pants were a little wet. Inside. I wet my pants when I crashed! Oy. Not very dignified for a 40-year-old. Seriously.

The poor guy felt really bad; he apologized and explained, "I was being facetious." Well. Now he tells me.

Steven took this photo shortly after my crash.


This is where we were sledding. It's an area of volcanic rock, where the city digs up cinders to scatter on the roads in the winter.

Our new foster bunny!

We decided to foster Lanah, a lionhead bunny. She seems to have a very sweet disposition, and we wanted Oreo to have a friend to snuggle with when we're not around or busy. We took him over to have a "date" with her. At first, they seemed to be getting along great, even cuddling next to each other in my lap. Soon, however, she started displaying some dominance behaviors, which really bugged him. He started grunting and stamping his foot at her whenever she came near him, and even sometimes when she wasn't anywhere close by!

At home, things are about the same. They'll cuddle right next to each other if we put them side-by-side, and they'll hang out in the same room. Sometimes they will approach each other and sniff with no problems, but other times, Lanah starts pestering him again. He fled from her in a panic right onto the couch where we were sitting! It's funny to see him run from a smaller, younger rabbit.

We're hoping they'll bond, but we'll see.. here's her picture.