Bowling Tournament & Yard Work

My Bowling Champs!

Saturday morning we headed up to Clarksville for the TN USBC Youth Pepsi Tournament. The kids had to check in by 10:15am and would start bowling at 11:00am. We got there in time to see one of their friends as he finished up. He had bowled at 8:00am. Alex wasn't so happy when he realized that he and Morgan wouldn't be bowling on the same lanes....he was on lanes 1 & 2 and Morgan was down on lanes 15 & 16. After I spent some time reassuring him that I would be right there he calmed down and did okay. He met the 2 kids sitting at his table and they high-fived each other after they bowled. Corey and I switched off watching the kids so we could see both of them and they always had someone watching them. Both kids did very good and we are very proud of them.

Saturday night we had our own Twilight movie event. Morgan dressed up as Jane, the kids and I put on some vampire & werewolf temporary tattoos (vampire bites & werewolf scratches). Then we made popcorn and watched Twilight.

Sunday we went to Lowe's to buy a few things and do some research on a few other things we were thinking about. We are replacing our kitchen faucet with one that is taller and has a higher arch. Our current faucet makes it difficult to fill big soup (or beer making) pots and the dogs water bottle. We did research on some solutions for our fence (doggie escapes) and some deck furniture. We will be making a final decision within the next day or two. We attempted to do some family bowling but the bowling center was preparing for a huge league and had no lanes available..bummer. So after dinner we came home and had another movie night...this time watching Alex's new movie, Bolt. It is a cute movie.

Today the kids got some time to play on their laptops before starting school work. They like doing their math and grammar together upstairs. They each work on their own but in the same room. If they have questions they come down and talk to me. I'm good with it as long as they are understanding their work and doing it. :-) When they came downstairs we worked together on science. They enjoyed today's experiment...seeing that air has mass. Then we read a chapter in history and discussed it. We only have 2 more chapters and then we move on to the middle ages. Yea!! Late this afternoon we all worked out in the yard. We had some cleaning up to do from trees and branches down from winter storms. Then Alex and Corey mowed the back yard. I turned & aerated the compost pile. While Corey finished the back yard, the kids and I went out front and dug up 2 trees...1 dead and the other growing out from under it. Morgan also pulled some weeds.

Tomorrow my mom is coming over with Stoli, Remy, and Molly and we are going to take all 5 dogs (those 3 plus our 2) for a walk. Morgan has dance. Then we are having our neighbors over for dinner...mojo pork roast, black beans & rice, and corn pudding. Yumm!

I'll sign off with this picture that Alex took of our first spring flower, near our front door.

Learning on Location

Today the kids and I went over to my mom's house. We took our school stuff so we could do school stuff and visit. My brother had the day off so we got to visit with him too. He's been house & dog sitting for some friends so we haven't seen or talked to him in 10 days. Then mom and Michael got busy with some yard work so we headed home. :-)

Yesterday at bowling both kids had great games. They are really improving and I'm so proud of them. Alex's average is in the 60's and his 3 games were 79, 111, and 67. Morgan's average is about 110 and her 3 games were 129, 164, 156. Alex is up to an 8 lb. ball and we are ready to buy him his own. He picked one out the design he wants. This weekend the kids are participating in the Tennessee Pepsi Tournament in Clarksville, TN. They are looking forward to it.

This afternoon I made my first ever batch of homemade spaghetti sauce. I know, I can't believe I've never done this before. Sooo easy!! Why in the world do we even have canned or jarred sauce. Egads. We won't be doing that anymore. It was so yummy that Alex asked for seconds and Morgan, who has been complaining for a year that she no longer likes red sauce, declared it delicious and the best spaghetti sauce she's had. Yea me! :-)

Hamlet

Saturday night Corey and I took the kids to see a community theatre production of Hamlet. It was showing at our local arts guild . What a fabulous production! The director's rewrite was such that it portrayed the reality of a small community theatre trying to put on a production of Hamlet with no budget and very few men auditioning resulting in a cast made up mostly of women. The young lady playing Hamlet was amazing and as you watched & listened you completely forgot that it was a female playing the role and just saw & heard the character. Another aspect that we really liked about this particular interpretation was that it built in explanations about what was going on during various scenes...giving younger audience members and anyone that couldn't make heads or tails of the Shakespearean English the ability to follow along with the story.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and were very impressed by the local talent. Alex told the young lady portraying Hamlet that she did an excellent job and he liked it. She thanked him and told him he was very cute. LOL! :-)

The next production will be Annie and we are planning to go see that as well. We've been meaning to go see some shows but always get sidetracked & forget. I'm so glad that didn't happen this time because it was well worth it. A great exposure for the kids for another version of Hamlet. They saw the version put on by The Reduced Shakespeare Company (hilarious).

And speaking of Shakespeare...we must make some progress on King Lear this week. I feel a DVD viewing in the works for later today.

Springing forward to a gorgeous Monday

We survived our spring forward. I'm not sure any of us truly felt it although Corey might have due to not sleeping very well. Sunday afternoon we let the kids each have a friend over, 2 siblings, to play and sleep over. When the 4 kids get together it is like no kids are around. Seriously! The girls go play and the boys go play and they let you know when they are hungry. lol

Corey and I watched the Planet Earth series. Just amazing! If you haven't seen it yet you need to.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. After the 4 kids finished their school work and had lunch I took them up to the park. The kids had a great time and I was able to relax and read in the sun. :-) A nice time had by all. My friend met us at the park and picked up her kids from there.

It is nice having the daylight into the evening.

Thursday - Our day in pictures

As I was waking up this morning I heard Morgan & Alex discussing their breakfast. This is noteworthy because Morgan never eats first thing in the morning. She needs an hour or two to wake up completely before she wants breakfast. They were also getting along. Which has been happening more often but is still fairly new so gets me excited. :-) In the few minutes it took me to get up and out into the kitchen they had already decided what they were having and where they would be eating. Outside. Here is where I found them...

After we all had breakfast they went upstairs and did their math, grammar, and handwriting practice on their own. They tried to tell me that Morgan read the next chapter in history but when I asked what it was about they got quite a sheepish look on their faces. LOL! Nice try kiddos. So, we read the next chapter together and had some discussion. They both wanted to work on some HP projects. After a few on their own they both decided to work on a peace mobile.

Working on their peace mobiles.

Alex's peace mobile.

Morgan's peace mobile.

After lunch we went to the park. It was in the low 60's and just gorgeous. The kids had a great time and played well together. There we go with that getting along thing again. We had yummy taco salad for dinner and then Morgan was off to ballet, tap and jazz.

And to end this post tonight I just have to share a picture that Alex took of Trey.

Wednesday Bowl

On Wednesdays we have homeschool bowling league so it is even more important that we get our school work done early in the day. This way we have nothing hanging over our heads in the late afternoon/ early evening. This morning Morgan worked on a pre-quiz for registration into a local Mythology Bee. Alex and I worked on a lot of HP projects. He is doing good with them. One of them required a lot of multiplication, which he hasn't gotten to in his math program, and yet he knew how to do some of it...or figured out a work around (adding the numbers instead).

Bowling was good today. Both kids were bowling above their averages. Morgan's team is still in first place and she hopes it remains that way. Three more weeks in this session.

We didn't make anything blueberry'ish today and the homemade bread is almost all gone. On the plus side, Corey found out that his latest beer experiment *is* working even though he doesn't see bubbles in the bubble chamber (or whatever it is called). He was thrilled.

We are due for some gorgeous days coming up. I am hoping we get some good outside time.

Very Blueberry Muffins

Yesterday I wanted blueberry muffins and Morgan wanted to help make them. Well, she did 99% of the work so these are her blueberry muffins. I had never tried this recipe before but we love it. It was easy and we got to make it fun. In a book I read a while back someone was making blueberry muffins and they added blueberry pie filling to the batter so that the blueberry taste would be in every bite, not just when you bit into a blueberry. So we mashed some of the blueberries with a fork and added them to the batter. Look at the color of the batter!! It was this gorgeous shade between lavendar and a light plum. Yummy! We were all eating them the second they came out of the oven. We even managed to save a few and share with our next door neighbors. They've put up with us going on & on about all the blueberry pancakes & such that we've been eating so we thought we would let them in on some of the yumminess. :-)

Don't those muffins look delicious?? They were, trust me. I seem to be running a day behind on posting but that's okay. We don't always have exciting stuff to share. LOL! Today we got our school work done, did some HP projects and some reading and then headed to the library. Corey baked a loaf of bread for a friend that is a "breadaholic". When I took Morgan to hip hop class I saw our friend and gave her the bread. It was still warm from the oven and she was beyond thrilled. Corey had an emergency work issue so I made dinner and somehow we timed it just right and he was done as dinner was ready. It doesn't always work out like that. We still have snow but our temps are supposed to go up so what is left will disappear quickly. The dogs like to find the icy chunks in the strip of snow we have in the back by the fence.

March Snow!

Saturday we went over to Tullahoma to visit family. Corey's mom & stepdad had come to the end of their stay and we wanted one more visit. We all decided to have a cook out for one last hurrah while they were here and also celebrate one grandson's birthday. It takes us just over an hour to get to Tullahoma. We had a wonderful visit and my mom was able to join us. We were expecting some winter precipitation of some sort to head our way during the evening. It took longer to come than we thought, Corey kept checking, and we stayed a long time because we were having such a fun visit. The weather kept saying we would have about 1-2 inches south of Nashville and we always get less than what they say. (This is our story & we are sticking to it.) We left my brother-in-law's house at 10:30pm and headed home in a light rain. The kids crashed within a few minutes (thank the gods). By the time we got to the next city, about 15-20 minutes into our drive home we started encountering snow...huge, white flakes coming straight towards the windshield. Everyone slowed down (what few cars there were) and we continued on. Within another few minutes it got worse & worse. We had to slow down to 10-20mph because there were no lights (country roads), you couldn't see where the road ended & the grass/ravine/rocks started, you couldn't see where the center of the road was, and you could only see *right* in front of the vehicle because the way the snow was coming straight at us. Corey and my mom had to look out their side windows & keep me posted on how far from "the edge" they thought we were so we could try to stay on track. We are familiar with the route (day & night) but under these conditions it was a completely different ball game. We couldn't tell where we were, how much further we had to go,etc. Driving 10mph puts a while 'nother spin on "When will we be home?" LOL! Corey and mom were very encouraging and I was tense as could be. Nerve-wracking doesn't even begin to describe it. We saw several vehicles that had gone off the road (no injuries that we could tell...just slid) and police were out with flashing lights to help them & prevent others from running into them. We saw one car spin out in front of us...and I just hoped that they wouldn't go off the overpass or hit us (we were right near an overpass). Thankfully they were fine. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get home! This is how our yard looked when we got home. These pictures were taken at 2am on March 1st from our front porch.








The dogs loved romping in the snow and it was soo bright in the backyard with the light reflecting off all the snow. Later that day (Sunday) the kids left Corey and I sleeping and went out in the backyard with the dogs and played in the snow. If they hadn't let us sleep in I would have taken more pictures but after that drive home & not getting to bed until after 3am, I am more thankful that we got some good sleep and that the kids were still able to enjoy the snow.