My Two Blessings

2nd grade lessons begin formally as of Monday, July 2nd. I had planned on starting this week, but life intervened. I had to finish a midterm exam for oceanography, Father’s diverticulitis flared up, Luna discovered the stereo system wiring and various unknown nooks and crannies in the house, James needed an attitude adjustment, so everyone required intense supervision for a few days. We were all a little cranky! We will be doing the basics: Grammar, Spelling, writing, and math. Plus Japanese, Catholic catechism, faith building, science, history, and whatever else happens to come up that interests James. We will be concentrating heavily on virtues and math. Character Building for families; Day by Day Devotions – 7 minute character growing devotions for kids; Contenders for the Faith – handbook covering practical skills, spiritual life studies and service to others, plus Faith and Life catholic catechism, and reading the Book of Virtues. He will also be starti...

While taking a break from schedules and lesson planning, started reading “What the Bleep Do We Know: Discovering the Endless Possibilities for Altering Everyday Reality” by William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente I recently purchased the book and the movie, plus gave one sister the movie and one sister the book for their birthdays. It is very interesting and makes you think. A few excerpts from Chapter one: " Let’s say a spaceship lands next to you on the coffee table (does size matter?) and inside is The Universal Book of Everything. And you get to ask one question. What is that question?" I thought about the question and drew a complete blank. The image in my mind was of a tiny spaceship landing in my living room and thinking where they came from, instead of a great question. Instantly sidetracked. Okay, think! What do I want to know? Something Philosophical, esoteric, or maybe just silly? There isn’t just any...

I am done with my English Literature Class. Finished my essay final and posted it this afternoon. Will find out my final grade in a couple weeks, plus what the professor thought of my literary analysis paper on The Giver. Thursday have to start working on my midterm essays for Oceanography. OY! I have decided not to take more than one class at a time...it is too difficult with everything else we have going on in this household. So oceanography ends mid August and the next class will be Educational Psychology which starts first week of September. Still working on James lesson plans and we will be starting soon. Didn't I say that last week. Oh well, it is summer and we are all enjoying the break. He wants to learn Japanese so working on acquiring and setting up lessons for that. We are all in love. Miss Luna is such a joy and incredibly sweet and lovable. Yesterday after dinner Father and James went outside to check out his new Garmin GPS system we bought him ...

We have a new addition to our household whom we acquired yesterday. Luna Yes - Luna, after Luna the moon from The Bear in the Big Blue House. We were having difficulty deciding on a name because James wanted something Japanese, Father wanted Furhead and I simply couldn't decide. The previous owner said they had been calling her Luna after Luna the moon and it struck a chord with us. Father always loved Luna the Moon, so we all agreed on Luna. Of course Father says it should be "Luna moon unit furhead". Luna is 7 weeks old and the runt of the litter. She is adorable with the most remarkable markings. She bears a striking resemblance to the pure bred bengal cat that I had wanted but was too expensive. Luna was given to us by a gal who works at the coffee shop by our business. We decided to keep her in our bedroom until she gets adjusted. As soon as I got in bed and turned out the light, she started mewing and then suddenly there she was by my s...

Read an interesting article in the Catholic Newspaper this week. The Catholic Church has finally reversed its thinking regarding limbo for unbaptized infants. “In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God -- seemed to reflect an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved," it said. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for "the little ones," it said."Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical gr...

Have you ever seen a spider fly? It is the most amazing thing. We had read about aeronautic spiders in Charlotte ’s Web and just passed off that part of the story as fiction. Well! After reading Charlotte ’s Web a couple years ago, I was sitting in the kitchen gazing out at the backyard. I noticed the sun glistening off the spiders webs between the laurel bushes, when all of a sudden, spider webs were flying up into the air. Then I noticed strands going up from the top of the fence. Later that afternoon we were outside when we noticed masses of webs floating through the sky. Amazing, the story was true. What’s odd is that when we were living in Georgia , I used to encounter spider webs all the time. They would float by or into us and we basically wouldn’t think anything of it, (except that it was yucky) just a floating piece of spider web. Now, I realize what was really happening and we had been completely blind to it. Recently we watched...

Did you hear that sigh of relief? My literary analysis paper on THE GIVER is complete and submitted. I'll post it after it's graded. All that is left for my English Literature Class is the final which will be due at the end of the week. Do you know how difficult it is to write and type a paper while an air show is taking place? Every hour during the week from Thursday through Sunday, we had planes zooming over the house. James was very amped all weekend by all the excitement. We got to see a F-22 Raptor which is absolutely amazing. The Raptor flew directly over our house and I don't have to tell you how loud that was. A Flying wing which I digitally video taped and don't know how to add at this moment, the Thunder birds which were amazing as well and an assortment of other planes. At a certain point, we just stopped taking pictures and watched. The rest of our week will be spent working on lesson plans, gardening and whatnot.

The skies of Sacramento have been abuzz this weekend with the sound of aircraft engines racing around. The California Capital Airshow is being held this weekend at Mather Field. My son called me at work yesterday (Daddy Day) very excited because he and Father had just been outside watching the Thunderbirds practicing in the skies over our neighborhood. Father was all excited because he also saw an f-22 airplane. They neglected to get pictures, so I will be out there this afternoon to try to catch the buggers as they fly by. Hopefully I will have some pix to post later. We went to the airshow last year. It was fun but......they didn't anticipate how many people would show up and it was a mess getting in and out of the airfield. We won't be going this year. We will just enjoy it from afar as the planes buzz our neighborhood.

Currently reading: The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on our Children by James Steyer. Very interesting read so far. Makes me want to get rid of the TV entirely. However, we are very picky about what James is allowed to watch. Today just happens to be an attitude adjustment day so no TV/DVD/Video viewing. My mom gave it to me when we were visiting. Thanks Mom! Currently working on This is the last week of my English Literature class and the final is next week. I am working on finishing my literary analysis paper on The Giver which is due at the end of the week. Have done the research, reread the book, figured out what elements want to cover and know what I want to say. Now I just have to write it. Going into Week 5 of my Oceanography class and have to say it is very interesting and learning something new every week. 2nd Grade I had planned on starting James' lessons this week, but decided to put it off another week or t...

Tuesday morning James woke up sick. Generally when he gets sick, he throws up a lot for about 24 hours, then is okay. Well, the poor kid was pretty miserable and we weren't sure if he had caught a germ from somewhere, having a reaction to something he ate or was just exhausted from all our traveling. Generally when he gets sick, I will give him lots of water so he won’t get dehydrated, but since we had a two hour drive ahead of us, decided to back off the liquids. Grandpa and father packed up the car and we checked out at the last possible moment.  Father prepared a barf box for the car and we headed back to Bull Head City . Fortunately James slept most of the time and only had to throw up a couple times. Grandpa made the drive in record time – 2 hours and 5 minutes exactly. He had expected the drive to be 3 ½ hours but that is because he and grandma generally stop for lunch and a break and shopping and whatever to break up their drives. I put James to b...

We had breakfast and checked out of our rooms. Fortunately, we didn't need to worry about our luggage. It was taken care of by the hotel and transported to the train station for our return trip at 4:00 p.m. We meandered about for a while, trying to decide what to do. Next to the Shrine of the Ages, was the Grand Canyon Cemetery . We wandered through the cemetery looking at all the headstones and learning about the lives of the deceased. Old cemeteries are always fascinating. Then we went down to the train station for the rim tour. We were going to take the rim tour that came with our package, but it had been for the day before. We really hadn't felt like hopping on a bus, right from the train. So a nice, but misinformed, person on the train told us "oh no problem, if you want to switch days, just show up. You will be accommodated." So, when we showed up for the rim tour the next day, it turned into a "you will have to wait and see who shows ...

When we had decided to go to the Grand Canyon, we booked a package through the Grand Canyon Railway . They have packages for two days, three days and four days which include staying at the grand canyon railway hotel, train ride to and from the Grand Canyon and meals at Max and Thelma’s Restaurant. We had learned about the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel from watching “Trains and Locomotives” on RFDTV (one of James favorite shows for a while). So we booked the Canyon Limited Plus for 4 days and three nights for the weekend of May 19th which happened to coincide with “Day out with Thomas”. Thanks to my father, we chose to travel in one of the first class cars on the train. After breakfast at Max and Thelma’s, we were ready to board the train which departed at 10:00 a.m. We were provided with fresh fruit, pastries, coffee, juice and other snacks as we traveled in air conditioned comfort. James meet a delightful little boy named Gabriel and the two of them had fun throughout the...