One of the advantages of homeschool is that you can take a day off whenever you want! :) Friday was a beautiful day, so we headed to the beach with Grandpa. I'm not sure who had more fun - the dogs or the girls.

A couple of pictures that are overdue for posting. Also, Kristin you were incorrect - Nicky carved the elaborate pumpkin and Walter carved the other one! Here are the boys in their Halloween costumes.




Here's the birthday boy opening his presents Thursday morning - he received a scooter and metal "put-it-together-yourself" safe (wants to keep some things safely away from his brother!) from Nana & GPaZ; the Hannah Montana and High School Musical CDs and the movie "Cars" from his mom, dad & Nicky.



The school had an assembly on Joey's birthday with Fish the Magish. The teachers conspired to have Joey called to the stage to assist with a magic trick. Joey held up his hands and Fish pulled a ribbon out of his hands. That ribbon just seemed to keep coming and coming out of his hand!

We had a very nice Halloween. We went trick-or-treating with some new friends that Maddy and Katie met. We have a VERY good neighborhood - the kids came home with tons of candy, crayons, playdough and even money! Plus our neighbor does games on Halloween, so they enjoyed hanging out next door and playing games as well. All in all a good time was had by all.

Whooooo! It's spoooky Halloween!

Can you tell which pumpkin was carved by Nicky and which by Walter?

We found a praying mantis next to our side door. Here are some pictures of it - have you ever seen one so big???

Oscar passed away last night after 18 grumpy but good years. He had been so lifeless on Wednesday that I was going to bring him into the vet when Craig returned from San Francisco. It was almost like he was waiting for Craig to get home... When Craig came in and scratched him behind the ears, Oscar lifted his head which was the most movement I had seen since lunch. Craig then took the girls to swim and I stayed with Oscar. About an hour later he was in my lap and took some noticeable breaths and then died. If you gotta go, that's the way to do it.... :(

I asked Maddy who she thought he was pestering this morning for a drink from the sink and she replied, "Oh - Mommy, he can drink from the bowl again!"

THE ROOM IS DONE! Well sort of - there are a few more projects, plus some decorating that needs to be completed, but they can move in! We patched all the holes from the electrical work (which was a terrible mess), then we painted. The girls were a great help with the painting. I did the cutting in and they did the paint rolling on the walls.








Here they are working on putting the bed together. Is Craig helping the girls or the girls helping Craig??????





















The finished room!











After all that hard work, we need a good night's sleep!

The much awaited picture of Katie with her brand new glasses! She says the world is much clearer now! :)

So here are pictures of the much awaited finished porch! Unfortunately, now we decided the tree needs to come down and then the landscaping needs to be reworked. Of course Craig would like to fix the ugly soffit & gutters as well.... One project just leads to the next in this house! :)

Here are a few shots from the wedding. Mark & Karen got married on Saturday, 9/23/06. The boys were ring-bearers and got to wear really cool tuxes!

Here is the progress on the new porch. I think that the stone is really going to give it the same look that it had before we had to tear it all up.

Spent the weekend camping by Hawk Mountain. It is an official counting location for migrating birds of prey. We saw several hawks and turkey vultures, 5 osprey and 3 bald eagles. Unfortunately, Walter couldn't make the trip, so I had to replace him with new hiking companions. They aren't as talkative, but they sure are much better at finding and staying on the trail! :)

Here are pictures of the big birthday celebration! Maddy turned 9 and Grandma turned 91. As Grandma said, "You put them together and they are 100!"

We decided to attend a Corn Roast this weekend which was at the Indian Culture Museum in Allentown. As most of you know, Maddy's very favorite subject is history, so we are really enjoying early American history while we are out here in Pennsylvania. The girls learned how to make an animal skin into a soft piece of leather. (The pictures are of them taking the fur off the skin.) Did you know that once the fur is removed and it has been dried, you coat it with mashed up brain and water to get it soft? We also learned that if you make arrows and tools from stone you are a "flint knapper". (By the way, in the controversy about what you call the native people... they all called themselves "Indians" which I find fascinating since we are taught to call them natives... Just an interesting observation...)






You of course can't go to Allentown without checking to see if they indeed did close all the factories down... Although in Bethlehem, there was no evidence of people filling out forms, standing in line.... :) This is a shot of one of the steel mills that was shut down, but is just standing and rotting.... The girls took it from the car window and thought it would make a good postcard.

As many of you know, we joined a CSA ("community supported agriculture" farm - www.pennypackfarm.org if you are interested in those types of things...). Craig jokes that it was a large sum of money to allow our children to weed - Maddy loves to go and weed at the farm. But besides weeding, we do get a share of veggies every week. Being vegetable challenged, I often do not know what I am getting. So, I thought it would be fun to play name that fruit/vegetable right here on the blog! So here is this week's mystery item - you get bonus points if you can not only name it but come up with a recipe that my family enjoys! (And yes, I do know that is a banana in the background - I only put it in the picture for scale...)

I am going to post (with not a single picture) to get opinions on curriculum for the girls, so please comment or send me an e-mail if you have thoughts.... We are going to start studying Latin, but my dilemma is should we pick a curriculum that has classical or Christian pronunciation?

Our reasons for studying Latin are for the vocabulary and also for the grammar - I'm not intending for them to become fluent or anything that serious... I'm leaning towards the Christian pronunciation just because there are more curriculum choices if I go that route, but I didn't know if there was a compelling reason to look for something with the classical.

This is my last curriculum decision for this year..... let the thoughts roll in so I can finish my orders for this year! :)

Vacation Pictures - Great Smokey Mountains, July 2006

The infamous Sliding Rock!
Check out http://www.ncwaterfalls.com/sliding_rock1.htm for the scoop on Sliding Rock. Suffice it to say that even though the water at the bottom was "SHOCKINGLY COLD", the kids and Walter went back for a second slide. Here they are going up...











And here they are coming down... (click on the pictures to really see the kids)















Joey and I were the photographers. Rumor has it there are even movies of Tante Laura and Onkel Walter sliding down "the Rock". We had a blast on this year's camping trip - our next trip is yet to be determined but we have lots of ideas!!!!

Vacation Pictures - Great Smokey Mountains, July 2006

Roaring Falls Creek - just around the corner from our campsite




This beautiful waterfall was just a few miles from our campsite at Black Mountain. The kids had a great time sliding down the falls, even with the water being ice cold mountain water!

Vacation Pictures - Great Smokey Mountains, July 2006

The Appalachian Trail



Did you know Laura plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine, some day? Well this day, she got to hike a few miles on it. Amy, Katie and Joey were to rendevous with the car but wouldn't you know it - the hikers got off on the wrong trail path and had to hoof it on the road to find the waiting car!!!

Vacation Pictures - Great Smokey Mountains, July 2006

A mining adventure...


Gee, Joe - is that bag of gold and gems really heavy?












Busy beavers looking for treasure...






Look what I found!!!!











Leaving with our gold and gems!

Look who also has four missing teeth! Lost the fourth one this morning while brushing his teeth.

Uncle Walter and I keep learning more and more each trip we take! For example in the first picture you can see that with the use of a trail map and trail blazes we were successful in reaching our final destination - the summit of Mt Mitchell. (We won't mention other privious hikes without a trail map or not taking any notice of trail blazing that taught us about what to do when encountering a grizzly bear...) Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi. It took us 2.5 hours to summit a 5.5 mile trail with an elevation gain of about 3000ft.













But then there is always a new lesson to be learned......














Perhaps the lesson learned was that we are way too old to be mountain biking....
Or maybe you should not pick a single track trail rated difficult for your first mountain biking experience....
Or maybe you should actually have a mountain bike before attempting to use any mountain bike trail....


Be sure to click on the pictues to get the best effect! :)

While you are anxiously awaiting more vacation photos, here is a picture of Katie with no teeth!! She lost both of her front teeth while on vacation, so if you were wondering, the tooth fairy can find children in a camper!

Just a little teaser of some of the vacation pictures! The Smokey Mountains were awesome, but I guess they wrote "Smokey Mountain Rain" for a reason - we did manage to have a really great time even though it rained almost every day at least once, but boy are those shoes we brought back stinky! :)













See how much fun the kids have on our trips???? Well maybe it is not all fun...... What do you have to say about that Joe???

















Here we are enjoying a picnic lunch after a good hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Good thing for those trail maps or Walter would have gotten us mighty lost! :)