Harvest Festival

Last week I was reading the newspaper and I saw an article about the upcoming events in the Tri-Cities; it mentioned a Harvest Festival happening.  We decided spur of the moment to go.

Running up to see a helicopter. Well, everyone else was running.  I don't run if I can help it.  It was neat that a medical helicopter was there.

Whitney and Megan both took turns sitting in the helicopter (Rachel didn't want to).  I almost wish I had sat in it so I could say that I have been in a helicopter.

Going through a little obstacle course.  

There were quite a few carnival like games.  Kids could win tickets and use them to buy small trinkets.

And nothing like a carnival game mixed with advertisement for the grown ups.

The girls show off their arm paintings.  

We bought a couple of cupcakes; they were by donation from a little girl who made them herself.  Look at that cupcake face.  Rachel's face got some chuckles from everyone.

There was a little animal pen that was fun.  Megan is feeding a chicken a piece of popcorn.  All the girls thought that was fun.  And nobody got their fingers bit.

And fishing out the 'mosquitoes'.  A little funny, but oh well.  The girls also got popsicles and Megan got a free helmet.  So it was fun.

We knew the kids wouldn't like the food at the festival, so we stopped at McDonalds for some chicken nuggets and french fries.

The play structure was a little "too awesome".  Kids could remain up there forever and never need to come down to the waiting parents.  We had to cajole Megan down over and over.  Will and I were thinking we might have to go up ourselves to grab her.  It looked like one of the most fun play structures in a a McDonalds I have seen.

Anyway, it was a fun day. 

A Jensen Visit

We had a good weekend with the Jensens.  Except for a crazy four hour power outage, things went well.  I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are some of the things we did.

We kept the visit pretty casual (mostly because there isn't a lot to do around here).  So we went to a nearby park.  The kids rolled cars down the slide.

And being pushed in the swings by your aunt is way more fun.

Will broke out his new croquet set.  Nobody was hurt in the swinging of the mallets.

After dinner, we went to the ice cream store.  It sells other food too, but we only ever use our free ice cream coupons.  The kids loved their ice cream.

Most of the time was spent doing fun silly things at home.  Here we got out the musical instruments and the kids did a marching band.  That was pretty cute.

Getting a calming down story from Dana.  He was very patient and read the entire Green Eggs and Ham story (I always skip a little).

And some nintendo time before bed.  I think this was Whitney's favorite time.  She loved playing Super Smash Bros. with her cousins.

Playing a game of Hullabaloo.  This provided minutes of fun - minutes.

And finally a picture of all the kids.  They are even mostly looking at the camera.  Megan thought her cousin Magnus was the cat's meow.  He would make a funny face or funny noise and she just burst out laughing.  That was funny.

Anyway, thanks for coming to visit us.  We had a good time.

Homeschooling Whitney

So I know that it has been a little while since we have posted, but I have recently started homeschooling Whitney.  It has been a bit of an adjustment going from mostly playing over the summer time to doing real schoolwork.  But I think we are adjusting well.  We just finished week three today.

Our school day always starts with reading our book.  We are currently reading Charlotte's Web (thanks to Michael and Allison who gave the book to us).  Whitney is not a huge fan of the story and says it is kind of boring and yet she always sits really close to me and looks at the pictures intently and knows what is happening.  So I think she likes it more than she claims.  We also read some 'little' kid books that we have gotten from the library.

This is Whitney doing her math.  We spent the first two weeks reviewing numbers and how to write them correctly.  Now we have moved onto simple addition.  Whitney does some problems everyday and then she gives me math problems.  I don't mind this because it helps her learn how to write mathematical equations.

Will made this number chart that we are also working on.  Whitney is starting to hear the differences between like 'sixty' and 'sixteen'.  Things like that.  So that has been really helpful.

Whitney points to the continent of Europe.  I don't think she will memorize this year which continent is which.  But we have a book that has some pictures of interesting sites in each continent.  We had an interesting conversation the other day on whether it would be more fun to visit the Great Wall of China or Buckingham Palace.

This is Whitney's favorite part of school work - science.  We are studying the human body.  Mostly we have just gotten through with the brain.  We got to do little experiments about the five sense.  That was fun.

And everyday is an 'extra' thing.  So one day a week is music, one is church, one is art, etc.  The girls had learned about Noah's ark on Tuesday, so on Wednesday we pulled out some wooden animals and got to color them for art and pretend to put them on the ark.  That was fun.  Of course, Megan picked a button.  I don't think that really belonged to the ark, but oh well.  

Not shown is Whitney's work on reading and writing.  My mom gave us a neat phonics book and we are learning to distinguish between beginning, middle, and ending of words.  Everyday gets a little better.  That is what is so neat about teaching, you get to see progress.

This isn't from homeschooling, but has become a part of our everyday living.  Megan thinks she should "help" me wash dishes.  She has kind of become a water hog and she spills a ton all over herself and the floor.  But it just makes her so happy that I don't have the heart to tell her no.

Anyway, homeschooling and Umatilla are going well.