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© Copyright 2009 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/
The other night my daughter came to me with her Awana book and said "It says in here that in the 60's the Astronauts read from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve from the Moon. Is that true or something Awana just made up?" I happened to be sitting at the computer so I played this for her...
http://www.archive.org/details/Genesis-ApolloEight-24Dec1968
Pretty cool!
I am assuming I don't remember this from the original airing since I was only 3 in 1968! But I do remember hearing it before. It is quite touching to listen to and somewhat sad to think about how much our world has changed in the last 40 years. I can't imagine something like this happening today and obviously neither could my daughter since she thought they had made it up for Awana.
I am praying for a revival for America! How awesome it would be to NOT be surprised to hear prayer in this country! How wonderful it would be for my children and grandchildren to live in an America that honored the one true God! Please join me in praying for our country.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
Psalms 33:12
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Our Five in a Row group studied Madeline this month. To go along with our study I decided to coordinate a field trip to our local kids science museum. They have an exhibit right now called, Grossology~the impolite science of the human body. I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a little boys dream come true and my girls loved it too.
Did you ever want to know the science behind a sneeze? Well, this exhibit not only explained the process but then the giant nose you stand inside of sneezes on you!!!
This lovely fellow explained all about allergies, sniffles, colds and anything else that can cause you to have a runny nose. Yes, his nose ran frequently! See what I mean about a little boys dream....
The kids spent lots of time at the life size operation game. Remember that game? What a concrete way to learn where all the body parts go. It didn't hurt their eye hand coordination either.
The girls could have stayed in the digestive system playground all day. Yes, they crawled through the whole digestive system. The joke of where they came out of the digestive tract was not lost on them either. Yucky!!
The skin climbing wall was loads of fun too. While they climbed along they were supposed to guess if they were climbing over a pimple or mole or hair follicle.
I did not take pictures of all the things to smell. Really gross things to smell. Aren't you glad this is not a scratch and sniff blog. LOL! Somehow I missed pictures of the statue that you crank up and make burp or the tooting machine. We will have to go back when it is less crowded. The exhibit just got to us and lots of the school groups were there. All in all it was a really cool and gross exhibit. Hey, IT"S GROSSOLOGY!
Blessings,
Dawn
As requested, here is the recipe for steak Skewers with Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce. It comes from the cookbook, Fix, Freeze, and Feast. This cookbook focuses on making multiple entrees for freezing. This recipe makes three entrees, four servings each.
1 tray (about 6 pounds) boneless top sirloin steaks
1/2c. olive oil
1/4c. red wine vinegar
1 1/2t. black pepper
Sauce
1 (4-5oz.) container crumbled blue cheese (approx. 3/4c.)
3c. heavy cream
3/4t. black pepper
You need:
6 one gallon freezer bags, label 3
3 one quart freezer bags
Have on hand for cooking:
8 (9inch) wooden or metal skewers
To prep:
-Rinse steaks and trim fat. Cut into 1 inch cubes. Divide beef evenly among the unlabeled 1 gallon freezer bags.
-Whisk together oil and vinegar in a small bowl. divide the marinade evenly over the beef. Into each bag, measure 1/2t. pepper. Seal bags.
-Divide the blue cheese among the three 1 quart freezer bags. Imto each bag of cheese, measure 1 cup heavy cream and 1/4t. pepper. Seal bags.
-Into each labeled 1 gallon bag, place one bag of beef and one bag of sauce.
-Seal and freeze.
To cook:
Prepare on an outdoor grill or indoors under a broiler.
-completely thaw one entree in freezer.
For outdoor:
Prepare a medium fire in grill. If using wooden skewers, soak them in water while meat is thawing. Thread steak pieces onto skewers. Grill, turn occasionally, about 10 minutes or until done to your liking. discard remaining marinade.
meanwhile, heat the blue cheese mixture in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Simmer gently, stirring frequently, until the cream reduces and thickens into a velvety sauce. Serve as a dipping sauce with the steak.
For indoor:
-Arrange skewers, prepared as above, on an ungreased broiler pan. Broil under high heat, 5 inches from heat source, turning frequently for about 10 minutes, or until done to your liking. Discard remaining marinade.
-Heat cheese as described above.
On the way home from Santa Cruz, I decided to surprise the boys with a trip to the Jelly Bell Factory Tour, in Fairfield.
Here, 'R' lets us know how he feels avout the cinnamon jelly belly that he is pointing to on the car...
This bear is made out of Jelly Bellys!
Waiting for the tour to begin...
This is a wall dedicated to Ronald Reagan...
The tour is about to begin. We were all give little paper hats to wear. No photos or videos are allowed in the actual factory, but there is a virtual tour you can look at that is better than any photo I could take:
Jelly Belly Factory Virtual Tour.
It all began with the simple thought, "why don't I take the boys to Santa Cruz for the day. We can dip or toes in the ocean, and maybe I can meet up with a friend I have not seen since high school."
The day started off just fine. Traffic was OK, and we were delighted to discover a totally unexpected view. Coming over a hill, heading into Benicia, through a light mist, we see a bunch of unique looking boats. 'A' was convinced they wre battleships, but I could not be certain. I promised him we'd look it up online when we got home. Well, he was right! These ships are a part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet. They are "mothballed" ships that can be activated if necessary. I could not get any pictures, so here is one I found:
It takes three hours to drive to Santa Cruz. About 20 minutes outside of Santa Cruz, I began to not feel all that great. When I pulled into Santa Cruz, I had full on flu symptoms. I was so sick! I knew I would be incpacitated for a while, so I checked us into a motel, the Bella Notte, and spent the next five hours wishing I were dead. The boys were a little bummed that they could not play on the beach, but they got to watch alot of TV and eat delivery pizza, so it wasn't all bad.
The next morning was overcast and cool, but I felt much better and wanted to explore with the boys a bit. My friend, Deana (lives in Santa Cruz), suggested a few places to check out. One was a surfer's museum. We found out that there was going to be a surfing competition close to the museum, so that was where we headed first.
The Surfer's Museum was closed on Wednesdays, but we took advantage of a photo op anyway...
While waiting, someone was blowing these giant bubbles. The kids enjoyed chasing them down. There was a slight breeze and the bubbles gave them a good run for their money...
Waiting for the competition to begin...
We soon learned that the competition had been moved to a different beach because there was not surf. It was too bad because there were all these vendors who had to break down their stands. People knew the name of the beach, but did not know where it was, so we went to plan 'B'.
Deana had suggested we check out Wilder Ranch State Park. Unfortunately, they were closed as well. We then went to Natural Bridges State Park. They have a grove of eucalyptus trees where monarch butterflies spend the winter. We walked the trail and saw the butterflies. Could not really get a good shot, the butterflies were too high, except for this one...
Heading home, I decided to surprise the kids with one more stop, the Jelly Belly Factory!
This week's Featured Blogger is Diamonds In The Rough!
"Mrs. Diamond" and I have been getting to know each other through our blogs. Her "Diamondettes" (I refuse to cal them lumps of coal), have been blog friends with my girls for awhile now. It's fun to meet families as a family on HSB!
Now there are TONS of blog posts I could link you to, but I had such a hard time deciding what to go with. I've opted to link to categories, that way you can see a bunch of posts at one time.
The first category up is Emily's 400 Questions, and Mrs. Diamond isn't kidding when she makes that claim! Some of the questions her daughter comes up with will surely make you chuckle and wonder where that question came from. Others are very thought provoking. All are fun to read! Now if Mrs. Diamond would put the answers she'd have her own Q & A Encyclopedia!
Ever wonder what it's like to live in the desert? Then the category Life in the Desert is what you want to click on! It's hot, it's cold, and it's always full of blessings--and lessons from the Lord.
With the holidays coming up you are more than likely looking for some new recipes. Try this little recipe "book" Recipes From My Kitchen. The recipe that is a family favorite for my family is the Dutch Baby. Yummo!
My all time favorite category though is Diamonds and Other Gems. Wow! There are some lessons to learn here! Like the worth of diamonds--and souls.
Please click on over and say hello to my friend, DiamondsInTheRough!
Tia Linchied
Senior Editor of HSB
My grandpa, my Papafather's dad, was a country vet. He had a little office off the side of the house where he did small animal surgery, and exams. He made house calls all around the country, some trips taking him an hour or more to reach the animal in need of help, be it cow, horse, sheep, or pig. Very often he would have one of his children in tow. He had 10 of them so there was no shortage of helpers. It all sounds very James Harriot like, and in a way it was. James Harriot's stories are popular with that side of the family and each story reminds them of one like it that grandpa experienced.
Grandpa's office was, as I said, just off the house. Just off the kitchen to be exact. My grandma had a dutch door put in so that she could just open up the top half to talk to him and yet keep the little ones inside. Think about that. A vet's office, just off the kitchen. Do you recall how a vet's office smells? That smell still lingers in that office to this day and it's been over 10 years since my grandpa died.
Aside from the smell, I never gave grandpa's office much thought. We would traipse our way through it on the way to play outside, to gather in the clothes from off the line, to pick grapes, collect eggs, or to find grandpa. The office doubled as grandma's laundry room so I suppose that's why it didn't seem like a room that needed much attention. I never spent any time in it other than to get from point A to point B. Which is strange now that I think about it, all those fascinating instruments, chemicals, medicines, and the like just within reach. I never touched them or was ever tempted to do so.
One temptation I did give in to was a special barrel out back that held two skunks. Grandpa would warn us to leave those skunks alone. My numerous cousins and I would stand around the barrel peering in, and those skunks would peer back. The lot of us cousins would look for only a moment and then run away as fast as we could before we got sprayed. I didn't find out until I was much older that those skunks couldn't spray because my grandpa had "deskunked" them. I don't know if my cousins were aware of this at the time or not, they ran just as fast as I did. Grandpa's warning hadn't been for us, he had been worried that we would torment the skunks.
Skunks actually make a great pet and are positively darling, if you can legally keep them. My uncle kept one for awhile. She was just like a cat, had a litter box and everything. Her name was Rosie, and then some, but I won't repeat that part.
We have a family story, told every couple of years or so I guess, about grandpa and one particular skunk he was de-scenting. While in the process of removing the gland that contains the hideous skunk musk, it was ruptured. It squirted all of its contents right in my grandpa's face. He came into the kitchen to clean up and the only thing he said was, "It's such a beautiful color." Apparently skunk spray is an amber color, and my God fearing grandpa could still recognize the beauty of God's handiwork even in a skunk's musk.
Funny, while my aunts and uncles roar with laughter about this story every time they tell it, I don't remember anyone talking about the smell lingering in the kitchen or what on earth my grandma said or did. I'll have to ask them about that.
After the laughter dies down, someone will always mention how my grandpa was such a quiet, gentle, and patient man. Oh he had his moments when a cow would stomp him, but how many men do you know who would take it from a skunk and only comment on it's beauty?
For this lesson, the boys were to watch a short video about something that was interesting to them. They needed to pay attention to what they see, then draw a picture based on memory. They decided they wanted to watch a video on dingoes. You can see what we watched. It's around 6 minutes: Dingoes
This the the drawing 'A' did. It is an overhead view of six dingoes eating. We learned that dingoes all form a circle, where their heads are all together eating. Then, they rotate clockwise (or counter clockwise) depending on what hemisphere they are on. It's really interesting. He also shaded the ground, and drew the fence.
This is 'R's. It is of three dingoes on a log.
One of the satellite Bayside churches hosted a Trunk or Treat. They had about 20 cars all decorated, inflatable games, hot dogs, and cotton candy. It was the perfect Autumn evening in NorCal.
About five cars were decorated, representing the decades 50's - 80's...
This was incredible. They tooks two storage trailers of a sort and placed them together, creating an "Enchanted Forest". The entry was all decorated in candy!
One of the cars had a Harvest theme and these cute props...
After a brief respite at home, we all went out to hit some homes. The neighborhood next to our apartments did an incredible job decorating their homes and yards. They really got into it!
