My children are entranced with Pirates. Black Pearl, Barbosa, Sparrow, Davy Jones and Bootstrap Bill are all names that I hear floating about my house regularly these days. We loved the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was funny, it was scary, the story was good, the action was good. 

Then a couple of weeks ago, Game Master purchased Life: POTC and we had a blast playing it. We had been wanting to go see POTC 2, but time hadn't allowed. So on my birthday last Monday we went. And DH and I were disappointed. The fun was almost non-existent, the story was weak, the action was too much and the movie was too long. The best part was who showed up at the end of the 2nd movie!  And we aren't thrilled that we have to wait until next May to find out how all of this is going to work out! In fact, Jungle Princess was very unhappy about the whole 'to be continued' thing. She insisted we go see the next part that day. When I told her we couldn't, she then said that that was fine, we would go the next day. May is a long way away and she is not pleased.

However, their imaginations are running rampant. They have purchased some of the POTC figures and they are using Lego and Playmobil figures for the ones they don't have. Noah's ark has become the Black Pearl and they are creating their own third and fourth stories right here in our bath tub. Jungle Princess came out the other day with black boots, a black hat, black pants and a black shirt and announced that she was Captain Barbosa. They were playing Lego Racers and she was Barbosa and Game Master was Jack Sparrow. 

Pirates are everywhere and I love seeing them stretch their imaginations to pick up where Hollywood left off.  But just so they know being a pirate isn't all fun and games, we picked up some books today at the library about real pirates...we'll see what they think of those stories.

Argghhhh!!!! (On a personal note, if all pirates were like Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, I would probably like playing pirates too).

A friend of mine from my local homeschool group has a blog here at HSB. Mimi has recently published her first book of inspirational poetry called Face to Face. These poems will touch your soul! Check it out!

Here is a poem from Mimi's book, Face to Face.

There is a new book: The End of Barbary Terror by Frederick C. Leiner. This book talks about the first time America led the way to overcome terrorists while others were unable or unwilling to act. It looks like fascinating reading!

Yesterday was errand/go to townn day. We went by the dumpster, the bank, the post office, and the library. Then we had lunch and playtime at Burger King, though I note the kids are getting a bit older than the other kids playing in the play place...at least in the middle of the day!

Then it was off to Walmart to buy odds and ends including tomato plants, pepper plants and morning glory seeds for Jungle Princess' museum.  And some miscellaneous flowers. We will be planting them today. Then piano practice for Game Master while JP and I visited the pet store and Dick's sporting goods store. I invested in bottles with insulated 'bags' for when we are out. We drink a lot of water here, but we all like it cold, this way our water will stay cold longer. Then we went to see Eight Below at the dollar movies.

It was really good. I am not going to spoil it for you, but I was a little concerned about JP's sensitive nature towards animals. Fortunately, she focused on the postive aspects of the movie and we all enjoyed it tremendously. The photography was terrific too! I highly recommend it! Now, must get off the computer and get to work in the yard!

If you have ocean lovers in your home, I highly recommend watching this BBC series. We have borrowed it from Netflix. We have only watched the first disk, but it is very interesting!  Today we watched about creatures that live in the deeeeepppp ocean and it is amazing!  The colors...the shapes...And it turns out that the inspiration for the Alien in the movie Alien came from one of these deep sea creatures. God is amazing in the variety he has placed around us.

Right now DS, Game Master, has a love of all things old. Ancient civilizations and extinct animals are top of his learning list. We found a series of books at the library caled The Extinct Species Collection. I highly recommend it if anyone in your family is interested. The books are 24 pages, nicely illustrated, easy to read and interesting.

Then we found a collection of videos called Ancient Civilizations for Chilren. There are 9 volumes and each one lasts about 23 minutes. They are excellent and interesting and there are biblical references intertwined.  So if your family has an interest in this period of time. I would suggest you check it out at your local library! 

We have been watching a wide variety of movies about animals due to that being an overhwelming interest in our household. This morning we watched Reader's Diges Presents Growing Up Wild: Fuzzy Wuzzy Bears...picked it up from the library. It is 30 minutes long and I love the way it is set up. It shows babies from across species, then it shows desn across species, then it shows learning across species. A neat format and very interesting and informative!

Last week our our library visit, I picked up an "Undone Fairy Tale" by Ian Lendler, to read to Jungle Princess. It was on display on top of the children's shelves and the cover art attracted my attention as well as the title.

What a great book! We were all giggling and Katrina was counting seconds off before we turned the pages. We highly recommend it!

We are very lucky to have a dollar theater in our town. Evenings and weekends the shows go up to  $1.50. Tuesdays the rate is .75 for everyone, all day long. Monday is our favorite day. If there are three or more of you, it is .50 for each person! 

So Monday afternoon is movie afternoon. Today we got to see Nanny McPhee. I just want to go on the record as saying we LOVED it! We took some friends, and one girl was disappointed that Narnia hadn't made it to the dollar movies yet. But when we came out she said Nanny McPhee was a close second to Narnia for being a good movie! 

It was funny, cute, had a good message and easy to relate to. A nice spin on the Mary Poppins tale too! So if you haven't seen it and get the chance to, we highly recommend it! We give it 6 thumbs up!!!!!!

I like to learn and with Muslims and Islam so much in the news in recent years, I want to know more about this religion. When I was at the library last week I saw a PBS DVD called Islam: Empire of Faith that I could borrow.

I watched it this morning and I highly recommend it to anyone who knows little to nothing about Islam or to anyone who thinks they know Islam but haven't really researched it, and are just going by what they hear in the news or from other people.

A description: Between the fall of Rome and the European voyages of discovery, few events were more significant than the rise of Islam. Within a few centuries, the Islamic empires blossomed, projecting their power from Africa to the East Indies, and from Spain to India. Inspired by the words of the Prophet Muhammed, and led by caliphs and sultans, this political and religious expansion remains unequaled in speed, geographic speed and endurance.  Increasingly, scholars and historians are recognizing the profound impact that Islamic civilization has had on Western culture and the course of world history.