Traumatic Morning But Ended on a Happier Note

For a Memorial Day Holiday it started with rain the entire night and morning. We decided to just stay in and read, paint, draw, etc. and relax. The dogs started barking in the late morning and I went down to check out the culprit. You have to understand that my dogs, bark at everything including leaves falling from trees, so I didn't figure it was much to get excited about. When I reached the kitchen and looked out the window I found a big brown dog in bunny's pen and another dog near by. I immediately yelled for Scott and I opened the door to start yelling at the dogs to leave thinking bunny was probably under his hutch where he likes to sleep. But I immediately saw his lifeless body in the corner of the pen. The neighborhood dogs had killed him. Grace was destroyed and me and Scott weren't much better. Scott got in his car to find the dogs because we had never seen the before. The owners ended up living about four houses down from us on the main road. They normally have the dogs on chains or leashes when walking but they got away from them this morning and ran off. They were very sorry and offered to get Grace a new bunny ( we probably won't do that again - bunny was a stray that just happened in to our yard almost two years ago) but Scott did tell the owners if the dogs come back in our yard (because we have a really small dog in our backyard fence that we don't want harmed) they run the risk of consequences. About this time our son came home and today is his 20th birthday. We celebrated with a pizza lunch and cookie cake for dessert. The family party will be next weekend when we also celebrate Grace's 11th birthday. It was good to have the birthday celebration today because it got our mind off of bunny for a little while. Tonight Grace will go to her first practice for The Wizard of Oz. Interested to see what kind of costume we are looking at purchasing/making.

Monster Moth

After church today we went to McDonalds for lunch and this is what we saw on the door. Huge legs and body. In the picture below we put a cup beside it so you guys could get an idea as to the size of this moth.

All About the Art

Tonight we went to a reception at a local art gallery that has some of of Scott's art work displayed. Every six - eight weeks they change it up and add new pieces from each artist. Scott had three pieces to contribute. Unfortuantely you can't take pictures inside the gallery and I can't seem to lay my hands on the memory card here at the house. If you are interested in viewing some of his new works you can visit him at http://www.artofscottk.blogspot.com . The picture above is a book I have been eyeing for a couple of months. Each time we go to a reception I see it and this time I actually had the money to purchase it. It is Wildlife Whimsy by Milton Lewis Smith and illustrations by Patsy Lewis-Gentry. It is kind of like a field guide but also a book of short stories about encounters with the wildlife. I hope to read through it with Grace for Nature Study in the new school year.

The picture above is another drawing by Grace. She has become interested in hands lately. In her art classes she has been working with shading and perspective. It was good to see her do a little bit of shading in the hand. Pencil drawings are really hard to get picture of and show up the detail.

Answer

For those that asked about the beaver - no he is not real. But funny you should ask because we were walking back from the salamander catch and the kids reached the table before some of us adults. One of the kids ran back to us and yelled "There's a beaver on the table", of course she didn't mention it was stuffed.

Field Trip

This year we haven't been able to go on many field trips due to a number of reasons that I won't go in to now. But today we did and it happened to be the last trip for our support group for the school year. We visited Smithgall Woods for a beaver talk and salamander catch.

The kids had a blast catching salamanders in the creek. Grace caught three. We learned that Georgia has the most species of salamanders - 51 - in the United States and that the Southeastern United States has the most species in the world.

It was great to see some of the group members and hang out. The talks were very informative and the kids really had a great time.

180 = Done

Yeah! Yesterday was our official last day of school. In Georgia the requirement is 180 days. But as I mentioned before we will continue some school throughout the summer. We have a few things we really need to review so we won't forget them and some books to finish. Finished all the actual math curriculum but purchased a review workbook to go through plus some review of fractions so she won't completely forget it. Some of the read alouds and books I want her to finish are Young Brahms, By the Shores of Silver Lake, the second book in the Percy Jackson Series and lots of history choices. I think next will be the California Gold Rush. Also we have recently started Easy Grammar and she has learned so much with it I don't won't to stop for two months and risk her forgetting everything she has already learned. Of course Bible will stay too. Probably regular school for us will start back up the second week of August unless drama camp doesn't happen then it will be the first week of August.

A Secret

Okay, I am going to admit something here that alot of you may be shocked about. I know alot of homeschoolers don't watch TV, don't even have cable. We are actually working on that, probably ditching the cable in 1-2 weeks getting a roku box and just watching Netflix live without those commercials that your kids have to sit through that you would rather them not see. But that's not the secret. I love TV programs. Always have. I don't watch things that I would have watched in the past though. I gave up rated R movies a couple of years ago and haven't really missed them. I watch alot of BBC shows on Netflix from England. But one of the television shows I have stuck with for the whole run is "Lost". Last night I watched the two hour finale and it was great. It ended just like I thought it was going to and the great thing about the ending was it gave you the impression that they had all died and gone to Heaven. There was a bright light. It was great to see all the cast back together again like a reunion. Very moving. Ended it just like it should. I hope that some of you out there won't think any less of me for my TV viewing habits. I don't watch anything during the day or early evening, usually once the house is quiet I pick one or two programs to watch before bed. I usually crochet, quilt, or cross stitch while watching. If there are some other TV watchers out there - what are some of your favorite programs?