Cotton Gins and Fun Runs

Our week began on a sad note as we drove Todd to the airport for his annual conference (which met at Disney World this year).  Caroline had tears coming down her cheeks as he left the car.  The boys were sad all day and kept saying how much they missed him.  Henry would cry at random times during the day when he thought of Todd.  Josiah did take a moment out of his sadness to tell me that he wanted McDonald's, pizza, and Chick-fil-a.  They took to texting him and among the "I love you." and "I miss you." texts, there were the "I want Nemo, Dory, Kermit, Olaf, and Donald." texts.  Before he left, Caroline told him she wanted "ALL the princesses."  They were looking forward to their soubenirs (as they called them).

The anticipation was built up the whole time he was gone as to what he would bring back for them.  They were happy with his choices (as if they didn't give him many clues as to their desires) and have been sleeping with them ever since.

Our CC year is coming to a close and so we have been working on thank you cards to the kid's tutors.  Josiah wanted to write his on his truck stationary.  Before he wrote anything, I asked him what he wanted to say.  He said, "This year was a dump."
Me - "Well, that doesn't sound very nice even if it was intended to be nice.  How about something nicer sounding?"
Josiah - "This year was a dump of fun."
Me - "Let's work on this together..."
He ended up doing an explosive theme and "This year was a blast."


For CC, the boys were allowed to do a Subject proof.  Typically they have Memory Master at CC in which the kids memorize everything from every subject for all 24 weeks.  I'm going to have Josiah try that next year, but this year, their tutors were allowing them to (unofficially) do a subject proof for practice.  Both boys picked science, which meant they had to answer all 24 questions from the year.  Example: Tutor: What is Newton's first law of motion?
Student: "Newton's first law of motion states an object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion tends to continue moving in a straight line at constant speed unless an outside force acts upon it."
This years questions were from Ecology, Astronomy, & Physics.  Both boys did really well and passed their proofs.  As a reward we went to the grocery store for ice cream sundae fixings.  They were happy with the treat.

And just because CC is coming to an end, we're still not done with school for the year.  In science we've been learning about the ocean and the weather.  We did a cool experiment where we learned that warm water stays towards the top and colder water stays towards the bottom.  The food coloring really helped us watch the warm water rise/cool water sink.


Then we did it between salt vs. fresh water and watched the salt water sink due to being more dense.  It was cool to see it actually happen.  Apparently the Mediterranean Sea is saltier than the Atlantic so where they meet, the Mediterranean Sea goes under the Atlantic so to speak.  (Blue - salt water sinks; Red - fresh water rises)


We made it to the Cotton Gin Museum this week.  At first glance, we weren't sure how they could pack an hour tour into such a tiny building, but we had a great tour guide.  He gave us some information about cotton gins and how they were invented and how that affected life once it was invented.  Caroline was always right in front listening to this man speak.  Everywhere we went, she was always right on his heels.

Then he gave us a tour of their real cotton gin.  It stopped running in 1974, but they still run it once a year at the Cotton Gin Festival.  It was quite cool to walk around the 100-year old building and for him to show step by step how it all worked.  The farmer would bring in 1500 pounds of cotton and hope to get a 500 lb bale of cotton and 1000 lbs of seeds left.  The size of the bale had to be the same so that it could be stacked easily in trains, but the weight of each bale was different.

 
I made it through my first WAM concert this week as well.  Because I was hiding on stage with the kids (which was slightly against what we were assigned to do, but we knew our kids most definitely needed supervision), I could not hear most of the performance.  We did have to keep telling them to turn around because all the kids wanted to see themselves on the big TV screens behind them.  Henry and Caroline looked cute, though.  We'll have to wait for the video to see how it all turned out.  I did confirm I'm not a music teacher.  I'm crossing off all sorts of things that I am not.  :)

We finished our week up with the Family Run Run as Caroline dubbed it.  Of course, the bus ride was one of the biggest highlights.  Josiah even wanted to leave the fun bouncy house area earlier than we expected so he could have another bus ride.  It was like a regular roller coaster to them.

At the starting line of the race they had all the Houston mascots milling about.  We tried to get pictures of the kids with Toro the Texans mascot and Orbit the Astro's.  The problem was, we were lined up, so room was tight and I couldn't get very far back to take the picture.  Also, there was a glare, so I was just clicking and taking pictures without getting to see everything on the screen.

Josiah and Orbit and half of Henry (not too bad)

And a not so good picture with Orbit.

Henry giving Toro a high five, except that we can't see Henry and was can barely see Toro.

And a bit better.  

Once the race began, Caroline took off.  She just kept running and running with the boys on her tail.  We clearly failed to teach our kids about pacing themselves.  I watched her run and tried to catch up, but quickly realized I hadn't run since last year's race and just hoped she'd tire out.  (She did, eventually.)

She was so happy to see Olaf at the end of the race.

The bouncy house things were always a hit.  It was a fun morning.

The business of this week caught up with Caroline who took a four hour nap after church today.  This is her freshly awake this evening.  She had such a pretty dress on today.  It was a hand-me-down, but it looks like a flower girl dress.

One more week of school and then we're taking a week break again.  We're trying to finish it well.