San Jacinto

Henry made it through his peer proof for memory master Monday morning.  It was not an easy proof.  Instead of going through the material in date/week order, the tutor who proofed him skipped around to random weeks and even within the week, she asked him things out of order.  It was all perfectly acceptable, but Henry wasn't expecting it.  He did well and got everything at 100%.  His only trouble spot was a fact in timeline that he just drew a blank on.  She finally hummed the tune for him and he got the words right away.  (We can't hum it for him in the tutor proof, but he was allowed mistakes in the peer proof.)   I told him that if he could pass that proof, the tutor proof this coming week should be a breeze.  His next proof is Tuesday morning.  This is the big one in which he's allowed zero errors.  As a celebration for passing the peer proof, we stopped at Chick-fil-a for lunch and milkshakes on the way home.  

Josiah has been expressing interest in trying out jiu-jitsu for a few weeks now.  He has watched the warm-up exercises often enough that he started doing them at home.  Sometimes he'd do them by himself and other times all three kids would exercise together.  This week he asked if he could do a trial class.  He only wanted to try out the lunch class because it is vastly smaller.  Tuesday he did just that.  He was paired up with another kid who is very experienced, but is also a good teacher.  At every water break, Josiah came back to the bench and said how much he loved it, then and he would add, "and I'm really good at it."  So, Tuesday evening, Todd went back with the boys and signed Josiah up for class.  He did class that evening and loved it still.  We weren't sure if the other kids would overpower him with their mass, but Todd said Josiah was like a spider monkey - fast, agile, and able to get out of tight spots.  The boys are constantly practicing on each other.  They push the ottoman up to the couch to make a fairly big square of soft material.  Then they go at it.  Until I yell at them to stop.  Someone's going to get hurt!

Caroline sparring with Josiah at lunch.  (Henry in the background.)

We had a week off of CC so the kids could work on their memory master as well as their Faces of History reports.  It's a welcome break week in the midst of a lot of year end work.  We didn't exactly have a break day, though.  We spent the day with our CC group visiting the San Jacinto Museum and Monument.  It is way on the other side of Houston next to the ship channel.  After passing through Houston, we entered a very industrial area.  All steel and metal facilities with pipes and exhaust.  It did not look like we were on the road to a museum.  The kids were happy, though, because they got to ride in their friend's car.  San Jacinto is the site where Santa Anna surrendered to Sam Houston, which gave Texas its independence (we had previously been under the Mexican government).  The monument has a very small museum in the bottom of it.  Really it is just two hallways of artifacts, but they had old uniforms and money, swords and pistols, rifles and jewelry.  Interesting articles to read when we could.  The kids favorite part was their discovery of the computer screen showing all the security cameras.  They figured out that there was a delay, so they could walk to the opening foyer of the exhibit, dance around, then get back in time to the computer screen to see themselves dancing.  It was half-funny, but also not good museum etiquette at all.  (We did put a stop to it.)  One-half of the bottom of the monument is a museum and the other half is a theater where we watched how Texas won its independence.  It was a good film, but a little long (35 minutes).  Caroline's interest waned.  She asked me to braid her hair, what was for lunch, how much longer, these seats are comfortable, when is lunch, is it almost over?...  Separating the museum from the theater was their one, lone elevator.  We were able to travel to the top six at a time.  It was 489 feet up and it went fast.  They actually had a window in the elevator so we could see the stairwell next to it, which also showed us the speed at which we were moving.  At the top we saw the ship channel, Houston in the far distance, and mostly just wetland type area.  We had a picnic lunch and took lots of group pictures.  Visiting San Jacinto had been on our list of things to do for a few years now, so it was good to check it off.  Unfortunately, the USS Texas, which was onsite, was not open to the public.  It is under renovations, so we'll have to go back and visit that when it's completed.  I made sure to purchase some commemorative pencils on the way out.    

I found it interesting that the monument was made out of this concrete (with all the shells) - it seemed very susceptible to erosion.  It was also quite a large monument, which I think the picture on the right captures.  

Caroline has been asking for a haircut for a while now.  She wanted to go to Great Clips instead of me cutting her hair because Great Clips does it faster.  I told her that was because I took my time to do it right out of love.  All she wanted was a 4-inch trim, so I let her play on the iPad while I cut her hair.  After it was cut, she asked a billion times, "Is my hair still long?"  It's medium length.  "Does it look good?"  I think it looks very nice.  Wait two minutes and repeat.  

Caroline was also insistent that we take Benson for a walk this weekend.  We obliged and did some more leash training with him.  He did very well.  After our walk, the kids each took a turn around our cul-de-sac so they could work on getting him to heel by their side.  Benson did pretty well with them, too.  I know we need to walk him a lot more than we do.  I just have to get through the next week and a half and then things will be much freer.  

Josiah finished out his weekend going to the dollar store with me.  He wanted to buy paint and a canvas.  He has been into George W. Bush a lot lately (as well as 9/11).  He has read Bush's speech to the nation on September 11, 2001 many times this week.  He drew Bush with a pencil while looking at a portrait of him.  Then later in the day he painted him.