The last 3 weeks Scott has been on vacation. It hasn't been a typical vacation for us this year, however. No camping. We were going to camp for a week in the Redwoods, but we canceled it because we had just bought our huge van, and finances were slim.
We orginally had all kinds of fun plans for those 3 weeks, but none of it panned out. The kids and I stayed home and worked, and Scott went to work and worked. Scott worked a good part of the time in a Portland Hospital watching over an inmate who was having heart troubles. Scott actually got to observe an open heart surgery. He said it was an amazing experience.
With a bunch of bills piling up, Scott did a very generous thing with his time. He worked almost 2 weeks of double overtime shifts at work so he could bring home a little extra income. By the end of those long hours, he was exhausted, and I was worn out. The extra income will be a wonderful blessing, but it was a huge sacrifice for Scott who was already burned out from work and had been counting down his hours before his vacation.
To save our sanity, Scott decided we needed a little trip away to recover from kids and stress. My Dad let us use some of his Worldmark points, and Scott and I got a four day trip to a The
Running Y Ranch close to
Klamath Falls, Oregon. My Sister very generously took all 5 of my kids for the duration, even though she had in laws coming that same week! Thankyou Dad, Thankyou Mary, you are angels of mercy!
I will do another post on our trip. I've lots of great pictures of Crater Lake!
When we returned home, we really hit the ground running. I had to unpack the kids and all our stuff, clean my home spic and span, and plan my big 3 hour class I was teaching the next day.
Every other Friday I teach 10 boys at my home from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. This time we were learning about Johnny Appleseed. We had terrific time, and everything turned out great. We did lots of science experiments with apples, played games with apples, made caramel apples and apple cider, ate apple crisp and applesauce, discussed the true life of John Chapman and compared it to the Tall Tale Legend of Johnny Appleseed. It was a whirlwind of fun and activity.
My whole motivation for doing this class is social. But if we learn a lot along the way, all the better! My focus for the kids in this class is to help them be inspired by great men and great leaders, not to stuff a bunch of useless facts into their heads. Thankfully, whenever kids are excited and having fun, they absorb everything like a sponge, anyway!!!
Here is my class info:
Boys Club Schedule 2010/2011
For Boys ages 8 thru 13
Theme: Explorers & Naturalists
Cost: $5.00 per class
Fall Semester: $40.00
We meet the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month from 11 a.m. to 2p.m.
Parents may drop their boys off for the duration of the class, but they are always welcome to stay and observe or participate. Please do not bring younger siblings unless you have made prior arrangements with me. I would like to spend the bulk of my time giving attention to teaching your sons.
Boys are to bring a sack lunch, and to have read about and studied our historical figure on their own. I will provide books for them to borrow or keep for some of our historical subjects. Otherwise, please feel free to research them online or choose your own books from the library.
Every class will be filled with activities, discussions, snacks, and social time. We will have field trips!!! There will not be other assignments or homework unless the boys have an idea and they volunteer to do it. I have to charge per semester instead of for each class to cover my expenditures for activity supplies, books, research time, field trip costs & gas. I have room for up to 10 boys each semester.
Fall Semester: EXPLORERS
September 17th: Daniel Boone
October: 1st: John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed)
October 15th: Lewis & Clark
Oct 29th: Field Trip to the Lewis & Clark Fort in Astoria
November 5th: Davy Crockett
November 19th: Jedediah Smith
December 3rd: Richard E. Byrd & Roald Amundsen
December 17th: Neil Armstrong
Spring Semester: Explorers & Naturalists
Spring Semester: $60.00
January 7th: Marco Polo or Charles Lindbergh
January 14th: Nathaniel Bowditch
February 4th: Joseph Banks
February 18th: Carl Linnaeus
March 4th : Captain James Cook
March 18th: Louis John Rudolph Agassiz
April 1st: Henry David Thoreau
April 15th: James Audubon
April 29th Field Trip: Picnic & Hike at the Baskett Slough
May 6th: John Muir
May 13th: John Burroughs
May 27th Field Trip: ?Evergreen Science Museum or OMSI?
June 3rd: End of the year celebration & Project Display
So my husband did this great apple cider demonstration for the boys, and he took the opportunity to get 400 lbs of FREE WINDFALL APPLES! The Jonagolds were amazing. He processed 96 quarts of Apple cider! They were SO tasty!
The next day he picked 2 huge boxes of broccoli (again for free, we have such amazing opportunities up here for free produce!!!) and we blanched it into 14 gallon bags to use throughout the year.
Next we want to pick and process grapes and tomatoes. Plums didn't do well this year.
In the midst of this, Scott has been cutting and hauling wood for our yearly supply. I am SO SO thankful for the warm dry weather we've been getting which is allowing Scott to get this work done before everything gets wet and soggy.
So our vacation this year was...well, work! But it's been worth it!
Maybe we'll get to go camping or go somewhere fun this spring!
(hope hope!)
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