Our Weekend Trip- Talkeetna and Denali

This past weekend we went to Talkeetna, a small town south of Fairbanks, to take a jet boat tour through Mahay's Riverboat Service. We took a 2 hour jet boat excursion on the Susitna, Chulitna, and Talkeetna rivers. Notice all the "na's" at the end of the names of the rivers. "Na" means river in the Athabaskan language (the Indians of interior Alaska). During the jet boat tour we went ashore and our guide talked about the Natives of the area and their lifestyle. Just to explain a few of the pictures...the big mountain is Denali (or Mt. McKinley). Denali means "Great One" in the Athabaskan tongue. Alaskans tend to use "Denali" instead of Mt. McKinley. The row of three mountains are Mt. Foraker, Mt. Hunter and Denali in that order. You will notice that while on land our guide was carrying a shotgun. There is always a danger of meeting a bear so she carried it for our protection. Fortunately, we didn't see one! You will also see a tree with an eagle's nest. This nest is about 7 feet in diameter! There is also a picture of Titan...this was his first official camping trip with us...he was a great traveler!

It is with a heavy heart...

...that we say good-bye to Kazz, Titan's father. He died this morning. They are not sure what happened as he was healthy and a little over a year old. They think he got into something toxic. We are very close to the Kazz's owners and we are grieving for them. This is the second schnauzer they have lost in the past 2 years. We had called over there to invite Kazz for a visit this week to play with Titan when they told us he had passed away. It is so sad to see him go! Titan (on the left) with his Daddy, Kazz

More of Tim Hawkins...

Here is another fun one from Tim Hawkins. You might also want to check out his clip on You Tube titled "A Homeschool Family".

Things You Don't Say to Your Wife...

If you are not familiar with Tim Hawkins, he is a Christian comedian and homeschooling father. He also gives great advice to husbands! LOL!

Working and Homeschooling?

I work and homeschool at the same time. I have ever since I quit my high school teaching job about 9 years ago. On some of the message boards that I frequent the question comes up...What kind of jobs can a homeschool mom do to make a bit of money? Here are some ideas:

*Home Day Care-People are always looking for someone loving and reliable to take care of their kids. I have done this before. Can't say that it was my favorite way to make money, but it can be rewarding.

*Mystery shopper-I had a friend that did this for a couple of years. If you love to shop this might be the way to go. Just don't spend all that money you are making! LOL!

*Baking and Selling-I have known of several moms that bake and sell what they make. Whole wheat bread, decorated cakes, etc. I know one homeschool mom that keeps bees and sells the honey they get.

*Tutoring/Classes-This is what I am currently doing. I work about 8 hours a week giving private Spanish lessons. Because I hold a teaching certificate and am fluent in the language, I can pull in a fair amount of money in a short amount of time. You don't have to speak another language though...I know a homeschool dad that teacher hands-on science classes and has been quite successful with it. There is also a company online Tutor.com where you can tutor students online. I have an online friend that has done this job for years and enjoys it.

*Curriculum writing-Can you write unit studies or other types of curriculum and sell it online? I have heard that Currclick will sell it for you. I haven't checked into it, but it might be worth exploring.

*Online work-web design, freelance writing, typing, medical billing are some options.

*Crafts-sell what you make! I sell my homemade cards at a local business office. I am blessed that I do this through a friend and she doesn't require a commission. I get the full money for each card I sell.

*Blogging-I haven't really looked into this, but there are companies that want blog entries. Do a search for "blog for us" or "paid to blog". The closest that I have come to this is my work for the TOS Crew. But I don't officially get paid for this. I am an independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse. The only benefit is that I get curriculum to review, and I get to keep what I review.

Hopefully, this gives some ideas on possibilities for working while homeschooling. If you have any other ideas I would love to hear them! Please leave me a comment.

Did you know that...

God is out to get you? Sounds shocking, but I really think that there are many of us out there that in some little way believe this. Let me share my story...

I began to believe that God was out to get me as a little child. You see I had an adult in my life that turned out to be emotionally and what I would call "religiously" abusive. This person used God against me. I was told numerous times that if I didn't do what this person wanted that God would come and punish me. Or maybe He would hurt someone that I loved. I was even told once that someone I loved would die if I didn't do what was required. In my mind, God was someone who constantly had His eye on me...trying to catch me doing wrong so that He could punish. I was scared to death to make a mistake. He was out to get me.

Eight years ago, I set up boundaries and removed that abusive person from my life. Then it took me 8 years to realize that the abuser had been right all along! God was out to get me! What I didn't realize is that He was out to get me, just not in the way I thought. He was out to get me...to pursue me with His love at all cost. He was always there...with His eye on me...not to punish, but to protect and care for me. You see the thing is, He is crazy about me. He is crazy about you! How crazy? Crazy enough to take my punishment for MY sins. Crazy enough to love me when I didn't love Him. Crazy enough to leave the luxury of heaven to live in a confining world that put a real damper on who He really is. Crazy enough to put Himself through the greatest agony known to man so that He could have a relationship with me. Crazy enough to give up His throne in heaven for a cross on earth. Crazy enough to take all the initiative to make things right between us when really it was my responsibility to make things right!

So this is the God that is out to get us....This is how He pursues us.
He has written our names on His hands.... Isaiah 49:15-16
He is distressed when we are distressed... Isaiah 63:9
He answers us before we even cry out to Him...Isaiah 65:24
He refuses to give us up...Hosea 11:8
He delights in us... Zephaniah 3:17
He longs to love on us....Isaiah 30:18
Even though He can walk on water, He walks through the waters with us...Isaiah 43:1-3
His love is unmeasurable...Psalms 103:10-13

May we never forget that God is truly out to get us!

More on Brainboxes

Yesterday I posted about BrainBoxes. I had someone from the Five in a Row Boards ask to see some examples of the cards. I was able to get the Animal and World versions. Here are some pictures of them. You will notice on one side (the picture side) there is the information you get to study for 10 seconds. The other side will have the possible questions you might be asked. I took some random pictures of the cards...so the backs and fronts won't necessarily match up.

Here are the World cards. Some of the information on the cards:

*What countries and bodies of water it borders.

*Animals of the country

*Famous places

*Activities in that country

*The Flag

*Foods

Here are the Animal cards. Some of the information on the cards:

*Location of habitat in the world

*If the animal is solitary or not

*If the animal is nocturnal (a moon is shown if the animal is nocturnal)

*If the animal is endangered

*Life span

*Carnivore, Herbivore, or OmnivoreI apologize for the quality of the photos! I have never been good at taking close-ups!

BrainBoxes

I recently found these cool games! They are made by Mindware. It is called BrainBox and there are several versions of the game: World, USA, US Presidents, Animals, etc. I was able to get the world and animal versions for free today! The idea is to absorb as much information on the one side of the card as possible in 10 seconds. Then you hand the card over to your partner. Your partner asks you a question (on the back of the card) about the country (animal, state, etc.) that you just studied. The person with the most cards at the end wins. You can set the amount of time you want to play. We played each of our games for ten minutes.

These games would be excellent for workboxes. There is even a version of the game for one player! I have to warn you though your kids may beat you! I found out that this old brain just doesn't absorb info like those younger ones! I didn't do so well...my 8 year old got 4 times as many than me in the animal game!

Humor and a Valuable Lesson for Homeschoolers

(Mt. Vesuvius)

Steve Lambert over at How to Amuse Them Today has a great post that involves a little history, humor and homeschooling. Go check it out!

Fun Egyptian Activities

We are currently studying Ancient Egypt. Here are some fun activities on the web that relate to Egypt.

Coloring pages

Writing Egyptian Numbers

Write your name in Hieroglyphs

Play Senet (Ancient Egyptian Game)

The Mummy Maker (takes you through the process of making a mummy)

Video clips

Our Upcoming Workbox Week

Kendra over at the Aussie Pumpkin Patch hosts a weekly meme for workboxes. Check out her site as she has a lot of cool ideas!

Here is what is planned for our week...

In history we are working on Ancient Egypt. Here are some of the books that we are currently reading...

For science this week we will be working on two items....animal classification and amphibians. These are actually two different lapbooks that we will be doing. Why two lapbooks at one time? Well, the amphibian one is from A Journey Through Learning and I will be reviewing it for the TOS Crew. The other one is from Hands of a Child and was what I had originally scheduled for this week.
Another fun item that will be in both the boys workboxes this week is A-Z Mystery Flags. This is a cursive handwriting book with cool exercises. I got this book because I wanted to teach my boys how to read regular cursive. My boys learn cursive italic without all the loops and frills, but they still need to be able to read the loopy cursive. So they do the activities by converting the loopy cursive into italics. When we finish with this book they will have written every country from A-Z out. There are also mystery flags to try to figure out which country they are from. And for geography, I am having them find every country that they write out on the map. This past week we did the countries that started with "A". This week will be the "B" countries. Here is a sample page so that you can see what they look like. This book is by LightHome Publications.

Vaccinium macrocarpon, Anyone?

So what in the world is Vaccinium macrocarpon? A low bush cranberry! Vaccinium macrocarpon is the scientific name for the berry. Since there was a little frost last night (which helps sweeten the cranberries a bit), the boys and I went out picking cranberries. Most of them were ripe, however, I did have to pick out some unripe ones. We pick raspberries, blueberries, and cranberries each year and by far cranberries are the easiest to pick!!!! The boys and I were able to pick a gallon in 30 minutes! Part of the ease is the plethora of berries out there and also we use a berry picker which looks like this....
You basically "comb" the berries out with the picker! You can only use this type of picker with hard berries, therefore all the raspberries and blueberries we pick are done by hand. It is a lot of work!!!!

Here are some of our favorite cranberry recipes....

Cranberry Coconut Bars

Cranberry Sauce- Cranberries and sugar (almost 1:1 ratio) and a little water. Cook down the cranberries until you have a thick sauce. No need for pectin. Cranberries have their own! I then can the sauce.

Cranberry Salad (I use my homemade cranberry sauce for this)

1 lg. box berry jello
1 can cranberry sauce/jam
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup sour cream
Prepare jello. Let set in fridge one hour. Add cranberries and pecans. Let set in fridge. Stir in sour cream before serving.

Lingonberry Banana Jam (This stuff is to die for!!!! Lingonberry is another word for low bush cranberry).
3 cups lingonberries
1 ½ cups water
2 cups mashed bananas
7 cups sugar
3 ounces liquid pectin
Simmer berries and water for 10 min. Add the bananas and sugar. Bring to a boil and boil hared for one minutes. Remove from heat. Add liquid pectin. Stir and quickly skim foam. Process 15 min. Yield: 11 cups

Maple Cranberry Chicken

Ingredients:
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 can (16 ounces) whole-berry cranberry sauce, divided
6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
In a small bowl, combine syrup and 3/4 cup cranberry sauce; set aside. Sprinkle chicken with salt. If grilling the chicken, coat grill rack with cooking spray before starting the grill. Grill chicken, covered, over medium heat or broil 4 in. from the heat for 6-8 minutes on each side or until a meat thermometer reaches 170°, basting frequently with syrup mixture. Serve with remaining cranberry sauce. Yield: 6 servings.

Jello Cells

We are studying zoology this year. To see our lesson plans, go here. Today we made an animal cell model out of jello and candies. It was fun even if the end product looked kind of weird! To see the instructions for this idea, go here. Here is Zach mixing the lemon jello...this is the cytoplasm of the cell. Here are boys putting in the different parts of the cell...there was a nectarine for the nucleus...gummy worms, round jelly beans, raisins,etc. for the other parts. See the above instructions for ideas for the different types of candies to use. I did have to make some substitutions because we didn't have certain types of candies available to use (i.e. folded ribbon candy).Here is "our cell"!

Soap Nuts

Have you heard of soap nuts? I first heard about them at Passionate Homemaking. Soap nuts are the dried shell of a soapberry. When they are added to warm or hot water they release saponin, which cleans like soap does, but with out the harsh chemicals! I ordered a trial size from Naturoli to see if I would like them. There were two motivations to see if they would work. First, you don't need dryer sheets when you use soap nuts. I know that sounds almost unreal! I have always used some type of softener with my laundry. But it is true...even towels come out soft! The other reason is because they are 100% natural I am hoping they will be ok for my older son's skin. He suffers from eczema especially during the winter months. I have been wondering if they would be more gentle than regular laundry detergent.

In case you are wondering how soap nuts are used...you put about 5 soap nuts in a small cloth bag. The bag goes into the washer before you put the clothes in. When the load is done you just find the bag and let it air dry. The same soap nuts can be used for about 3-7 loads. My biggest concern was that I didn't want to fish out all those soaps nuts after running a load! The bag makes it handy!

Now the only problem is that I wished I had heard about soap nuts a few weeks earlier. I had just bought a bunch of ingredients for homemade laundry soap and made a big batch. I had also gotten a killer deal on dryer sheets and bought several boxes! So now I need to use up what I bought before going back to the soap nuts. But I will definitely be buying some more of these!

Our First Full Week with Workboxes

We started school full time today. The workboxes are completely filled and the boys remarked at how full they feel! For Bible and history this year we are doing the Ancients. Today using our Bible curriculum (Remembering God's Awesome Acts), we discussed the idea that the continents were probably one mass at one point (Pangea). They were pulled apart during the flood of Noah and the days of Peleg. Genesis 10:25 states that the earth was divided during the days of Peleg. The boys had fun working with the continents to see how they fit together. They noticed that Africa and South America fit together quite nicely.

Dinner's in the Freezer: Part 2

Here are the rest of the recipes we will be using for our August bulk cooking session.


Mexican Lasagna with Chicken, Corn and Black Beans
1 1/2 lbs. shredded cooked chicken
1 cup each diced onions and bell pepper
2 t. minced garlic
1 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup corn
1 1/2 t. chili powder
1 t. cumin
2 cups tomato based pasta sauce
1 cup salsa
1/4 t. pepper
2 T. fresh chopped cilantro
4 large tortillas or 8 small ones
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup chopped green onions
Spray a 9 by 13 casserole dish with oil. In a saute pan cook onions, peppers, and garlic. Add the cooked chicken. Add the beans, tomatoes, corn, chili powder and cumin. Cook for 2 more minutes. Add pasta sauce, salsa and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in cilantro and remove from heat. To assemble lasagna, spread 1/3 of the sauce on the bottom of the dish. Top with 1/2 the tortillas. Top with 1/3 of the sauce followed by 1/2 of the cheese. Cover cheese with remaining tortillas followed by remaining sauce. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover with foil and freeze. When ready to eat, thaw and bake (with foil on) for 35 min. at 375. Uncover and bake 10 minutes more. Serve with sour cream and chopped green onions.

Gnocchi (ñoqui) Alfredo
(Don't know what gnocchi is? See this post.) The sauce will be made and frozen ahead of time. It is served with gnocchi. If gnocchi isn't available regular pasta will do.
2 lbs. frozen gnocchi
3 T. butter, divided
1 T. flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup parmesan
dash ground nutmeg
1/2 lb sliced portobello mushrooms (you could use another type of mushroom)
Melt 1 T. butter and stir in flour. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese and nutmeg. Freeze sauce. When ready to eat, thaw sauce and do the following....In a large skillet cook remaining butter until golden brown. Add mushrooms and gnocchi that you have already boiled. Cook until the gnocchi are lightly brown and mushrooms are tender. Serve with sauce.

Lemon Chicken Tortellini
Sauce will be made and frozen ahead of time.
1 pkg. frozen tortellini
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 in. pieces
2 T. butter
1/2 small bell pepper, julienned
2 garlic cloves, pressed
3 cups chicken broth, divided
1/3 cup flour
1/2 t. salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 t. grated lemon peel
1 (6 oz) pkg fresh spinach
6 T. parmesan
In a large skillet, saute chicken in butter until it is no longer pink. Remove and keep warm. In same pan cook red pepper until crisp tender. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Add 2 cups broth; bring to a boil. Combine flour, salt, pepper, and remaining broth until smooth. Gradually stir into pan. Bring to a boil. Cook until thickened. Stir in chicken and lemon peel. Add spinach and cook til wilted. Freeze sauce. When ready to eat, thaw sauce, cook tortellini. Serve sauce over tortellini with parmesan sprinkled on top.

Schnauzer Cupcakes!

So we made our cupcakes for the start of the school year. As I predicted in a previous post , ours don't look as good as the "professional" ones, but we had fun making them! Here are Zach and Noah frosting the "faces"...

Here is one up close...our frosting wasn't stiff enough so things got a bit "gloppy"!Here is Titan investigating his cupcake cousins! He didn't know what to think!