Dewberry Farm

Last Sunday our pastor told a story about when his kids were younger.  At the dinner table, they would read from a book full of "sticky situations" and then discuss how his kids could get out of said situation.  One example stated, if you were in school and someone was trying to cheat off your test, how would you handle it?  A second example said, if you were at a sleepover and someone pulled a six pack of beer out of their backpack, what would you do?  So, come Monday morning, our kids asked me to come up with a sticky situation.  We talked about doorbell ditching - running up to someone's door, ringing their doorbell, and running.  Seems harmless enough, but is it wise?  Do you know who is behind the door?  Is that homeowner really frustrated with doorbell ditching dashers and they're ready to do something about it? (Doorbell ditching is a popular thing around here, which is sort of crazy because everyone has the Ring doorbells taking videos of the culprits.)  Then the kids wanted to come up with scenarios of their own.  There was a lot of laughter as the scenarios got increasingly ridiculous.  There were assassins involved, kidnappers, YouTubers, etc.  Josiah finished out the discussion with another beer scenario.  What if he was at the neighbor's house and his friend offered him some beer?  That morphed into: what if Josiah and his friend drank beer (which gives me his answer to the first scenario), then Josiah bought more beer, and when I came to pick him up I asked why he had beer in his backpack.  At this point, Caroline burst into the conversation, "Josiah can't buy that!!  It's $7.98."  At which point we all looked at her.  How do you know the cost of beer, dear 9-year old child?  I saw it at the grocery store.  Her point, however, was that Josiah, our spender, would not have enough money to purchase said product.  Not that he was underage, just underfunded.  We did learn that the kids would probably not doorbell ditch, but they would all walk away with a YouTuber at the park.  And that is why we talk about these things.

Our school days were very long this week.  There was no spare time between school and meals and activities.  Todd's birthday fell on our CC day, so we rushed home to get an apple cake in the oven.  We celebrated it more this weekend with a breakfast out and a Frito pie dinner.  Frito pie is a Texas thing and is basically chili served over Fritos.  No pie involved.   (Photography by Henry)

We finished out our school week with a fun day at Dewberry Farm.  The weather was perfect.  The mornings have finally turned cool and the days are not quite as hot (88° is way better than 98°).  The five of us headed straight to the pedal cars, which was a favorite for both boys.  There were fewer big cars, so the boys tried out the smaller rides as well.  Their knees nearly hit their chins when they pedaled.  

We did all the fun things.  Jumping pillows, carpet slides, train rides, and hay loft rope swings (Caroline's favorite).  

Caroline, friend in the middle, Henry. They jumped in tandem.

They rode on things that spun so I filmed them with my eyes shut.  

There was a splinter-giving playground fort where they played tag with their friends for a long time.  

The younger two tried their hand at the corn maze, but Josiah opted out of it this year.  

We finished our day with churro fries, which were very similar to the funnel fries we ate at the beach this summer, but with a lot less powdered sugar.  

We came home completely tired.  The kids had muscle aches and splintered hands, pink cheeks and tired bodies.  Poor Caroline had Awana that evening.  I don't know how she made it through, but she loves to see her Awana friends, so that kept her energy up.    

This weekend the kids were finally able to get their bikes out again.  The temperatures were better, but now the mosquitoes need to get the memo and die.   

They spent time creating a puppet show Saturday evening.  They interspersed their dialogue with two musical numbers.  They were sung by a very naked Al Dente while Henry's police officer tried to arrest him for indecent exposure.  The middle school puppet shows are a bit edgier...

We're back at it tomorrow morning and relying on God's grace to get us through.

Perspectives and Critiques

Lovely Locks

I got an early start Monday morning, waking up at 5:00 a.m. to watch Queen Elizabeth's funeral.  Despite Josiah's love for British bands, British accents, and British TV shows, he slept through the whole thing as did his siblings.  Later on, however, Josiah remarked that his hair was growing nicely and should be ready by Halloween.  His plan is to dress in his suit and go as a shaggy-haired Paul McCartney.    

We rang in the autumnal equinox with sunny 99° weather.  And, despite the temperatures, Josiah fought off a fall cold for most of the week.  Lots of sneezing!  Henry gave it to Josiah, Josiah gave it to Todd, and the ladies are trying to avoid the men.  Fall weather doesn't kick in until mid-December around here.    

Mid-week, the kids decided that they would judge my cooking (in)abilities.  At dinner, they spoke in posh accents pretending to be Food Network style judges and discussed their plates.  There is no greater joy than getting critiqued by three whose primary goal in finishing a meal is to get dessert.  At least they liked that meal.  

At CC this week, Henry and Caroline did perspective drawings in their fine arts section. Every year the kids have a perspective week and every year they have drawn one-point perspective pictures.  Typically, it was a road disappearing into the horizon with a tiny house or mountains in the distance.  This year, Henry and Caroline's classes both did two-point perspective.  (The project is completely up to their tutors, so it was a surprise to see they had done something similar.)   Their results were pretty impressive.  Two-point perspective uses the ruler a lot!  Caroline drew the building, which she named "Party Bombs," while Henry drew the barn.  (Henry didn't mean to crinkle his up in his backpack....)

In Essentials, Caroline's class started diagramming.  When her tutor saw she had done it correctly on her paper, she was volunteered to write it on the board as well.  Caroline is usually always eager to volunteer and writing on the white board is an even bigger treat.  Better than that, it was a sentence about the Bubonic plague.  

Meanwhile, Josiah read his paper on the astronomer, Kepler, in his class.  Josiah has a bit of an aversion to writing formal, boring papers.  Even though I probably discourage it too much, he likes to add humor into everything he writes.  He would rather write, Kepler, while studying the stars, ate some juicy bratwurst than anything monotonous.  Josiah completed his paper with this:  In conclusion, I believe Kepler's laws made planetary motion easier to understand for those of us who do not know what planetary motion is.  Since he has to read his science paper each week, his goal is almost always entertainment.  Always a performer that one.

Josiah has also experienced a resurgence of his Spiderman costume.  This was likely it's last resurgence as it has gotten a little more form fitting.  Still, Josiah happily walked to get the mail, waving at all who passed.  He said it was his way of spreading joy and bringing a smile to people's faces.  

Out of the blue one day, Caroline said we should have named Benson, "Old TV."  I asked her if it was because he was black and white.  Yes.  I think we missed an opportunity there.  We probably would have had the only dog named Old TV if she thought of that a year and a half ago.  This weekend she made him a Paws Hotel.  He wouldn't go into it at all.  He just stood beside it, looking out the front window.  Then, after she went to bed this evening, Benson laid down inside.  

Trampolines, Hatcheries, and Escape Rooms

A break week at last.  And how did it begin?  By doing school with Josiah who decided to put off his Friday work until Monday.  So Monday was a wash for me and my enormous to do list.  

Tuesday morning I woke up to Henry and Caroline making pancakes.  They've cooked them often enough at this point that they have the process down.    

Josiah spent time throughout the week drawing pictures of Whopper-ios so he could decorate the walls of his room.  

By mid-week, the pace of our days quickened.  Errands were run all Wednesday morning and then we met friends at a new place called Bounce Bounce.  It was a trampoline park and more.  They had bumper cars (unfortunately they were out of order), a zipline, and an area with human-size hamster balls in water.  The kids played and bounced for a long time.  They made their way through the obstacle course quite a few times.  They tried soccer and basketball, dodgeball and a foam pit.  They even got permission to do the maze area, which is usually reserved for kids 4 feet and under.  We like to go to these places during school hours when there are very few people around.  

All three kids tried the zipline which went the length of the facility.  It was really high up.  The kids said it was scary, but fun.  They could feel the wind on their feet because they were only wearing the rubber-footed socks.  Once they finished the zipline, they ran down to the trampolines to watch the next person's ride.

Henry

Josiah

Josiah

Caroline flying over her brothers

From the trampoline park, they went to their Wednesday night activities at church.  When we finally made it home, Henry's legs felt like jelly, Josiah was hobbling with a bad knee, and Caroline had muscle aches  from muscles she didn't know existed.  

The following day we went on a field trip with our CC group.  It was to Sea Center Texas, which is a fish hatchery.  We had a great tour guide who walked us through the museum/aquarium portion, showing us all the many fish that are in this area.  They had a touch tank with blue crab, fish, sea anemone, and hermit crabs.

Then he gave us a tour of the hatchery.  They hatch flounder, red drum, and spotted seatrout.  Millions at a time.  They had three females and two males of each species in these massive containers. 

The water was constantly spinning because as they laid their eggs, there was fish oil on them which made them float.  The spinning water allowed them to be caught by a trough where they were collected and put in a different tank.  A 5mL cluster held about 5000 eggs.  The babies:

At the end, he brought us outside where they had many shallow ponds of water where the fish grew large enough to ship out and replenish the Gulf and bays.  We stopped at one specific watering hole where they allowed kids to fish (catch and release) twice a month.  Caroline said no thank you to that.  But they did get to feed the fish in that area and they were huge.  We were surprised by how big most of the fish were. 

Our favorite thing that we saw were the moon jellyfish.  They looked like a lava lamp.

Josiah wasn't able to come with us on the field trip because he had a yearbook meeting.  However, when we got home he said he was the only one who showed up.  Besides the two adult sponsors (and their two kids), Josiah was it.  So that was a bust. 

By the end of our break, the boys got back into their Legos.  Henry spent a good deal of time building a sandwich shop.  He had the assembly line for making the sandwiches, the kitchen in the back, and a fountain drink area.  Clever kid.  

Josiah finished out his break week going to a friend's birthday party at an escape room.  He had never done one before and they had 60 minutes to solve all the clues and get the door open.  They cut it down to the wire, but made it out with five minutes to spare.  The party continued at his friend's  house.  When I came to pick him up, Josiah asked me to hold on a minute.  He made his way back into the kitchen and reemerged with a handful of cookies for the road.  He did share with all of us, though, so he was very thoughtful in that respect.

Monday morning we are back to business as usual.