Another Day at the Aquarium

Samuel and I drove down to see Grandma and Gramps for a couple of weeks because Noah and Jack were staying with them for a few days before going on vacation. We all went to the Aquarium. Pretty soon we're going to be on a first name basis with everyone there! I think the kids all have everything there memorized.

Here's Grandma and Gramps and all the grandkids.

Touching the stingrays. The kids were not too happy with the stingrays this time. They stayed far away from the edge so they didn't really get a chance to touch them.

Standing in a shark cage.

Samuel looking at the crabs

I never could get a decent picture of the three of them together. This was the best I could do.

Little Hands Towards Heaven - Unit 1

We have finished our first week of preschool using Heart of Dakota's Little Hands Towards Heaven. Samuel loves it! We had so much fun. From the website, "Little Hands to Heaven is a complete preschool program that includes: letter recognition, letter formation, letter sounds and motions, early math skills, Bible activities, devotional topics, art projects, dramatic plays, active exploration, finger plays, and music." Here's a few highlights of our week:

Samuel working on one of our art projects. We drew a picture with a white crayon on white paper and then painted over it with black paint to make the picture show up illustrating how God created the world out of nothing.

Samuel making a Letter A out of dried beans. He has also been asking me to show him how to write the Letter A over and over again and is getting pretty good at it.

One of the things he will be doing over the next few weeks is making his own 1-10 counting book. Today we started the first page. Our Bible story was about Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge, so we have 1 tree in our counting book. We were supposed to cut a picture from a magazine, but we didn't have any laying around so I printed one off the computer, Samuel colored it, and then he cut it out and glued it on his counting page. He liked using the scissors :)

We're Homeschooling!

Adam and I have made a decision to homeschool Samuel. Yes, we both went to public schools and turned out fine, but that was a few years ago and things have changed since then. We have prayed, talked to other families that homeschool, I've read books and researched like crazy, and we both feel that this is what we are led to do at least through elementary school. After that, we'll reevaluate and decide whether to continue or to go to public school or private school at that time. We have several reasons for our decision, here's a few of them:

• wanting a Christian education but not wanting to pay the cost of private school


• seeing/hearing about things that went on in public schools when I was working at DCS


• I can teach Samuel the same things as the school in less than half the time each day


• ability to choose or design a curriculum for Samuel's individual strengths/weaknesses, learning style, etc.


• many more that I don't have the time to list

For those of you worried about socialization, he will have plenty of chances to be around other kids at church, Sunday school, AWANA, community sports, etc. We have also joined a homeschool group that has once a week classes, field trips, park days, Valentines & Christmas parties, graduation for Kindergarten, 8th grade, and high school, and lots of clubs like 4-H, boy scouts, and others. We are going to be doing some preschool/PreK stuff over the next couple of years to get used to the routine and things before he starts Kindergarten and we have to report to the school district. We are using an awesome preschool curriculum from Heart of Dakota (The link is to the right) and Samuel loves it! You'll probably be seeing lots of pictures and stories of what we're doing.

Charleston - Day 5

On Tuesday, we went to Patriots Point. It's a museum/historic area that has several different ships:

• USS Yorktown - an aircraft carrier
• USS Clamagore - a submarine
• USS Laffey - a destroyer
• USCG Ingham - a coast guard cutter

It also has a few other exhibits that we didn't get to because it was getting late and Samuel was getting hungry.

Here we are with the USS Yorktown in the background.

Samuel firing the gun on the deck of the USS Yorktown

Uncle Jon and Samuel running across the deck

Samuel sitting in the air intake of an F-18 (Uncle Jon put him there, but I think we were probably breaking some rules)

We didn't get anymore pictures because right after that, the camera battery died. I think Patriot Point was one of Samuel's favorite thing though. Every knob that could be twisted or button that could be pushed was tested out by Samuel! He had a lot of fun.

That afternoon, we also went to Fort Moultrie. It's a fort that was used in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and World War II. It is across the harbor from Fort Sumter. Samuel liked running through all the bunkers and tunnels.

Charleston - Day 4, Part 2

Samuel buidling a sand castle. Notice the sand all over his face. For some reason, he kept trying to eat it.

Jumping waves again with Uncle Jon and Mommy

We only got to stay at the beach for about an hour because it started raining. After an afternoon nap, we went to play mini golf that evening--another first for Samuel. I don't think he ever really figured out that he was supposed to hit the ball with his club, but he had fun anyway!

Charleston - Day 4

On Monday, we went to the beach! Samuel was so excited to get to play in the ocean for the first time. This is a picture of when he first saw the water.

He loved the sand!

Here he is jumping waves with Uncle Jon. This kid has no fear! After just a few minutes he was having a fit because he wanted to walk in the water by himself and not hold anyone's hand. We let him go but once the first wave knocked him over he was ready to hold on to us again!

Jumping waves with Daddy

It won't let me add anymore pictures to this post, so there will be a part 2....

Charleston - Days 2 & 3

I'm breaking these up because of all the pictures. I don't think I can put them all in one post. On Saturday we all slept in after being up late for the fireworks, and then took Samuel to a matinee of Wall-E that afternoon. He loved the movie and the popcorn. The rest of us weren't that impressed. It was OK, but I personally liked Kung Fu Panda much better.

That night -- being the good sister that I am -- I cooked dinner for everybody. Wasn't that nice of me even though I was on vacation? I had offered to make lasagna, but Jon has no baking pans (hmm...maybe he needs some for Christmas?) so we had burritos instead.

Sunday we got up and went to church with Uncle Jon. That afternoon we pretty much just crashed at his house. I think we were all just tired from the weekend.

Charleston - Day 1

We went to Charleston for a week to visit Uncle Jon. Samuel was so excited and had been counting down the "sleeps" until we went to see Uncle Jon for weeks!

Our first day in Charleston we drove downtown and walked along the battery. Samuel liked being able to see the ocean, but was upset that we wouldn't let him swim in it right then! There wasn't a beach there or we would have let him. Here's a few pictures:

We went back to Jon's house for the afternoon so Samuel could take a nap before going to Jon's church for fireworks that night. We didn't take the camera but Samuel seemed to like the fireworks. He was pretty interested at first but since they lasted 30-45 minutes he got tired of them after a while.