Halloween was Monday. We had a Costco-sized bag of candy and the boys were chomping at the bit to open it. Since I wouldn't let them eat as much as they liked, they asked to sort it. They really just wanted to get their hands on it. What became very obvious was that Costco gypped us. A bag of 150 pieces of candy and only 2 Twix and 1 Kit-Kat, my favorites. I had to take it as a blessing in disguise, so the candy would be less tempting.
That evening we did trick-or-treating in the house. Todd and I hid in different rooms and the kids came knocking on our doors. When I was in the boys' room, I put on their Lowe's apron and pretended I just got home from work. Another time I wore their Spiderman blanket and told them, "With great power, comes great responsibility." Todd gave them socks and underwear instead of candy at one door. Another time Todd gave them real candy and he gave Henry that one precious Kit-Kat. My heart broke just a little.
At CC this week, we had a visit from Rocket Man. It was one of the fathers from our group, and while I do not know exactly what he does for a living, he shot off several rockets in the field next to the church. The boys loved the rockets and how high they went. One went very, very high, and after its parachute popped out, the wind took it too far away to reclaim. Rocket Man was awesome, though, and related everything back to God the Creator. The boys both gave their presentations on the Saturn V rockets. Josiah also made a small lunar rover that he spoke about as well. They had a good day.
We learned about earthquakes during science this week. We talked about seismographs and how they work, and then we "made" one. All three kids got to try each position. In the picture, Henry is turning the rolling pin covered in paper while Josiah is holding the pencil to record the earth's movement. The brown box was the earth and Caroline shook it to produce the earthquake. Josiah's markings were supposed to look like an earthquake occuring. Since it was three kids recreating an earthquake, the markings were a bit chaotic, but I think they got the idea. They had fun at least.
We also took a field trip to the Renaissance Festival. We were very blessed to get free admission tickets, and we appreciated that all the more as we realized that very little in the Festival was free. The kids liked the jousting in the arena, but they didn't totally understand what was happening. Right outside the arena, however, was a jousting game and they totally loved it. Josiah missed the ring his first two passes, but got the ring his final two passes.
Henry got the ring his first two passes, but missed it the last two.
Caroline loved the ride. Before it was her turn, I told her what she was supposed to do. She said, yes, she understood. The man who strapped her into the horse explained it to her as well. Use the pole to hook the ring. Yes, she nodded, she understood. Then they pushed her off and she held her pole completely upright with a big grin on her face. We have no idea what she was aiming for, but she had a lot of fun riding her horse.
Josiah thought that since it was a Renaissance Festival, and daVinci was from the Renaissance Period, that they would have real daVinci paintings there. He wanted the Mona Lisa. He didn't get that, but he did get lots of people dressed up in period costumes. I don't know how they did it, because it was very, very humid.
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| Barbarian |
They tried the bows and arrows and the boys each hit the back hay wall with an arrow, which made them very happy.
They made their way through a three story cage maze as well. Josiah made his way through it fairly fast, but the littles kept showing up at the entrance, so they got sent back.
Next year we'll have to plan better because we missed the blacksmith and the glassblower, which was a little disappointing. We did enjoy having everyone call us "my lord" and "my lady" with slight British accents the whole time.
I think the busy week got the best of Henry. Being overtired often equals lots of tears. At Awana, he started crying the minute we got in his room. Thrown by this, I tried to get him to tell me what was wrong. It finally came out that he was assigned to table #6 which met across the hall. (They try to divide the boys up a little to keep the noise level from going through the roof.) Henry was upset because he didn't want to be away from Josiah because he liked to visit with him during the evening. They very graciously moved him to another table. But then he had more tears when he got hurt during game time, and again when they mistakenly gave him only one jewel when he had earned two for his wings. He cried again in the car when we wouldn't let him have his light on for the drive home. Bedtime never felt so good for him that night.
The boys reaped the benefits of reading by cashing in their Book-It pizza certificates. This was a highlight of my youth - a personal pan pizza each month - and I was happy that they allowed homeschoolers to participate. It has been years since we've had Pizza Hut pizzas. We have stuck to Papa John's because of their deal when the Texans win. So, Henry opened his box and the first words out of his mouth were, "Where's the garlic sauce?" Then he ate some and said the pizza was greasy. He clearly did not understand that was exactly why it was good!
We ended our weekend on a happy note. Our washing machine finally died earlier this week. We spent one evening at Lowe's looking at new ones. Todd and I looked while Josiah opened and closed every single washer and dryer they sold. Henry and Caroline looked on with jealousy in their eyes and whines in their mouths that Josiah got to touch everything and they wanted out of the cart. After a few days of not being able to do laundry, we are happy to have that precious appliance back in the house again.
We are already down to the last two weeks of CC for the year. This fall has flown by so far! The boys are looking forward to selling some baked goods at Market Days at CC this week. A chance to earn some cash!
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