Homeschool Showcase
Travis entertained us with "Inflated Language" and Shalayne played and sang. I'm proud of you two!

Mom (grandma) came out and showed the girls how to create icing flowers. Everyone enjoyed this, and the results were impressive!

Bees!!

Today Shalayne and I went on an exciting field trip with the Contos' to visit a bee hive. Timothy got to be the assistant bee keeper!

Butterflies and Chicks

What an exciting week it has been! On Monday, our butterfly emerged from its chrysalis! On Tuesday, our chicks started hatching!

Crayfish Dissection

Travis completed his crayfish dissection today. I am pleased with how much he seems to enjoy this part of his 'hands-on science.' Shalayne tried to ignore the whole process. I didn't make her watch this time :-)

Caterpillars and Eggs

This year we are attempting to 'bring science to life' in our studies. Thus, we are observing the lifecycles of the butterfly and chickens! Here you can see Shalayne setting up her caterpillar environment.

And here she is with the two dozen eggs she is incubating.Candling an egg.

Enterprising Endeavors

This was Travis' first biology dissection. He found it fascinating! Shalayne was not so sure!

Kazzie even finds technology interesting...

Dallas has been sewing up a storm! He is creating his own Belegarth costumes from scratch- even making his own patterns!

Holy Moses!

This year I led a musical with our homeschool group called Holy Moses! I was so proud of all the kids despite several technical glitches on performance night. They were brilliant! I couldn't have done this without Dallas' help (he directed the actors) and even Shalayne (she was in the musical but knew it so well that she saved her mom a few times!). These productions are a great amount of work, but so much fun. I do them so that my own kids can have the experience, but it is so rewarding to share with all these wonderful kids!!

Baby Moses was a basket case...The plagues against Pharaoh...

The Perfect Ten (the 10 commandments- we used a fog machine for effect)Shalayne's solo

Ro---tic Evening

On Saturday evening several Moms and daughters got together for a Ro---tic Evening, all the romance without the 'man'. Well, we did have one little 'man,' but he was only three weeks old! Here are the girls:









Peggy generously hosted us. Here she is with the girls (the evening entertainment being the two babies) and then with the little 'man.' The girls set up the finery...Shauna and Shalayne
Lisanne and Ashley
Charmaine and Emily
Tammy and Kaitlyn
Debbie and Madison

Medieval Meal

The guys couldn't be out-done by the girls! Here they are having a "manly" meal!
Who said guys don't like candles?!!

Musings

I can't believe how quickly these first months of 2008 have flown by! We have just come out of a deep freeze experiencing -34*C with windchills to-50*C, frozen pipes in our kitchen (thankfully they didn't burst!), and a son's minor car accident. So I am thankful those events are now past. But there have been many great days as well.

Yesterday, Travis, Shalayne and I attended the CPO, enjoying some great fiddle music~ The Fiddling Cowboy. The orchestra is always a treat. Afterwards, we went for lunch. It is not often that I get to take my kids out for lunch! We then spent some time and money at Blessings Christian Marketplace, and even ran into our friends, the McDonalds, from Drumheller!

I have begun another Musical with our homeschoolers and have almost 40 kids! Dallas is helping me by coaching the drama. We are doing the Life of Moses (Holy Moses!). It is fun, though we have a tight window to work in and had to cancel our first practice because of the cold.

Greg and I have tried to be more intentional lately about planning significant Family Nights. As some of you know, some individuals in our family have been suffering from depression. So we have been working on addressing this. I am pleased that since Christmas things have been much better. We have written our first Family Mission Statement together and are now in the midst of working out individual and family goals. And we also try to have some kind of fun which precipitates laughter and good memories.

The kids keep busy. Travis is continuing to work at Starbucks, usually twice a week. Shalayne has taken on new babysitting jobs, is the shipping and handling department for Greg and Dallas' movie business, and is paid to do our monthly recycling. Dallas has begun a new session of HAMP (Home Academy of Moving Pictures), which is a film school and has many new as well as returning students. Planning has begun for Dustin's summer- he has been accepted on the Youth Alive in Christ team and will be traveling to Montana and Western Canada for the months of June, July and August, helping various churches and camps. Because he will be paid in scholarship form, he will be returning to Alberta Bible College next year. This will likely be as a part-time student as he pursues Computer Science as well- at home (so we will enter a new phase of Home College!)

So life, despite its many ups and downs, is good. We know that God is in control and blessing us along the way. Praise Him!

Mystery in the Library

The other night in the library, when many characters were out of their books enjoying a sojourn in the night air, a crime was committed, grim and grave, right in our own library. As a result his Majesty Henry VIII- that famous monarch from the English history books- has disappeared. Gathered are the characters that were present in the library at the time of the nasty deed. Fortunately Master Sherlock Holmes is here to investigate, so the perpetrator of this heineous crime will no doubt be revealed as the night proceeds.

So began our homeschool night of mystery. With almost 40 people (seven families) involved, we were hosted by the Conways in their beautiful home (big enough for all of us- must be 4000 sq. ft. +). Everyone dressed up and the costumes were fabulous! What fun we had! This was a mix and mingle game, with lots of goodies to nibble on besides, and it was a blast to watch the interaction of all the characters from little Baby Bear (Robin Contos) to Sherlock Homes and Mr. Watson to beautiful Cleopatra to Captain Hook. And my, oh, my, you would never guess who committed the nasty deed!

Red Letter Day!

Am I allowed to brag? Guess who I had for lunch today! (Actually, it was really on account of Dallas) None other than the Bluedorn brothers, Hans and Nathaniel! For those of you who don't know, they wrote the books The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox, which ironically we have just been reading each morning to start our school time. Wow! Celebrities in my house! Dallas met Nathaniel at the San Antonio Film Festival and then the brothers came to the Banff Film Festival. They are looking into filming a rock climbing documentary.

My other piece of exciting news is that Dallas is in Calgary at this minute picking up his now finished and packaged film project, The Amazing Map! ! Next step, selling them!

Reformation Night

It has become a yearly tradition in our homeschool group to hold a Reformation Night party in leu of Halloween. (If you remember your church history, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses of Contention to the door of the Wittenburg Chapel on October 31, 1517, declaring his intolerance of the Roman church's corruption.) However, this year we had to do our party a night early because the church was booked on Wednesday. We began with a pot-luck and then each family ran a booth /game where the kids were rewarded with, of course, candy! This year we focused on reformer Martin Bucer.

A Job Well Done

There is something very satisfying about putting up food for the winter. This year I asked Shalayne for her help with the condition that she didn't have to start back to her books right away (we call this home ec.!). So together we canned peaches and pears and made a dozen apple pies as well as canning apple pie filling. I also made several batches of jam. The boys were full of compliments for Shalayne's pies!

Science at Big Hill Springs Park

We are co-oping with the Contos' this year for science, studying flying creatures. Shalayne is enjoying our Friday get togethers. Its more fun than doing it alone!