Language/Culture studies

Richelle wearing a Roman girl's tunic and belt.

We started a course of Latin language study back in September with other homeschooling families.  In name, Richelle was the student and I was there to audit the class.  In fact, we both learned Latin grammar, pronunciation, word derivatives, culture, and history.  Richelle didn't want to take the class at first but when I told her I wouldn't require English grammar if she studied Latin, she was all for it.  For those who may be wondering, we used Latina Christiana I.  

She had so much fun that she's quite ready for a second year.  This course is rather easy compared to a high school curriculum but by completing Latina Christiana II, she will have one credit of foreign language.  Not to mention a leg up in vocabulary and grammar.

Speaking of grammar, Latin is quite interesting.  Have you ever declined a noun?  Everyone knows how to conjugate a verb (I hope!) but English nouns only have two forms:  possessive and everything else; each either singular or plural.  Latin has five; subject, possessive, indirect object, direct object, and object of the preposition; each either singular or plural and each having their own ending although some endings are the same.  So wherever the noun occurres in the sentence, you know by the ending what it's function is.  For example, we could write "Billy put the dishes on the table." or "Billy put the table on the dishes." and by the noun ending (-a in this the object of the preposition case), there is no confusion.  Handy, isn't it?  

Also, just to make things more interesting, Latin has five declensions: feminine, masculine and neuter, and third, fourth, and fifth declensions (they don't seem to have a label other than that) each with their own endings.  We just touched the third declension the last few lessons this year.

The class had an end-of-year party last week.  They all dressed up in as close of dress as they had available, brought food that would have been eaten in Roman times, and watched a movie that had some Latin spoken in it.  A tunic is basically a pillowcase with holes for the head and arms and a belt around the waist.  Boys' were just below the knee and girls' were ankle length.  Men wore the togas we associate with Romans and women wore something very similar to an Indian sari.  Richelle decided she wasn't a woman yet and I made her a tunic from an old sheet.

The class was lots of fun and, although it required a weekly trip to town, it well worth the time, money and effort.  We're looking forward to next year's classes.

The Worst Mom

I am probably the absolute worst mom in the world.  


Richelle had a choir concert this afternoon after more than two months of practice and rehearsals.  This is the first performance in arts that she's done so you'd think I'd make sure things were special for her.  Especially since she's had a bad cold the past few days, looks a bit pale, and has a lingering cough.


Instead, I~

1. Managed to bring the camera with me from home (maybe not the absolute worst mom, then) but completely forgot I had it in the car until after the concert started and I noticed a much better mom in front of me recording on her video.
2. Neglected to make the suggestion that Richelle use a touch of make-up to give some color to her wan face.
3. Spaced out about giving her a couple of cough drops - or even a roll of Life-Savers for cryin' out loud! - in case she got a fit of coughing while singing. (She did, poor thing, but on the last half of the last song.  She lip-synced most of it and suddenly had a lot of color from stifling the coughs.)
4. Didn't remember to get her a bouquet of congratulatory flowers.

Here's where I'd insert the photo of a healthy-looking, smiling Richelle holding a bouquet of flowers.


****sigh****

Spring Break, continued

I had to have Richelle post the last entry and she took liberty with a post script.....

The girls got a little out of hand that first night so we stayed together as a troop the first day until lunch.  The girls groused a little but they had fun and we turned them loose at lunch time.  We took the precaution of making sure they understood the consequences of getting separated from their buddies and checked that each buddy pair had a cell phone.

I went on Splash Mountain and rode in the front.  It's always like a different ride when you sit in front.  This is a water ride and the two of us in front got thoroughly soaked from head to knee in my case and head to foot in hers.  We met up with some of our girls after the ride and they pointed and laughed.

I didn't get to go on Space Mountain the first time I went because they were re-doing it for the 50 year celebration.  I sure missed a great ride!

I suppose my favorite rides are Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Soaring Over California, and California Screamin' - the last two on the California Adventure side.  If I could only ride one, it'd have to be Screamin'.  I just love the first five seconds!

A few great memories:

The girls do something called a "force push" where they pretend to lick their hands (sometimes it's not pretend!) and then shove it in someone's face, causing the victim to flinch back.  The six girls I was with one afternoon were doing that to each other while we were waiting to meet up with a group going to the motel.  One girl did it to me only I purposely didn't flinch and her wet (!) hand made full contact on the side of my face.  I hollered her name and took off after her.  On about the third step, my brain clicked in and I realized she'd used water, not spit, on her hand.  She was pleased as Punch to have gotten me so good.

I didn't realize it but one of the girls was/is absolutely terrified of heights.  In spite of that, she went on most of the rides everyone else did at least once.  Sometimes her hat was pulled over her face and sometimes her eyes never opened the entire ride, sometimes there were tears of terror and always there was screaming but she was determined to do what rides she could.  She flatly refused to ride Maliboomer and I had to do some fast talking to convince her to go on Tower of Terror but California Screamin' became one of her favorite rides.

This was Richelle's favorite pastime - eating Mickey Mouse ice cream.  She must have consumed at least half a dozen in those three days.

The contrast in this picture:  Richelle in the front row with a big grin and arms straight up vs. the girl second row, second from right.  That's the one and only time she rode Tower of Terror.  What a trooper!

The fireworks show was spectacular.  We weren't in a good spot for photos but I did my best.

It took two hours longer to get home than it took to get there.  The girls weren't pushing to get home like they were to get there and they had a little spending money left that had to be spent before they got home.  Plus, they had to figure sales tax before they could decide if they had enough to make the purchase.  We also stopped for lunch and supper going home but the girls had brought a sack breakfast and lunch for the trip down.  Seventeen hours after we left the motel, we pulled into the same library parking lot and ended our adventure....at 2:30 am.

I still had two girls to connect with a parent in a nearby town on my way home so I didn't walk into the door of my house until 3:30 am.  It's taken me until today to feel completely recovered.  Whew!

What I Did For Spring Break

I used to hate when my teacher gave us that writing assignment.  My mind would go blank and I wouldn't know where to start.  Besides, I never did anything exciting over Spring Break or Summer Vacation.  I ended up making a sort of list:  I climbed trees, did chores, pulled weeds, helped with the canning and freezing of produce, read books (I could actually put that in several times since that was the activity of choice from about second grade on) and played games with one or another or multiples of my siblings.

My objection to the writing assignment wasn't because I had nothing to write about but because it sounded boring next to my classmates going to Lake Tahoe or Disneyland or Hawaii or Mexico.  I also had no idea where to start or what to include.  It helped a little when the teacher told us to write about our most exciting adventure.

My most exciting adventure for Spring Break 2010 took up nearly the entire week.  Four adults and I took 14 Girl Scouts aged 11 - 14 to Disneyland for three days.   There were two younger sibling tag-alongs but they stayed glued to their parent's side and I wasn't responsible for them in any way.

The story opens at 3 am Monday morning in the local library parking lot where we met for the drive down.  Most of the girls had stayed up all night with the encouragement of their parents in the hopes that they'd spend a good deal of the drive sleeping.  Richelle had never had me order her to stay up so that was quite a novel experience for her.  One of the girls spent the night with us so they could help each other stay awake.  They managed it but when I got up at 1:50am, Richelle greeted me with, "I'm tired and want to go to sleep!"

I had three girls with me in our truck and do you think they dropped off to sleep in an hour or so?  Hollow laugh.  Those gluttons stayed awake until just south of Redding - about five hours down the road.  Absolute excitement kept them awake and silly.

Sixteen hours after leaving the parking lot, we arrived at the motel.  We can probably skip the part where we had to get off the freeway for a pit stop just as we came into Los Angeles...and promptly got separated from our lead car.  Nothing deliberate, just traffic.  We can also gloss over my merge into a city street while trying to get back on the freeway.  And the sheer terror of finally merging onto the freeway and having a two-trailered belly-dump semi six inches from my mirror.  He had his lane and I had mine but I thought mine was going to end and I didn't see anything but semi to my left.  I'd swear they make the lanes on the freeways down there the width of a semi plus six inches.  It was enough to make a person's hair stand on end and get an otherwise dedicated atheist to fervently pray.  I had one of our SUVs seemingly attached to my bumper with an invisible bungee cord and played tag with the other for about ten miles before we got re-connected.  I love cell phones and people on the same provider as I am.  We met up with the lead car....at the motel.  They had the group checked in so all we had to do was unload and park.

We had ordered "Class B" shirts (informal uniforms) in time for this trip.  At one of the pre-event meetings, we asked the girls what rules they'd like to set down.  The first suggestion was "no drama" and was quickly seconded so we had "No Drama" printed on the left sleeve of the Class B.  Any time any of the girls started getting dramatic, someone would point to the sleeve or say, "No drama!"  It usually worked.

more later.....(the Lovely Daughter is doing this for the Dearest Mother. hee hee. and i will add that the girl that thought of the "no drama" was the most dramatic girl.)

Family Additions

Both of our sons are engaged to be married.  Cameron and Serena announced their engagement last summer; Nick and Jenn shared their news at Christmastime.

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Cameron and Serena are planning a wedding for June 26th. Not the best picture in the world but what I have on hand.

Nick and Jenn plan to be married early summer 2011.

They are both wonderful young ladies, very good for the boys, and we enjoy them very much.  They take the teasing that Mike is so well-known for dishing out and even toss it back now and then.  

It's lovely to see two young couples so happy with each other and Richelle is thrilled to have two new sisters.

A House Full

Cameron and Serena were here one afternoon last week when Nick and Jenn unexpectedly showed up to return some stuff they'd borrowed.  Afternoon turned into evening as we whiled away the hours as families do.

It warmed my heart to have the house full again, bumping into people, extra chairs at the table, doors and windows open because of the extra heat from additional bodies, listening to the five kids forging ties to make a new, larger, family......

End Of The Year Fun

Mike wanted to take the whole family went up into the mountains to play in the snow this winter. It's been seven or eight years since we've done that. He had the last two weeks of the year off so the boys put their heads and work schedules together and we went up on 30 December. There had been a good snowfall the evening and night before so the snow was fresh, dry, untraveled, and about eighteen inches deep. We stopped at about 3400ft elevation at, literally, a wide spot in the road where it forked. We had come to a stop trying to read the snow-dusted sign and couldn't get going again without putting the chains on.

Well, we did go, just not the direction we wanted. Every time Mike gave it a little gas, we slid sideways a little closer to the edge of the road. Cameron was on that side of the pickup and kept saying, "Dad, should we put the chains on?" with a little more agitation each time as he saw the edge coming closer and closer. Mike is very competent driving in the snow and knew exactly what he was doing but I think he was trying to get a bit of a rise out of us, too.

He put the chains on, got himself out of the hole and decided this was as good a place as any to stop. Out came the snowshoes, skis, sleds, snowboard, table, chairs, pop-up shade, propane stove, lunch, and drinks. Mike drove up and down a good stretch of road to make a decent ski/sled run.

Richelle crouched behind Nick's truck, putting on the snowshoes the boys made when they were in Boy Scouts.

Modeling the snowshoes. I didn't get a picture of her hurrying to catch up with Nick and doing a face-plant.

Serena, Cameron, Jenn, and Richelle molding the first two layers of the snow-....um....something.

Mike getting involved in shaping the head. Nick is on the right.

The final product. I think they decided it was a dinosaur of some sort. Later, they added sticks for arms and short pieces of cedar branches for antlers. The decorations are broccoli and carrots from lunch.

Mike took a few turns on the sled and even went one more time so I could get a picture of him. Here, he's waiting for Richelle and Cameron to finish their run.

The "wide spot" in the road. The main road comes up from the left, I'm standing on the road to Hemlock Lake, and the road over the ridge to Highway 138 is to the right.

Cameron and Serena. For some unknown reason, I didn't get one of Nick and Jenn.

Short, steep, and oh! so scary. Richelle screamed every time she slid down. As everyone knows, the more you slide on a spot the faster it gets. By the time we left, Richelle was flying down the cut bank and the dip from the snow-filled ditch launched her into the middle of the road.

This is what a Pacific Northwest logging road looks like in winter at 4,000 ft elevation. This really is a road! The snow was about two and a half feet deep with spots where it was maybe three feet deep. (I just asked Mike and that's what he told me.) Deep enough that we were plowing it with our bumper and grill and throwing snow up over the hood, windshield, and pick-up. Jenn said they watched it blow over the entire truck.