"Ocean in View, O the Joy!"

It is March, which seems to be the month for making summer plans, that is, if you don't get it planned it March, it might not be an option by the time June gets here.  Our church, for example, opens VBS registration in March.  March is also a time when moving announcements start to build up.  Natalie currently has two friends "moving this summer".  One of the families is not just the family of her friend, but Annalise's, Caleb's, and mine.  We are all crestfallen.

In our transient community (oxymoron, I know), I am never surprised by these announcements and I never find a reason for these people to stay (other than to please me).   It is a difficult place to live, but in the last few months I have begun to feel kind of defensive about it as my own home turf.  Maybe it was the hurricane.  Maybe it's just been a long time coming.

Lewis and Clark are rapidly approaching the Pacific, but we have to cross the Bitterroot Mountains first.  I have almost half of the movie edited and am pretty pleased with it.

Here is a somewhat anonymous picture from the class.  Our grizzly really isn't very frightening, but he will have to do!  The kids really do like dressing up and acting, so that is fun, a few of them are really good at it too.     

We went to Black Point with some friends last week.  One of those last minute outings, it was a lovely day for that kind of thing.

Annalise went on the 4th and 5th grade church retreat.   She had a fun time :)

Caleb and Rob got to go fishing on a boat on Saturday, so all day Saturday I had just the little girls and they not only play delightfully together, they both like to shop, so I took advantage of that!  Otherwise we are slowly adjusting to the time change - did you know that Florida may go to year round daylight savings time?  I don't know what to think about that.

2nd Week of February

A little while ago I was looking at dresses online and noticed a line that said the model was 5'10" and a size 5.  I know models are tall.  I know models are thin.  I know dresses won't look the same on me as they do on models.  But knowing the actual numbers gave me pause.  Actually it took the pause away.  I glanced at a few more dresses and left the website.  No way was a dress going to look even similar on me as it did on a woman significantly taller and smaller than me.  I didn't even want to see them.

I have never been particularly skilled at picking out clothes.  I find it stressful and it makes me feel inept.  I can read a recipe and know if the meal will taste good, but I cannot look at clothes and know if I will like them.  I find this especially difficult at retail stores because any item is available in any size.  I do better in thrift stores where an item is only an option if it fits.  It takes some of the choice away and the less choosing I have to do, the more relaxed I am about it.  I also like that thrift stores let you sample different brand names.  Since clothing is so abundant these days, I find that if I need something specific I can almost always find it second-hand.  It also makes me feel like I'm doing something good for the environment - recycling sort of.

Last week, Caleb spent most of it in the Keys.  He fished and fished.  He even caught a shark.   He got back in time for enrichment on Friday.  We had a busy time in Lewis and Clark - lots of costume changes!  That is all going ok.  It is not going to be spectacular, but it is fun and I think they will like the end result.  I disassembled the keelboat and made it into two canoes (the real Lewis and Clark sent their keelboat back home midway and continued on in canoes).  I turned the walls of the Meriwether Lewis's private office into more trees.

The opposite side is spray painted white and was for the White House scene.  I am going to make that side into snow covered mountains (The Bitterroot Mountains).  The nearest tree section is already painted that way.  It has never been anything but trees and mountains.

The girls and I visited the French Bakery while Caleb was gone and he has not forgiven us.

Natalie made and decorated these cupcakes for a bake sale last weekend:

She used leftover icing from this FSU cake I made:

I made it for a friend who works with students at a local high school.  Most of them are homeless, including this girl who was accepted into FSU.

And a tomato update:

Heirlooms - the tomatoes are getting really heavy.

Chocolate Sprinkles - we've eaten a few of these already.

Back to Reality

We went to Disney with Rob's parents last weekend.  It was fun, the weather was nice, it was even kind of magical, and boy, was it full of people!  So many people!  It made me wonder - does Disney ever get so full, they turn people away?  (Online forums seem to think they do.)  The days we were there medium range days - 6 or 7 out of 10 - 10 being capacity (but we were expecting 3 or 4 level crowds).  The most popular rides almost all had at least an hour wait.  The kids handled all the line waiting pretty well, maybe growing up in Miami has taught them that! 

A few of my favorite pictures:

Back home to tomatoes, Youth Fair projects, China, and Lewis and Clark. 

The projects we are registered for are starting to look at little overwhelming to me.  I am not sure we will finish even half of them.  I guess that's ok.

We had a little hiccup in the Lewis and Clark class.  I needed to reshoot a scene involving Thomas Jefferson and the boy who played TJ the first day absolutely refused to reshoot the scene.   So I took a deep breath and said, "That's fine, I will work it out some other way."  The rest of the scenes we shot look good (although I filmed them upside down).  The boy playing Lewis is taller than I realized and his costume looks ...eh...really short.  I am not sure what I will do about that!  While we were out, one of the moms subbed and they made some feathered headbands to use in some upcoming scenes. 

That will have to do for this week.  I am still a little wiped out from the Disney trip and an early bedtime sounds good to me.

The Bear Video

This is the part of the L & C video that shows the encounter with the grizzly bear.  Volume consistency was not something we mastered.

Completing the Journey with Lewis and Clark

Our last two days in our Lewis and Clark video focused on the adventures they had and discoveries the made. These were two topics they kids requested to include in the video.  At one point, the team found and was chased by a bear and had a rather narrow escape.  They really enjoyed reenacting that one!

Annalise thought it would be a good idea to show Lewis and Clark naming previously unknown plants and animals - one of their main objectives.

We finished with them seeing the Pacific Ocean!

Naturally, they went back home after that, but we did not include the return trip (in which Lewis is mistaken for an elk and shot in the rear) in our video.

We all learned a lot in this study.   I had never really thought before about what it would have been like - what a risk they were taking and also how successful the trip was overall.  And while I know the kids will not remember all the details, I know they will enjoy re-watching the video and learning it all over again.

Moving Along with Lewis and Clark

We have gotten the Corps of Discovery all the way to Ft. Mandan in what is now North Dakota.  The lapbooks are coming along nicely and our video is getting longer!  I am not posting video tonight because we filmed our neighborhood friends.

Here is Annalise modeling the fringed jacket we made from a paper bag.  Our regular dress up clothes were enough for our kids, but we needed some extra costumes.  She is wearing a headdress we made, hopefully I will have better pictures of that.

I didn't mean to take this picture, I hit the wrong button trying to take a video, but I like it a lot :)

These hats are from our standby pirate costume collection.  You never know when you will need to dress like a pirate!

Our second video was about Lewis and Clark choosing men to accompany them on their trip - but as I said before, our street has mostly girls and they weren't interested in pretending to be men!  So we decided, it didn't matter, we'd just have them as young women applying for work on the boat.  The more important thing is who they choose and who they didn't.  Several sons of country gentlemen applied and were rejected because they were feared to be lazy or just not tough enough.

We added these characters by having a southern belle apply - she was similarly turned down :)

The applicants who were chosen had military experience, wilderness experience, or extensive knowledge of Native American culture.

Our third video was the departure - we filmed part of a video about meeting Sacajawea, but did not finish.  The Odd Squad Movie premiered this week.  Priorities, priorities!

Even though I'm not going to publicize the whole film, the kids are getting a lot of entertainment by watching it over and over and over and over.....

Crossing the West with Lewis and Clark - Day 1

This week, we are lapbooking.  I had requested a book from the library called How We Crossed the West because it showed up when I was searching for more diary books.  This one is a diary book, but it is not the same style as the Cleopatra book I blogged about earlier.  It is a beautifully illustrated book and the text is entirely taken from quotes from travel journals from the Corps of Discovery - better known as Lewis and Clark.

Materials to study the journey of Lewis and Clark (and their team) are very easy to find.  I also found free lapbook templates.  Lapbooks - I read somewhere - are best thought of as scrapbooking meets studying.  Additionally, the kids will be making videos about what they have learned.  This appeals to them much more than the lapbooks because they all love to make videos.

I suggested they enlist the kids on our street - there are 7 elementary aged children on our street and 5 of them are girls.  The only named girl character will be Sacajawea and none of the girls are eager about playing any of the male characters.  Annalise was agreeable, however, to being Meriwether Lewis. 

Here are the videos from the first day:

(The basket in the foreground is hiding the book.)

Different candle, different feather, obviously Kentucky!

I think Natalie really steals the show in this one!