Local Townhall

Our representative Congressman David Wu held a townhall in the little town right next to ours, so I thought I'd take the kids and see if I would get the opportunity to speak to him about my concerns. Not surprisingly, that didn't happen. Though we have a high school with a large gymnasium and several other venues he could have chosen that would have given many more people the ability to participate, there was only seating for 70 people inside the room where the townhall was held.


I'm still glad I went. Both kids were interested in the whole thing, and Ryan enjoyed reading all the signs and asking about what the meant. We had an impromptu civics and history lesson right there in the parking lot, and they got to see the democratic process at work. We didn't stay too long once we realized we wouldn't get in, but while we were there, it was pretty peaceful and respectful. It was frustrating to see (and hear) union employees who had their professionally made signs and who were bussed in from who knows where...but I digress.


The kids behaved very well and were patient with me as I lingered to listen to people talk and when I took the time to fill out a comment card, so afterward I surprised them and treated them to an ice cream cone at McDonald's. We ate ice cream and discussed the Constitution. I had a great time, and moments like those are what keeps me going with homeschooling, reminding me what a gift it is to be able to be there when the light bulb goes on.

Central Oregon Camping

We took our first family camping trip of the season last weekend, and it certainly wasn't boring, though we did see the offramp to go there.


Let's just say it started out with a bang. We stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station on the top of Mt. Hood and someone backed into our van.



No one was hurt (though Abby was pretty shaken up) thankfully, and the exchange of information went well and except for a terrible crunching and scraping noise when opening and closing the passenger-side door, we were still able to safely drive our van.


Aside from our small accident, this camping trip was our best so far! After leaving the gas station, we continued to drive several hours to the John Day Fossil Beds. We got to our free campground in plenty of time to get camp set up, cut up some firewood, and get dinner going before dark. We were almost completely alone at the campground, which was wonderful! The nearest campers were two sites away and though there was someone setting up camp each evening, they always left first thing in the morning.


After a frigid night (note to self: always bring the heater if you even remotely think you might need it!), we awoke, made breakfast and prepared for a day at the fossil beds.



Our first day was spent exploring the museum at the Sheeprock Unit. The scenery was incredible with tons of exposed strata, wildflowers, and small wildlife to see. Though many (dare I say most?) people who come through this area see Darwinian evolution at work, all I could see was a God who is more powerful and creative than I can possibly imagine.



We first went to the museum that houses the Thomas Condon Palentology Center. It was interesting to note that Thomas Condon was a Protestant minister who came out west to spread the gospel. He then was shown the fossil beds and began excavating them and sending the fossils back East, which created quite a lot of excitement among the scientists of the time.


Sadly, he chose to believe in evolution as God's method of working rather than the teaching of the Bible which says God made the animals after their own kind. While we saw hundreds of fossil specimens, I found it of particular importance (and pointed out to our children) that every single fossil was the same or incredibly similar to the species we currently have on our planet. There wasn't one transitional form among the thousands that have been found.


After leaving the palentology center, we drove just down the road to visit Thomas Condon's home which is now a museum which house the history of the people of the area during this time. We had a nice picnic lunch there on the grounds. The first picture is of his homestead cabin and the second is of the house he built later. Quite a difference, eh?




After lunch we visited the sheep barns and orchards and took a walk down to the John Day River. Then we decided to do some more hiking in the surrounding hills. It was beautiful, though a little warm for us Western Oregonians.


Ryan was rather grumpy due to the heat and all the walking we were doing, but the rest of us had a grand time! Abby thought it was a great hardship that she wasn't allowed to keep any of the rocks she kept finding everywhere as it's against the law to remove them.




We took hundreds of pictures, and I had a hard time narrowing them down for this blog post.







We usually incorporate some geocaching into our camping, and we did so this time too. Our last hike was actually to find the cache of a multi-cache we had been doing all day, and it gave us quite a view.



Finally we were out of time and energy and so we drove back to our campground for some dinner and rest. Stayed tuned for the day two post...

The Hobbit

Our homeschool group got a great discount on the Northwest Children's Theatre production of the Hobbit, and since Ryan has just finished reading The Hobbit, I decided it would be a fun thing to go see.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the theater,
so we did our obligatory pose outside before going in.
I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be fabulous! They didn't have many props or much room on the small stage, but they did wonders with what they had to work with. It didn't hurt that we had front row center seats (literally) and had to move our feet out of the way for the actors when they came off the stage for parts of the performance. It was great to be so close and feel like we were part of the action! Both kids loved the show, and Mommy was duly impressed.

Schools on Trains

Amtrak has a program in our area called Schools on Trains, and for a discounted rate school groups can travel between Bellingham, Seattle, Portland, Eugene and all stations in between. Fortunately for us, Amtrak has included homeschool groups in the bargain, and yesterday for the first time we joined our local homeschool group on the trip!


We arrived a little early to the station and spent some time looking around. Little by little our group began arriving until finally the station was packed! We had the more than the maximum 72 people in our group since a half a dozen people had to pay full fare in order to bring their younger children along. For a short time we thought my hubby was going to have to leave us to take care of a crisis at work, but thankfully he got it worked out before the train left and was able to accompany us.


The kids (particularly Abby) were so excited! Our group took up more than two whole passenger cars, and I'm sure the rest of the travelers were glad we had the cars all to ourselves because it was a fairly loud and boisterous group of kids (and parents).


After exploring all the fascinating buttons and the curtains and things on the train, the kids settled down and looked out the window and played some games we brought and drew pictures for a couple of hours. We walked the length of the train so they could see all the different cars, and Ryan and I talked to the conductor for a short time.


About 45 minutes before arriving in Seattle, we got out the lunch we had packed and they kids loved eating in their seats with the tray tables down. It's amazing how just a change in location makes an ordinary PB&J so much more fun!


After almost three hours, we arrived in Seattle, and we were ready to get up and do some walking. In fact, we spent almost all of our four and a half hours there walking. We walked down to the Pike Place Market and went to our favorite places there (including a donut shop and the fish throwing place), then we walked through the hundreds of stalls and enjoyed seeing all the gorgeous flowers and fresh produce they have for sale every day of the year.

If you look closely you can see the Ryan is screaming
his head off because they scared him with the monk fish!
This is a favorite trick that lets bystanders laugh at other
people's expense. It truly is funny to watch though
when you know what's going to happen.
It would be so incredible to have access to that kind of farmer's market and fresh fish year round! I have never been to the market when they didn't have a fabulous selection.



Of course the market has all sorts of wares besides food and flowers. Artisans of all sorts sell their products, and then there's the usual "performance artists" that share their "talents" hoping for some spare change.


In all the times I've visited the Pike Place Market, I've never actually gone into the first Starbucks and bought anything, but today we changed that. It was totally packed, but they managed to get our drinks to us with impressive speed! So now I've been to the very first Starbucks...ah, I feel complete.


We were blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day! It was on the cool side, but the temp ended up being just perfect for walking around with a light jacket. We could see the snow-capped Olympia mountain range across the sound, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.


After walking through the market, we looped around and walked back along the waterfront. We watched the ferries coming and going, gave the kids a ride on the carousel, and looked through some interesting shops, including the obligatory Ye Olde Curiosity Shop which has genuine shrunken heads and myriad other oddball things to look at.


Lastly, we went to Ivar's for some clam chowder. This is my all-time favorite chowder, and as I was browsing their website when planning our trip, I noticed that they have Happy Hour starting at 3:00pm every day. So we planned to make that our last stop of the day, and it worked out beautifully.


We got some yummy clam strips and chowder half off the regular price, and all of our drinks were free! The bonus was that we got to sit and relax while the kids watched out the windows completely engrossed in watching people feeding the seagulls outside. They were so entertained by this that hubby and I got a good long (fairly uninterrupted) chat in, which was wonderful!


After our early dinner we walked back to the train station just in time to board our train home. We spent the time playing 20 Questions, looking out the windows and chatting with another homeschool mom, so the time went fairly quickly. As we pulled back into Kelso/Longview Station, it was absolutely pouring rain which was a surprising end to a very long but very fun day out.

International Day

Our homeschool group meets once a month for some specific purpose. We've done Action Packs for Voice of the Martyrs, Presentation Days, Valentine's Day party, etc. This month is International Day where each family picks a country and does a presentation on it, complete with costume and food. This is the first year we've participated, and it has been so much fun!


We chose India so that we could learn more about the country where Ravi lives, Ryan's Compassion International child. For the last month we've tailored all of our school activities around India. We've read stories (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Little Babaji, etc.) set in India, we've done writing assignments on India, learned about famous missionaries to India (Amy Carmichael is my favorite!), made art projects about India, and we've talked about and prayed for the people of India. While our study has been very basic, I have learned a lot (hopefully the kids have too) and it has been great for the whole family.


Interesting snippet about India: Did you know that the apostle Thomas is said to have been the first person to bring the gospel to India? How sad that now it is only comprised of two percent Christians.


Ryan and Abigial both worked on flags, and maps, and colored a picture of the Taj Majal. Ryan wrote a page on India's demographics, and together we put together a tri-fold board for the presentation.


Abby loved looking through the India picture book we got from the library, and the pictures of the Taj Mahal were some of her favorites. They both did such a great job coloring the Taj Mahal picture, though they have completely different styles.

Abby's.


Ryan's.
I have been impressed with how much effort they have put into this report. In fact, as we were finishing up this week, I asked Ryan if he first wanted to finish an art project we had started or finish his India project, and to my surprise he actually wanted to work on the India project first!


We had to bring some food from our chosen country as well, and I decided to keep it simple and bring some Naan, an Indian flatbread. It is incredibly easy to make (just four ingredients!) and tastes pretty good too.



Kids always enjoy rolling out dough, and then watching it puff up in the oven was cool. We spread some butter on it, but it was good just plain too. It must have been a hit at the homeschool group too because we left there with our basket empty.



I made Abby a simple Indian sari for our costume, and she looked very pretty all dressed up. She had two small speaking parts, and she did very well. Mostly I was proud of how she stood so still during Ryan's speaking as she had a hard time with that during our practice.


When the coordinator asked if there was anyone who wanted to go first, both Ryan and Abby shot their hands up and volunteered. When I asked later why he wanted to go first, he said he wanted to get it over with because he was a little nervous. I was surprised to hear he was nervous because he did a fantastic job, only forgetting one small part that we had practiced!


Daddy worked from home today so he could come and see their presentation, and we were both very proud of them. They did even better than when we had practiced at home, and even though I am biased, I think it's fair to say they did one of the best reports of the day!