End of September, fall is here

This was a fairly busy week. Monday we started learning about Iceland and went on to other Northern European countries later in the week. I was a little surprised how many countries and regions that were crammed into this one week and felt the lessons were a little lacking. I added in more information about the Scandinavian countries, after all my Grandfather's parents lived in Norway until shortly before he was born! I told the boys that they most get their blond hair from the "Viking" side. Tristan exclaimed I don't want to be a Viking, I want to be a Roman! LOL No Roman in our family tree, sorry dear. It's British from Daddy and British, Norwegian and Native American from Mummy. For Zoology we delved into family Felidae, Hayley was actually able to "teach" some things she already knew about big cats to her younger brothers. She has read quite a lot about felines big and small. She told us about Ligers and Tigons, so cool! We had a science game about Cougar's and their prey and found out how many generations of cougars might make it through the winters by tossing pretend cougars onto pretend deer....ok it was a little silly but Tristan had a lot of fun. We viewed the Curr Click Lego club for September and were able to make DNA models from Lego's. The kids had to do it twice due to a technical error in the material but they learned more through the error and had fun making the models twice. We continued our fun Fridays and spent the morning doubling up on our read aloud of George Muller so that we could finish the book. What a great story that was. Then we did some fun science and made Lava lamps and also found out why pop rocks and soda won't REALLY make your stomach blow up with a pop rocks experiment. Colin and Tristan continued to work on their cursive writing, they;re both doing so well. We did some work on merit badges and of course math and language arts plus reading for Tristan. It was a full but good week. More events of the week are below with photos and comments.

Monday Hayley and I headed of the the New Hampshire International Speedway to do some dirty work! Our boys scout troop was cleaning at the track as a fundraiser. I have to say it was really, really, really gross! Only 8 of us from the troop volunteered to clean too so we didn't get any bonuses. Kids had to be at least 14 so Colin and Tristan couldn't go, they stayed home with Trevor and Hayley joined me in the cleaning. It was very dirty work and we were glad when it was over! Photos below.

Comet Turned 5 months old this week! The time has gone so fast!! He's turning into quite a handsome dog....a big eared one! The kids measured his ears since they seemed so much floppier than Freeze's ears. They were around 7" long compared to 4 or 5" for Freeze. Comet didn't get Lab. ears. LOL

Below is the cougar eats the deer game from Zoology:

 Here two of the kids work on the Lego DNA project. They watched the pre recorded video class on my laptop and built along with the instructor.

One day this week we found Comet in a box! He tried sleeping in it and then chewed it up!!

 Comet also tried his hand at some sled dog work. He may just have a future in that line of work, he liked pulling Tristan in the wagon.

Fridays can only mean one thing at our house this year, a shorter day and some fun! We did some fun experiments this week, sometimes we do physical science labs and sometimes just fun things I have found during the week. First we did pop rock science as mentioned above.

Then we made some Lava lamps which work way better than I expected them to! It's perfect if you have a "dot light" to put under the bottle since the dot lights are pretty flat.

Friday also means that Comet is another week old since he was born on a Friday. He had fun at the beach and then we did the weekly at the beach photo. Comet is still growing fast, he's 44 pounds now, and is still hyper!

 Hayley tries to manage all three dogs for the weekly photo on the beach. Freeze gets more well behaved as the weeks pass, he's 3 now and is finally past the puppy stage, Comet, now 22 weeks, gets bigger, crazier and more lovable. Bonkers, 13.5 gets older. Today she was quite off and just sat and kinda zoned out for awhile as seen in a photo below. She sometimes just has a little daze type moment rather than an actual seizure. Except for her epilepsy and old body she is generally a very happy, let's go and have fun dog still. I don't know how much longer she'll be on earth with us but for now she keeps on going!

And while we were at the lake Tristan and the other men of the family were doing some fall yard work. Bobby got himself a new weed whacker that can take attachments so he was having a grand time with that as guys often will with power tools. Tristan was far to small to manage the weed whacker but he made a great arch and fence with some forsythia the guys were cutting back. Tristan you always say you're not good at art but you are! In so many ways!! For the forsythia fence he wove branches in and out. Clever boy!

Other things we did included going to boy scouts and that was so frustrating this week. Some of us are more in or out with the leaders and right now I think I'm out. Some of the leaders don't seem to approve of homeschooling and one or two find it hard and awkward that my boys are vegetarian, those two things have caused us some grief. Now I don't even know what is up but the leader in charge of popcorn would not get back to me about picking some up to sell and now we are several weeks in it will be harder to sell. I still tried to ask for some last night but he said it was all gone. Then a minute later he said to my friend that he can get her some more popcorn somehow. We both laughed he seemed to want me to hear that! OK so we are out- YOU pay for my boys camp next year!! Also the same leader when asked why he hadn't talked to my boys about the insect study badge, when they'd handed in their paperwork 4 weeks ago. He said he had reservations about their work. Well he picked the wrong badge to question, my kids all know insects and all sorts of animals. They have done the things in that badge countless times just for fun. If he questioned any other badge besides an animal one I would take it seriously but this is ridiculous. The things he mentioned having reservations about were just silly and petty. Basically he doesn't like that the homeschoolers have been earning more badges than the others (we just plain have more time and boys who want to earn as many as they can!) so he is now going to put up a fuss I guess. Most of his "reservations" were things I had emailed him to ask questions about but he never answered my emails. Between that and the popcorn I was really angry because this was one leader I felt was nicer than a couple others and I think he used to like us but clearly we are now out not in with him. There is so much going on, issues between other parents, some bullying among the older boys, lack of organization and an SPL who seems pretty clueless. I just wish I could interest my boys in something else. It's not a healthy troop or a good place to spend so much of our time, money and energy. I know they want to see one of their older friends though his Eagle project, which is nearly done and they want to go to State Jamboree since it only comes up every few years. We will stick it out a little longer but I feel we have one foot out the door so to speak. So boys when you are grown ups and reading this some day, since really that's what all these years of blogs have been about you kids getting to read about your childhood and show your own children, maybe you will understand more why your Mom couldn't stick out Boy Scouts for the long haul. I just can't even imagine trying to do this with these people for 5 or 6 more years.

On a happier note we have really had a great first month back to homeschooling. Tristan is reading better every week, the dyslexia program we have been using is like a miracle for him. Colin is fussing less about the slightly higher workload he has this year now that he is 13. Hayley is becoming more independent with her work and Trevor who only has two years left of high school has started investigating career or college choices that might be a little more realistic. He is still off in his own world of languages, space and science fiction a lot but he also wants to start learning about auto repair and possibly community college.

As to the weather, there has been a chill in the air some days. Fall is here. Comet enjoys fall...he loves all the falling leaves and acorns! He seems to think they are toys falling out of the sky just for him!! We have taken some nice hikes and notice the changes in the woods. The leaves are changing color and falling fast. The mushrooms are turning to goop. The chipmunks are scurrying around madly. The gardens are on their last harvest and many of the plants are already dying off. I'm hoping for a mild fall, I don't want to think about the cold and winter any sooner than I have to!