Smart Politics?

John McCain (or the people around him) must be one of the most clever persons around. Following up on the heels of the Democratic National Convention, he announces his Vice-Presidential running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin - a woman!!!

No matter how this election turns out, it will be historic. We will either have our first woman VP or our first African-American president. How cool is that? As long as the candidates are ready and capable of leading and have the right stuff to do so, it is cool.

But I say John McCain is very clever because, well think about it....the Dems can't say she is too young because Obama is only three years older, if they say she doesn't have enough experience, well, Pot, meet Kettle. And the kicker for me was if anyone dare says she can't lead, or she's not ready because she has young children, especially a baby with Down's Syndrome, oh my, can you imagine the backlash from mothers all over the country?? Ouch.

Oh, it is politics and there will be more negatives pouring out of both camps than positives, and everyone's dirty laundry will be aired, but for this brief moment...the smartest move seems to be on the side of GOP.

Election year. Don't you just love it.

School Daze

Home schooling is going pretty well for us so far. Hunter has told me on more than one occasion how much he is liking home school. He should. So far, we've gotten done with school work by 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning with an 8am starting time. Next week we'll add in a few more subjects, so it should take us until Noon to complete the work. Of course, that's not counting any outings we make.

On Monday we had a "Not Back to School" party with one of the home school groups and Hunter met another boy named Hunter, who is also 7 years old, and is also in 2nd grade. Both boys thought that was the coolest thing ever! Then yesterday we met up at our neighborhood park with another group and Hunter got to meet even more boys to play with.

I heard a moms yesterday talking about the "socialization" issue many have with home schoolers. The point was made that at "school" you meet and play with kids from your same age group and for the most part, the same socio-economic status (with district boundaries and all). In home school groups, you meet and play with kids of different ages and different socio-economic backgrounds. More likely what you'll meet and work with in the real world. I had not thought about it that way, but yeah, Hunter likes to play with older and younger kids as well as kids his age (and with the same name!).

Hadyn is just blending in with all of this so well. I realized today that she is actually going to be picking up on so much more than I would have been doing with her if Hunter were away at school all day. This morning I gave her a coloring book and her crayons at the table while we were doing school work. I had her repeat the color names back to me and then we would say them in Spanish. It was then I realized, I wouldn't be this detailed with her right now otherwise. And she seems to like having bubby around all the time, too.

Well, I'm being told it's lunchtime. And Backyardigans is almost over.

Back to School - Sort of

Today is the first day of school for many North Texas kiddos. Mine, too, however we are homeschooling, so it's back to school work, not necessarily back to school. Hunter was so excited this morning to start. We got up early and got ready as if we were leaving to make it to class by 8am, and at 8 o'clock, we started. He did a journal page - and wrote about how excited he is - then we started with our first day of work.

I'm using the My Father's World curriculum for 2nd grade, so everything is pretty much laid out for me. I've got a board on the wall showing what all we have scheduled for the day and will check off as we finish. Today we learned what the Pledge of Allegiance means:

I pledge (promise) allegiance (loyalty - to do good and not to harm) to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic (a government by the people, not a king) for which it stands, one nation (country) under God, indivisible (cannot be divided), with liberty (freedom) and justice (fair and right) for all.

We also did our Bible study lesson, part A of lesson 1 of the Spelling book, a history timeline, art, reading, and his music lesson (drums) before going to a "Not Back to School" party at

Boomerang's

with one of our home school groups. He had a blast and so did little sister.

Tomorrow we'll add science, then next week comes the math and Spanish, then we'll add the English work in. And of course, we'll go to classes and play times with the home school groups.

Lot of fun to be had!!

Olympic Track Soapbox

Okay, I'm dragging out my soapbox again, but this time regarding track athletes in the Olympics. PEOPLE, YOU ARE OLYMPIC ATHLETES - KEEP RUNNING UNTIL YOU CROSS THE FINISH LINE!!

I am so frustrated with watching these athletes in qualifying and finals slowing up before they cross the finish line. I still remember well over 20 years after the fact that you don't ever do that. I would have gotten my tuckus chewed off for doing that and here I'm watching world class athletes doing it. Am I the only one that had a coach to ride my butt like that? I just watched one guy just nearly lose out on all medals because of it, but no one points that out.

Whatever. Yeah, I'm not an Olympic athlete so what do I know?

Oh yeah, I also know that you should have the baton firmly in your closed hand before you pull your hand away from it. Bummer.

Vacation Part 3

August 15th
At Hunter's request, today we went white water rafting in Taos, NM, on the Rio Grande. It was awesome. The water level wasn't too bad and we got some Class 3 rapids. Hunter wants to go back in May or June (however, I think the water level will be too much for him to be able to go on then). Yeah, he's hooked. And he did great. Our river guide, Jake at Far Flung Adventures, was so excellent and worked with Hunter so well.

Yeah, Scott and I will want to go back and try some more adventurous rapids for more adrenaline rush!

22 Months

My baby girl is 22 months old today. We are only two months away from her being a whole 2 years old. Man, time flies and crawls at the same time.

It seems it was just a few months ago that I was miserably pregnant with her, but on the other hand we look at each other questionably and wonder how 22 months can seem like 10 years! HA!

I just have to look at this cutie pie smile and laugh. This is why God made her so cute - to make up for the fiesty, stubborn, onery little girl that she is.

Precious!

Vacation Part 2

August 14

I forgot to put a pic of the bat on the other post. I'll put him/her on this one.

Today we drove over the pass to Taos. We had a Taos Dining catalog so we perused through it to find a good place to eat lunch. We were surprised to find so many organic and natural food restaurant options. We chose 5 Star Hamburgers to eat. Wow! It was really good! The kids enjoyed and Scott and I were really getting into it.

Then we headed north of Taos to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. It’s a pretty cool sight to see. As you are driving across the flat plain area between mountain ranges, BOOM! There it is! All of a sudden in the middle of seemingly nowhere is a canyon second to the Grand Canyon. Hunter is such a worry-wart usually, but today, the kid was walking to the edge of some very unstable looking rocks, much to his mother’s chagrin. Then as we were walking across the bridge, the wind picked up over the canyon and I just had a horror film vision of the wind picking up my skinny little boy and carrying him over the side (Scott had a good hold on Hadyn). But this did not deter Hunter, who would squat down, knees through the rails on the bridge peering over – and he HAD to get us in the middle of the bridge so he could be right over the river. The kid who is afraid of everything wasn’t afraid of what he might should’ve had a healthy amount of fear. Go figure.

Anyway, tomorrow, at Hunter’s request, we are going white water rafting. Whee!!! This will be added to our list of completed things like bungee jumping, snow skiing, scuba diving, and sky diving.

More tomorrow!